By Emma Grace Brown
How to Get Live Gigs as a New Musician
Live gigs are the bread and butter for the majority of musicians. Musicians get a nice percentage of ticket sales for every live gig they do and sometimes make extra from patrons and sponsors. As such, if you’d like to have a successful career as a musician, you’ll have to master the art of securing live gigs. This isn’t necessarily hard but it can be time-consuming and often requires you to hustle.
To help you along, the Colorado School of Music offers some tried-and-tested suggestions on how you could get live gigs as a new musician:
Promote yourself and build credibility
Raising awareness about you with your target audience is an essential first to setting yourself up as a musician as well as securing live gigs. You have to give people a taste of your musical talents and, so, establish your brand in the market. Some ways to do that is by recording a short free album or songs, getting a portfolio website, getting on social media, streaming your music practice, getting on YouTube, and offering your services on channels like Twitch. Music Think Tank offers useful suggestions in this vein.
Scout out local shows and venues
Major cities periodically host music shows and events. Many such shows are willing to hire unknown musicians for the “undiscovered, exciting hidden talent” factor. If you can get in touch with promoters and demonstrate your talents, you should be able to secure a performance slot. You may not be paid much but the exposure and experience can be priceless. Gigs tend to lead to more gigs, and you can negotiate better pay as you go.
Network with key players
Networking with key players is a critical part of securing gigs. Who are the key players? Some examples are booking agents, promoters, fellow musicians, venue owners, sponsors, and influential fans. The right people can put you in touch with industry movers and shakers, and sometimes even book you for live gigs. Ditto offers helpful networking tips.
Get the word out about your gigs
When you’re just starting out with small-time gigs and don’t know anyone, you can and should get the word out about you and your performances to your friends, family, and acquaintances. It will give you that initial push you need to get started. It doesn’t hurt to cast a wide net and advertise to everyone you know – including people from high school who may be influential now. If you have lost their contact details, you can use people search engines with information about Denver and surrounding areas. You’ll just need basic details like your friends’ names, your graduation date, and the name of your school to receive immediate results with phone numbers and email addresses.
Collaborate with other musicians
Collaborating with other new musicians can help you expand your network. You can trade in favors – you can ask them to recommend you to people and vice versa. Approaching more established musicians can also pay rich dividends. You can get mentored, receive valuable advice, and even receive their help in securing live gigs.
Be a musician for hire
People frequently need musicians for private live events like weddings, corporate parties, birthday celebrations, and similar. While these gigs aren’t exactly glamorous, doing them can be worth your time. You can practice your skills, get paid, and slowly and steadily build up your credibility. These days, you can even be a virtual musician for hire via some platforms.
Build up your musical skills
You should always be looking to become a better musician. Knowing key musical techniques, instruments, theory, and related skills can make it easier to gain credibility, sell yourself, and produce better-quality music. Colorado School of Music offers private music lessons to musicians of all experience levels. You can learn a variety of instruments from experienced teachers.
Reputation is everything in the music industry. If you’d like to have a steady supply of live gigs, do everything you can to build up your reputation, from promoting yourself to building up your skills. It could take a while, but if you keep at it, you will succeed.
