im thinking about doing booking professionally?

i've been booking tours for my bands and handling booking for different venues for many years. i have contacts all over earth. i'd like to do affordable booking for bands and i feel like/think i'd be good at it. give me advice/urge me not to attempt it/urge me to do it? have any of you done this on a pro level?

do it and get big and don't 4get abt me

user puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy)

u got it pal

don't know anything about it but i'm sure you'd be awesome at it.

follow yr dreamz 4 real

can you book me a tour? I don't have an act yet, but I'll come up with something.

probably. i've done booking for some v weird things tbh

not that you are a weird thing

you should def do it. do you think you could support yourself through this, though? i have two friends who do this but i know for at least one of them it's not the main source of income.

i don't know, my life is very cheap, so...maybe? but i'd like to at least start out doing it as a source of supplemental income. most of my friends "in the industry" either do PR or are writers. i don't personally know anyone who books bands for a living (except for a couple of douches in town who do a really bad job and bands hate them - do not want their input tbh).

of the people I know who make a living as booking agents, most are in the "performing arts" realm - like high-priced university and performing arts center gigs. Booking agents, ime, make the majority of their money on commissions, so it requires artists on the roster that command large fees. Some booking agents I know also do marketing/promo and grantwriting for their clients.

Ime, the first step is booking a tour for a band that you're not in, to see whether it's something you like to do. It's different when it's a band you're in.

sarahel otm as far as i can tell. i am now booking a tour for a friend-band, wish me luck!

where are they touring?

the eastern seaboard

Cool! So you don't have to deal with the Idaho /Montana/Colorado or Nevada/Arizona/New Mexico challenge

otm. tbh i have colorado and new mexico on lock tho!

bodes well for your future!

<3

Booking is kind of voodoo at least trying to find decent places to play. My band has had some luck in Indianapolis and have played a few different places in Louisville, but getting out into other towns is totally hit and miss. What is different now than when I played in a band years back is it seems that quite a few clubs don't really book the club, it seems to be more back on the bands of that area to setup the show (kinda found this to be the case in Cincinnatti & Colombus). Which is cool if you got a good hometown place you gig and can trade shows, but we have more luck getting shows out of town than around here.

I know for me, it feels kind of weird to try and email some band and say "hey give me gigs", especially when you don't have shite to trade anyway.

Any one got any suggestions on the cool punk/indie/metal dive bars that could be fun to play in these towns? I know some of the bigger clubs and sometimes you can kind of suss this stuff out through that Indie On the Move site, but I figure it would be better to know from someone there.

Detroit (& maybe Ann Arbor)
Cleveland
Chicago
Atlanta (& maybe Athens)
Memphis
Nashville- I've emailed THE END and a couple of other places town there, but no response.

I'd say for logistics, I'd almost say being a band based in like Maryland or Philly would almost be as good a setup as you could get. You got a ton of towns within like 4-5 hours and places to play.

ILXor Maria Tesla Pizzeria used to do booking in Philly, iirc.

Cool! So you don't have to deal with the Idaho /Montana/Colorado or Nevada/Arizona/New Mexico challenge

― You must be very cold in the sack. (sarahell), Thursday, April 11, 2013 9:50 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

utah ffs. utah. ;_;

metal is just a different world, imo. it's really easy to network and find good places to play p much everywhere. there are some wastelands in the west, but always the odd good place in between to fill in the blanks a little.

maybe not "really easy," but if you've been in the game booking tours and local shows for touring bands for a while, then you'll have it on lock

it was v different and much harder when i was in a more generic rock band with no automatic "scene" attached

haw, so i looked up this old, terrible local booking agent i used to have just to see if she was still in the game. she is, and her page says her company is a "boutique booking agency". considering calling myself an artisanal booking agency

rustic booking

lovingly hand-booked shows

craft tour dates

mustaches and suspenders provided, byo banjo

you can team up with a certain family member and have a booking agency/bakery!

a bookery!

rustic booking is genius

hahaha. i mean who says "boutique booking agency." and whatever that means i am p sure it does not apply to her.

there are a lot of "boutique booking agencies" ime

that call themselves that?

yes!

this girl belongs on the west coast

lol

best "boutique booking agency" was actually a category in the Pollstar awards for about a decade, though they renamed the category to "independent booking agency" in 2010, so this person is kinda behind the times imo

that is gross; pollstar is gross

i dunno, i figured that boutique booking agencies' talent rosters all had soft American Apparel girly tees with attractive designs for sale at their shows

probs. it makes me think the roster probably consists 5 bands that all sounds and dress exactly alike

Booking agents, ime, make the majority of their money on commissions, so it requires artists on the roster that command large fees. Some booking agents I know also do marketing/promo and grantwriting for their clients.

fwiw i know a few people that work as booking agents and all three of them do the grantwriting, promotion and general management stuff for their clients that sarahells talking about here because just booking doesnt really make very much money.

yeah i figure its a package deal with pr generally, w/r/t the underground community

a lot my friends do pr, but not booking

things to remember:

when making a tour budget for Europe, do not forget to include the butt-rapey excess baggage fees the airlines charge and the cost of gas for the van, and not just the cost of renting the van, itself, and the cost of the driver.

thats a good reminder. once had someone rent an RV for us to travel in, didnt get any compensation for gas which was insane for such a tank. we nearly had to abandon ship

that was my previous band's manager. he was kind of living in a dream world tbh

like the band this anecdote came from ended up losing $3500 on a tour because of stuff like that their booking agent failed to budget for.

horrendous

i think the moral of the story is that you can live in a dreamworld as booking agent as long as you have got European contacts imo

ps i'm now "interning" with a local booking/pr agency and doing booking for 2 bands on the side! (^o^)

xp haha probably otm. and bands cant function irl with a dream budget

nice!

but still ostensibly a forester? idk what my life is

you can book tours in national parks?

haha its so weird that you said that because i just today got an email fromt his weird house venue in hot springs AR that claims/swears that they are located within the boundary of the national park. must peep to believe imo

i dont know, maybe i could book for those "music of the mountains" cultural heritage events they have. lol

the band this anecdote came from ended up losing $3500 on a tour because of stuff like that their booking agent failed to budget for.

i feel like i was told this exact some story

so this is like...working

are you making bank?

mucho respect, you are dealing w/ one of the most unreliable products

haha its so weird that you said that because i just today got an email fromt his weird house venue in hot springs AR that claims/swears that they are located within the boundary of the national park. must peep to believe imo

― 1 P.3. Eternal (roxymuzak), Tuesday, April 16, 2013 10:09 AM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

isn't this national park basically a city or something

do it and get big and don't 4get abt me

― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, April 9, 2013 7:03 PM (4 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

btw I was kind of not joking abt this

i am making more bank than i expected faster than i expected

haw i've never been to hot springs np, so that explains it. kinda disappointing in a way tbh

how "big" can one get as a booking agent, really?? ac entertainment, bookin' bonarroo and such? if i get that big i shall not forget u

i am making more bank than i expected faster than i expected

hi-5

it was a good idea to get in with local hiphop dudes

a large-ish band just asked me to do their booking and promotion and i am really excited but also freaking out cause it means i have to learn wtf im doing real fast

also i got a business license

fuckin a, girl!

ty

nothing else to report

Fantastico!

Do you have any booker friends to call and ask for advice when necessary?

congrats. just remember to seem like you know what you are doing even when you don't. my parents told me that is the secret of success.

(i wasn't being sarcastic. i think you should seek out advice when you need to but also don't be too upfront about the things you don't know. i've been fired for being too open about the stuff i don't understand.)

a couple. i made some appointments this week with head honchos of local booking agencies to pick their brains and get advice, too

xp ha yeah my mom had similar advice. she used to tell me to always say i knew how to do anything, even put it on my resume or application, and then just pull an all-nighter learning how to do it if ever really confronted with it. terrible/great advice tbh

are you mostly booking metal stuff?

that's my eventual goal, but no. im currently doing metal, punk, hiphop and one country dude! i gotta build myself up before i can, like, curate a roster. but that is what i want to do in the future. right now, im just working with anyone i like at all

booking agents really only represent bands that tour constantly right?

Mostly, but some book for bands\solo dudes who rarely leave town, tbh. Nashville types imo. Playing paying gigs around town every night of the week

I had a booking agent contact me but I don't think I'm ready for that yet, but also I don't want to scare them off or turn down a great opportunity. not sure what to do.

maybe call and ask to meet with him/her and talk about you wants and goals and stuff, and what specifically he/she can do for you

thanks. yeah, I was kind of freaking out yesterday. it just really caught me off guard.

Did they catch you at a show and approach you afterwards?

I have had two very positive experiences with booking agents, and one less positive one. The less positive one was with a known booker at a known agency who I approached to ask about booking. The two positive ones were with small-time/first-time bookers. They were learning as they went, but I was always top of their list. Just saying: if this person is approaching you and they seem enthusiastic about your product, that goes a long ways farther than an impressive resumé and/or contact list, in my experience

It also helps if you know the guy/girl personally. If you don't, you should get to know them

I haven't played any shows which is why it really surprised me. The agent is probably more important than the agency aren't they? I got kind of starstruck by the agency name for a minute, but I should probably learn more about the actual person.

Whoa, really? No shows? That is weird.

yeah it's dumb. I don't need a booking agent. I think I just got momentarily caught up in the idea that you're supposed to want one.

how did they contact you? do you have an idea of why? if it seems like they're legitimately interested in you and you want to play good shows, it might not be a bad idea.

they heard my music online and emailed me.