Getting gigs

PLOP

Some good tips here thanks. Some of them I've been picking up myself anyway, such as taking notes of the promoters for local metal shows (I've got a list on my phone). I've tried chatting to staff in person too, but that generally isn't that easy because I unfortunately never go to town unless it's for a gig (ours or as a punter) so the venues are usually already busy. Many of the venues don't even open during the day or if there's no show on that night!

Good tip from @Hoof on contacting other M2TM promoters. We got to the semi finals before (it was 2023 like) so that would perhaps be a good shout to contact them if we have success in this year's contest.

PLOP

PolarityMan said:

Added to my library for next car journey. 

Thanks! I only appear on the Incinerus album, Rile was written and recorded by our singer all himself over covid and the rest of the band joined after that. Let me know what you think!

Moe_Zambeek

Evo said:

Littlejonny said:

I image getting covers gigs is easier.

Sadly, it isn't.

These days, the majority of worthwhile covers gigs are all hoovered up by the same types of acts.

They'll have really high end promo, a very slick website and booking process, and the leader will take on any and all gigs. Then they'll look at the diary, take the best paying gigs for themselves before throwing together a scratch band of deps to fill the other bookings (taking a slice off the top as well of course).

The sheer number of dep gigs I've taken in recent years where literally nobody in the band is an actual member is ridiculous!

The wedding band model polluting the cover band scene. Thinking about it I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often.

EricTheWeary

PolarityMan said:

PLOP said:

Hey, 

the time has come with my band that we’re looking around for live shows. We’ve just released our EP and it’s time to promote it! 

Problem is, all of the venues I email or message on FB etc just don’t reply. I have no idea how to get my foot in the door so to speak. In my opening message I provide links to our socials and music, I’m polite, I describe our music with comparisons to fairly well known bands in the metal genre, and I’m only contacting places I know host metal shows too. And every single message goes unanswered. I know I can phone them up but I know from my own time working in a pub, requests from cold calls like that are never followed up on. 

Obviously I’m missing a trick somewhere here. If anyone has any tips I’d be very grateful! 

Thanks 

We find especially for local metal shows the venues themselves don't really do the booking anymore, typically there is a local promoter who hires the venue and they put on the shows so my guess would be you need to find out who they are. I'd suggest go through the flyers on socials for metal gigs at the venues you want and look for any clue to the promoter. If you can find the facebook events see if they are all being created by one person etc and contact them. 

When I was doing my covers/tribute thing a lot of pubs/venues didn't do their own booking. There was a promoter/agency they relied on to sort all that (even if it was just the landlord's mate Dave who'd promised he could get a scene going). Once we worked some of those out we booked most of our gigs that way. 
Such a long time since I was in an originals band. Mostly we played the same pub in Shrewsbury in return for lentil chilli. 

Evo

Moe_Zambeek said:

The wedding band model polluting the cover band scene. Thinking about it I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often.

Not just the wedding band model…it’s the same damn “bands” most of the time!