Adam, the redundancy thing is such a high ROI investment. I've replaced an in-ear wireless, an instrument cable, a shirt, two different pair of pants (one for someone else), a pedalboard, a guitar, and emergency food and grooming supplies for bandmates, all out of my backups. It can appear expensive and space-consuming to have backups, but it can be show-stopping not to have backups. Anything critical is worth having two of. People don't get it until they're limping along on one preset and five strings.

Exposure and ACCESS are key. One of my first bands had been together a while and we were finally ready to go play out. We had a weekend BBQ with friends and family to do a "debut". Half way through the first set an unrecognized mini van with a family pulls in the drive way and near right up to the stage. Naturally with that some family and friends were on that mini van with a quickness. They were yelling at the driver  and a few hopped up on the bumper and were bouncing the van.

Anyways they left. Unbeknown to us that van parked down the street a ways and listened to all three sets. Two days later we got a letter in the mail asking us to call the mayors office and contact the person who plans events for the county. HE and his family were the ones in the van that day. We got two private BBQ's and the counties 4th of July headline act out of that incident.  

Ended up doing the bar scene all up n down the Jersey shore before the Casinos forced Unionization on all bands and musical acts. They started mandating diploma'd members only so the ranks of bands started taking a hit and we were one of them. We were just blue collar workers having fun with friends. Only our drummer had any official pedigree paper work for music. That is one thing to be aware of as well.

We were lucky and the bass players father took care of the contract and payment stuff. Back then things were not as complicated as they got shortly after the Casinos unions getting involved.

1. My band has had a very professional looking website from the start but that's not what venue owners are asking to see. Small to medium venues that are bringing in local and regional bands want know how many followers you have on social media and how many people you think will attend.

2. For younger bands that don't have much of a budget, banners phone videos might be all they can afford. Is it ideal? No. Does it get the job done? Yes.

3. If you're not feeling at least a little embarrassed when you give them the price, you're not asking enough. Know your worth and don't sell yourself short.

4. Many don't understand that an email constitutes a legal contract, so wording matters. Yes to every clause mentioned. The memory shouldn't get hazy when the bar opens, you're running a business, be professional and don't get drunk. You don't pay better when your drunk or stoned. No, you don't.  DO NOT USE CHAT GPT FOR A CONTRACT.

5. You should always run with a business mentality. You're not in business to loose money.

6. Yes, a stage plot is important for venues other than bars and restaurants. You can supply them fur these spaces as well but most don't care.  

7. If you can't sinful your stage volume you don't get asked back. The size of the so doesn't matter, nor does shielding fit the drums, you need to learn dynsmics and play for the room. If the venue asks you ro turn down, the only answer is yes.

8.. Gear, as a drummer I ashtrays carry an extra snare and extra bass drum head, duct tape, spare felts, cymbal sleeves bass drum pedal, mason line, multi tool, knife etc.  For everyone else, spare strings,  guitars, cables, mics, extension chords, power strips etc. Anything that you can't gig without. For guitar players,  use the Steve Vai mentality with buying pedals. Hev still uses DOD pedals to this day instead of boutique peaks because of they fail on him,  he can get them at pretty  much any guitar guitar shop.

9. Marketing, this is important,  your logo is your brand and it needs to be consistent. Your logo, unless appearing in or on some form of media that's black and white, should be the same logo and same color(s) across all platforms. This is Marketing 101. If I say Coka-cola, Harley Davidson, Greatful Dead, Rolling Stones, KISS, Van Halen, you know what their logos look like and you can picture them in your head and if you see them you immediately know what they are. Once youcome up with a logo, stick with it because it's what people will remember and there is instant recognition over time.

10. Communication, going to have to disagree with the creator here and caution against using chat GPT or any AI for communications. Write your oen correspondence and of need be, have someone with good writing skills edit for you. That being said, don't give up. If someone tells you to contact them on a certsin day, do it. If they don't respond, send a fillow up email in a couple days or call. Sometimes old school perseverance is what gets you the gig. If you get turned down for a gig don't be afraid to ask why, this can be helpful fur the future and some places will be willing to give feedback. Sometimes the reasons you are given may not be what you thought. I play a lot of small to medium susceptible music festivals (400 - 30,000) and we do all out own booking. Wev reached out to a festival on the larger side and got denied but it was a positive experience for us. Being denied had nothing to do with musical ability or the size of our fsnbase, it's because we didn't have 3rd party representation. While this was entirely understandable, that's not something that was mentioned in the application but the booking agent actually sent several emails back and forth explaining this to us which they weren't obligated to do. Of you're polite and professional you can get a lot of information from some people.

Addendum- Always be nice to sound and lighting people, don't be afraid to take constructive criticism and try to be easy to work with, it will get you a lot farther.

The amp-modeler-volume-control point truly does separate pro players vs people who honestly just don’t understand how it works. Too many guitar players and drummers say “that’s my sound” and literally no one knows who they are… and don’t realize that literally no one else cares. It’s interesting to see. Knowing when you can be loud and when to control the volume is crucial to being a good player. 👍

This is solid advice. A lot of government entities have banned employees from social media at work, which would make it impossible to reach anyone solely on social media. Corporations are a titbit more lenient and provide leeway, usually with added paperwork, but also usually do not take kindly to employees being on social media at work.

The thing about having a contact us button is great. Having a straight email address is basically an invitation to spam, but a contact us button reduces this but also provides senders with your actual email address when you reply back.

Stage plot is great for everyone to know where to set up, and not get in each other’s way.
Some adaptability might be needed sometimes, but a general idea helps.

"wedges to in ears" and "e-drums" hurt my soul... but that corporate gig money will heal it.

I was doing some gigs and they didn't have a set up. Once I realized the format they were most comfortable in I aimed for that. It was a bunch of community events and their sound system was barely enough. But once I knew the set up and limits of the system everyone was calmer and played better and walked away happier, even the difficult shows. I'm told I am a joy to work with so my internal stress must never be apparent.😄

Current photo: Nowadays you can get a quick "semi-planned" shot of the brand and use photoshop or Ai to fill in a background and otherwise fix. Too easy. Totally with you on doing that.

Even though my current band is more of a "hobby" band, I still bring an extra bass, just in case. It's just too easy to do. Most of the other stuff in my audio chain can simply be removed if it fails - except for the amp and cab, of course...

Thanks for your constant help and advice Adam and just to hear a corner of the world where the stuff we care about get chatted about 🙏

Excellent video, esp contracts.

Good stuff..thank you.  This is business reality..
Like that really expensive but crucial piece of gear that gets the job done, never fails and you forget it's there...

Fantastic video. Phenomenal information for a lot of folks out there. Good job!

As a drummer, it always frosts me a bit, that I'm expected to be the first one that needs to change my sound, my feel, my setup, etc. It's the beats that make the room dance, not the guitars

Great video!

As a 50+ year veteran performer, I'm shocked when I hear just how many bands have no idea how to price a booking. Little to no regard of how much it actually costs to attend a gig. These are the same ones who charge less for a 4/5 piece than I do as a solo act! IT'S NOT A HOBBY........ IT's A BUSINESS!!

Huge +1 on owning your own site. There is a huge cohort of people who are not (and would never be) on Facebook.

I feel like some of these have to be market specific. For instance, no Underground band in metal in a good chunk of Canada for instance there's going to be able to ask for $800 a show until they hit a certain point. Depending on the gig, the average I think most bands grt guaranteed if they have a local following is somewhere from $250-$500.

Shitty as it is, when it comes to paying gigs, in some markets, on the cover bands are getting the decent paydays.

A FOH sound man is also necessary for a working band because the band always sounds great to themselves onstage but the people in the audience who are paying may have a different opinion. What "sounds great" onstage can often be too loud, too low, or mixed poorly in the mains for the paying customers. Guitarists are the worst offenders, they turn their volume up onstage for a lead then never seem to return their volume to pre-lead levels and that throws the mix balance off and the crowd will notice. That is why you need a FOH sound man to mix and balance what the audience is hearing. Also, if anything goes wrong during a performance the sound tech can run and fix it during the set so the band members can concentrate on playing.