For many bands and musicians, offering yourself as live entertainment for Weddings, parties, corporate dinners and any other style of event can be a great source of income and for those who are successful bands it’s their main source of income, often accompanied by teaching.
For a band aspiring to make a living out of music, it’s crucial that you see things from your clients’ perspective.
When searching for a suitable band for their event, your potential client will go through numerous band websites to try and find the right one for them.
Most commonly, the clients for Last Minute Musicians are looking for a standard party band, the kind who know a good selection of songs that span 50s Hits from artists such as Elvis Presley, to modern day chart toppers such as The Kings Of Leon’s Sex on Fire and The Killers ‘Mr Brightside’
Self Promotion
A large proportion of live music is now booked through the Internet and social networks and tools such as E-mail have helped make finding bands for events so much easier.
As with any business, you have to adapt to the 21st century and it’s vital you have profiles on all the major social networks and keeping them updated regularly is just as important.
If possible, become familiar with SEO (search engine optimisation) and keywords to make sure that your band finds their way to the top of the search engines when potential customers are searching for entertainment.
As a band, you’ll also need to have a comprehensive press pack organised so that you can send it off to any potential customers as an example of what you do. Your press pack should include the following:
- Biography
- Professional Photos,
- A Demo CD
- Contact details
- Previous list of customers & Testimonials
Sign up to agencies & directories
For various reasons, most clients will book their live entertainment through an entertainment agency. There are plenty of agencies around who offer a range of different services, some of which are reputable and some not so much.
By signing up to an agency you’re increasing your chances of being booked for a gig and raising your bands exposure. An agency will add a percentage onto the fee you charge your clients so they can cover their costs and keep running their business.
Developing a good relationship with an agency is a great way of getting more gigs and promoting your band as a highly regarded live entertainment act.
Joining popular directories like Last Minute Musicians is also a good way to get yourself in front of new customers. Find out how Last Minute Musicians could change your career.
Offer a range of line-ups
As a band you are offering a service to your customers and clients and there’s no point in shooting yourself in the foot by just offering one line up.
By offering a range of line ups to your band you’ll be opening yourself up to getting more well paid gigs.
For example you could offer yourselves as a single acoustic act or duo. These can be rather popular with many clients, as they tend to not be as expensive and are perfect for background music!
Offer a DJ service
This is becoming increasingly popular among all different types of bands as clients are looking to save money in any way possible.
By simply offering to bring an MP3 player to play music before the band play, whilst they’re on a break or even after the band has finished.
Clients will look favourably on this and you could even charge them a little extra for it!
Have a varied repertoire that will suit any audience
When you’re deciding your set list for a gig, put yourself in the position of your client and consider which songs you think they would like best.
You want to put on the best show possible for the audience so having a well prepared and rehearsed set list is an essential part of preparing for the gig.
Being able to play popular cover songs which appeal to a number of generations means you’re more than likely to win over the crowd and have a great gig!
To make a function band successful you need to be completely dedicated to making every gig a big success.
Musicians have a tendency to be a bit flaky so by being 100% reliable you will gain a good reputation and you’ll get more gigs because of it. It’s also very important that you take a great deal of pleasure from what you’re doing.
Running a function band will take up a lot of your time and you need to be prepared to give up your whole weekend!
If you do love it however you’ll be in for a treat because doing what you love is the greatest job possible.
Do you have any more tips for how to form a successful band? Let us know in the comments below!
