I feel lost. help me. thanks in advance.

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Ok I don't know where to start...
I am a promoter. I have to pick bands and djs to play at my school. I am experiencing "booker block" I guess. I don't know who to book. But let me elaborate.

First of all, there are constraints. We can't spend that much money on any one show. Our budget, without being too specific, is roughly equivalent to buying a nice car. That is what we have for the year, and we try to do about 10-15 shows per semester. We don't charge our students, so we don't make that much money back. We also have to pay for our equiptment, and the cops for security. Hopefully, you all are getting a sense of how much we spend a show without me coming right out and saying it. We also try to cover all genres. My school has 2500 students. Our venue capcity is around 200. Most of our shows get 100 people, with a few towards 150-200.

There are a million reasons why I am frustrated. First of all, it is a frustrating experience. For example, I wanted to put a show together with Cannibal Ox and the Anti-Pop Consortium. I was obviously trying to push what I thought were the more compelling groups operating in the hiphop underground. APC broke up, and Cannibal Ox is all but impossible to book. They seem to hate touring, so they asked for a lot of money. Ultimately, I ended up booking J-Live, Rob Swift, and El the Sensei, which will be a good show, but very different from what I was aiming at.

My other frustration is the crowd. I can't book house or techno djs because nobody will show up. Unless I get someone very famous. But famous is not something I can afford. Since house and techno are my favorites, I can't use most of my knowledge.

Regarding jazz, most of my favorites are dead. I am saving many of the people that are alive for a jazz festival in the spring, so I have to wait for that.

Pop and mainstream rap are obviously too expensive, and I don't want to book too much undie hiphop, at least not without doing something interesting (see above).

As for indie, I don't care for emo or indie rock ala Pavement. That generally leaves either post-rock, which I will look into, or the retro stuff, which I am on the fence about. I would rather book Gary Numan than the Faint, but I think the latter are getting too expensive as well. Same for the garage rock revival stuff.

I don't know shit about world music. As for funk, soul, blues, et al., i don;t know the names of all the classic artists that are still unfamous enough to book. I just want Kool and the Gang ;-).

What am I missing?

Can you help me? I am looking for more than "book x!". Maybe I need a way to stay in touch musically. Most of the CDs I buy are by artists that I can't book. I also can never seem to find out who to contact regarding booking, as so many emails to record companies are unreturned! When I do have an idea, the artist is not on tour. So either I pay way too much for a one-off, or wait...

Thanks again for any help!

― Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), Thursday, 12 September 2002 00:22 (twenty-three years ago)

oh my goodness I didn't realize how long this would be!!!

― Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), Thursday, 12 September 2002 00:46 (twenty-three years ago)

lighten up a bit, that show you mentioned above sounds really good. you may need to either change what you like, or let go of the feeling that your likes and your job as promoter need to coincide.

― ron (ron), Thursday, 12 September 2002 00:50 (twenty-three years ago)

in other words/ on a related note, i think you should focus on bringing acts that the student body would like to see, rather than acts that YOU would like to see.

― ron (ron), Thursday, 12 September 2002 00:54 (twenty-three years ago)

Good points. I think ILM is crushing my brain! Seriously, though, the first option is difficult because I have a finite amount of money, and too much information available, and my taste is evolving, and probably too broad. As for the second option, that is good advice, but hard for me to accept. I guess I take the job too personally. I am a DJ, you see, and I relate my choices too much with self-expression. I do work hard for other people's shows, though!
I am feeling all this pressure because I am the most senior member, and everybody is looking to me.

As for the second post, I am still trying to find my way through that maze. As stated above, our shows are pretty small-scale. Also, we are not a college in the usual sense of having a big radio station and a student body that reads CMJ. Most kide here like mainstream music, and I can't cater to them. So there is no big constituency to book to.

― Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), Thursday, 12 September 2002 01:04 (twenty-three years ago)

Take a peek in your local alt-weekly (or the one of the nearest metro area if you don't have one), and look at who is coming in the next month or two. Often these groups will stay an extra night to play at a college...the further ahead of time you can take care of things the better; although, we got Stereolab and Mouse on Mars to play on short notice with limited funds. If turnout is low, you need to be spending more time on PROMOTING the group you have booked. Don't assume that just because they are a 'big name' act that they will have much draw on their own; and realize that peaking everyone's curiosity about a group will at least get your student body in the door even if they walk out after five minutes. I hated this part of putting shows together, but you have to market the hell out of whoever you invest in. Also, even though most of your audience is into mainstream stuff, that doesn't mean that someone unusual (e.g. Bob Log III, Pleasesaur...even Gwar) wouldn't attract a lot of attention (especially if their performance is involving and fun); don't be afraid to take some risks.

― Ryan McKay, Thursday, 12 September 2002 10:23 (twenty-three years ago)

Develop a relationship with the booking agencies. If you’ve worked with them in the past, will work with them in the future they will be more likely to assist you, bring prices down etc. That said, smaller agencies are the ones that will do this, huge agencies won’t really care either way if you book one of their artists.

In terms of lack of knowledge regarding genres, ask for CDs, press kits, get on the list for shows so you can judge how they are live.

Book as far in advance as possible, if you can guarantee a date the agent can build other dates around you.

Use the fact that you are a college and don’t charge students. This can get you an artist at less than their usual rate. Also, if you keep shows closed to campus audiences, artists can play neighbouring town without losing any of the audience.

I just checked the Google directory and found tons of listing for booking agencies, you can check the rosters for a lot of agencies through this method. Check the CD booklet of an artist you would consider booking and 98 percent of the time it will tell you what agency they use.

― H, Thursday, 12 September 2002 13:16 (twenty-three years ago)

Maybe you should stand down if you can't reist turning this into a personal statement? You don't really seem to be the right person for the job.

― Graham (graham), Thursday, 12 September 2002 13:20 (twenty-three years ago)

Maybe you should stand down if you can't reist turning this into a personal statement? You don't really seem to be the right person for the job.

Yikes. I don't think that's true at all. In fact, I think, fuck the student body. Who cares about what they like? Give them something good, instead.

― OCP (OCP), Thursday, 12 September 2002 13:26 (twenty-three years ago)

I know you said not to do this, but check these guys out: http://www.poemcees.com.

Not only is their live show off the hook, but they can put you in contact with a good chunk of DC's thriving and largely-unknown underground hip-hop scene.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 12 September 2002 14:30 (twenty-three years ago)

Ryan's right - booking is one part of promoting. you could also walk into the campus newspaper and tell them about the show. and then call them about it like 10 times. getting people you know to put up wheatpaste flyers for free. call the radio station and tell them about it. and call them back about it like 10 times. and other things i have no clue about.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 12 September 2002 14:56 (twenty-three years ago)

thanks all this is helpful. I will try to respond to everyone's posts as succintly as possible!

Ryan... I hate promoting, but I do a lot of it. We put up hundreds of flyers, we inform our campus newspaper as well as the local ones, and sometimes the ones in Boston when the show is big enough. At this school, though, there is little relationship between amount of work and reward. I am not denying partial responsibility for our turnouts, but this is a school that couldn't even keep a coffee shop in business!

H... We do have a relationship with a few agencies, but since we have had these relationships for a long time, we have booked most of their acts. I need to work harder at this, and I am in the process of doing it. As for closing our shows, I would prefer not to. When our shows were closed, students would complain that they didn't like the atmosphere of seeing the same people there all the time. It seems that if there is big off-campus buzz for a show, more students will show up, instead of vice-versa.

Graham... I go to a very small school, with a disengaged student body. No student group would survive if nobody took it personally! I work hard on every show, even if I hate the band and the band was picked by somebody else! I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed lately, but I am quite competent, I assure you!

OCP... This is our attitude some of the time, especialy after spending an eight hour day of running the show (usually 5pm to 1am) after going to classes. If we are perceived as elitists, however, we are at risk of losing our funding. We really try as hard as we can to strike a balance, as many of us on the group have traditionally been more knowledgeable. We come from a long history of WIRE subscribers ;-).

Dan I will take a look.

Tracer see above....

Anyways, I do really appreciate these comments. They are helping a lot! I am not as screwed as it may seem in my original post. I have just been losing focus.

― Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), Thursday, 12 September 2002 15:18 (twenty-three years ago)

eighteen years pass...

did we ever get this sorted?

― That's not really my scene (I'm 41) (forksclovetofu), Monday, 8 February 2021 04:56 (five years ago)

Not charging admission? Is that a thing?

― Mark G, Monday, 8 February 2021 08:38 (five years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.