Band Tips - Presentation
Hey crew,
Hope you’re all doing well, thanks for joining me :-)
So I’m going to get into the topic of how to present yourself when engaging with different people from venues, labels, bookers and all that jazz, to fans and the general public.
Presentation within the industry.
When engaging with anyone whether it be another band, venue, booking agent, label, touring company, media, radio or anything else, be professional. How you present yourself to all of these people is very important, remember, you are most likely asking them for something they provide or can help you attain and they will be judging you on how you go about that. You don’t need to be over the top with extreme formalities, just be clear and concise with what you are talking about. Don’t type up emails or messages with tonnes of slang words being all nonchalant and ‘cool’, just get to the point with clear informative sentences that make sense and are easy to follow. Also, don’t be afraid to be upfront with what you are after, there’s nothing worse than a 2 paragraph explanation or spiel before you get the part that says ‘We’re looking for XZY can you help us?’. Introduce yourself, state who you are and who you are contacting them on behalf of, then tell them what it is you are after or reaching out to organise. Then after that, you can get into more details on what you’re all about.
When you get into the section on what you’re all about don’t dribble on with tonnes of paragraphs and whole life stories. Once again, get to the point and give as much important information as clearly and concisely as possible. Don’t send out his res photos, mp’3 or video downloads, this just annoys most people and they may not even bother opening it to look due to having to wait for it all to download. Simply place in the email where needed external links so people can just hit the link, check out the goodies and go from there.
Everyone in this music world seems to be time poor so if you can get their attention quickly and make it easy to absorb all the relevant information without them needing to read pages of text, you’re off to a good start.
Presentation with the public.
Presentation/ image?.... Well here are my thoughts anyway. Image is something you hear a lot of talk about how bands or artists have people helping create their image or persona. My first love was punk rock and I kind of keep a pretty punk thought process to this… I think? I’ve met people over the years that have been very much focused on putting out a certain image and often it’s not what comes naturally to them, it looks a little out of place or like there trying to hard which just looks terrible in the end. I think with this stuff you just have to follow your gut and truly be yourself. If everyone in the band really vibes on wearing 50’s styled suits at gigs then do it, if that’s what comes naturally. People can see through the bullshit and if you're trying to be something you’re not, or fit into a certain mould just cause that's what is the ‘in’ thing at the time you’re going to get found out. If you all wear thongs and footy shorts cause that's just who you are, and then you get up and absolutely own the stage and play like a complete weapon, then that’s what will become your thing and people will love you for it. I won't blab on too much but I think you get what I’m meaning here...
When it comes to putting out all your posters, events, social media posts and anything that engages and is seen by the public, it’s good to keep a couple of things in mind. A video of you playing in a room with 10 punters made with an iPhone sucks, don't post it. Don’t put up dumb silly shit daily and over saturate the feed with irrelevant content that just looks dodgy. Make sure all your artwork looks awesome as hell, make sure all your band photos are of a high quality and really look cool. Make sure that when you post something up be it a video, post or imagery of some kind that it’s actually cool and engaging in some way. In general, just treat all this stuff as professionally as possible and avoid putting up dodgy-looking stuff. Remember it’s not just your friends looking at it but hopefully, all those people that can help you get gigs, tours and the rest, and of course, we do actually want the general public to dig what you're doing and not just zoning out cause it’s just another round of random crap. Get it right and it can work wonders. Something else to remember, while we want to approach this looking professionally as possible it also doesn't mean you have to be a wanker about it either, if all you ever put up are super polished band photos that's going to get really boring very quickly. If you capture something rad with a dodgy camera but it’s actually cool as hell share it around, if the room you’re playing in is stacked full of people truly getting down to what you’re doing then use it as long as it shows just how huge the vibe is. It really can be a tricky balancing act this stuff but use your head and just give it all a little thought and I’m sure you’ll figure out a good balance.
Thanks for reading my rambles, Milla