Gigging 101 This file is for those of you who are interested in playing music in college clubs. If you've never played those rooms this will be of use to you. If you have then your sure to find a thing or two of interest. Where Do You Start? If you think you've got an act that you can take on the road there are many ways to go about getting gigs. First you've got to have something to book. Before you go through the hassle (and expense) of securing gigs, let me suggest that you try out your show close to home. There's no sense in booking an out of town date until you know you've got it down pat. Decide what kind of act you have. Is it going to be an all original music show, a cover band, a combination of both? That's real important to decide before you go spending money on the phone trying to book a club that doesn't use cover bands, or one that won't hire original acts. Club owners have valid arguments for excluding each type from their rooms. One will say that no one is going to come hear music that they haven't heard before, and the other is going to say that nobody wants to hear you play Louie Louie no matter how well you play the song. So make sure that you know something about the club you are trying to work for. Case in point might be the now famous scene from "The Blues Brothers". I once booked myself into what I thought sounded like a cool club in Montgomery Alabama and arrived their to find that my audience was made up of fifty year old+ divorcees when I was expecting to find college students home for the weekend. Fortunately it worked out OK as the audience really didn't care what they were listening to. However, I was uncomfortable throughout the show because of my lack of planning. It never hurts to call a few pro music stores in your target city and find out something about the club that you're thinking about booking a show in. There are all sorts of ways to target yourself, get free press and have a decent turnout. Although nothing can guarantee that you'll actually "draw" a crowd (unless you've been around a long time and people like you). In fact it's not easy making a steady income from live gigs unless you have several key things in place. 1. Name recognition 2. Advance bookings 3. Good Press 4. and a good team behind you Whether you are doing a band thing or a solo thing, these things will always apply to your act. You're going to have to start somewhere. How do I get name recognition? The most common way: For some it seems to happen " overnight". For most it is a very long time. Let's start at the very bottom. You play your first gig at a local pub. More than likely you don't get paid, but you probably get free beer. If you don't get the beer then someone else should book the gigs. But really now, playing for beers sucks. That's for "weekend warrior" bands that have (eek) a day job. The purpose of doing this professionally is to earn a living. I recommend that you spend a little time in these pubs only so you'll get some practice dealing with club owners. The club owners are who you are going to rely on for most of your income for as long as you are going to play music for a living. It involves real "people" skills to deal with this breed of businessman. Some will make you feel as though they are doing you a huge favor by letting you play and you shouldn't be asking for money. A new unfortunate concept has hit the music world in the last few years. It's called "pay to play". That's where you basically "rent" the room or promise the club owner an amount of money for letting you play. You are then the one who must promote the show, sell tickets, pay for the PA and lights and most likely your beer. I strongly suggest that you never try this unless it's to your advantage. That would be if you are well known and are sure to make a profit. One of the saddest things I've seen is a young band coming here to Nashville with more money than brains paying money to showcase themselves at a local club. They'll send out invitations, put up flyers, take out ads in local magazines and newspapers thinking that they're going to get discovered. It rarely happens. Think of how much more they could have accomplished by focusing their efforts on touring. That's how you get the name recognition. Your play fifty to a hundred gigs a year in as many towns as you can. And then you keep going back to every town year after year after year until you can either draw a crowd, get real famous or quit. It takes a long time. College towns are usually good places for bands and solo acts. If you concentrate on playing university towns while developing your name recognit -ion you'll have alot of good name building resources at your disposal. To start with, most will have a college radio station. I've heard every type of music imaginable played on these stations. I've actually shown up at college radio stations unannounced and played live on the radio. There are two setbacks to college radio. The first is the big seasonal turnover rate. The students that like your stuff enough to play it on a regular basis aren't going to be in college forever. The second is the limited number of listeners tuning in to the station. It's still a fine place to promote yourself. The "Alternative" music bands all owe their livings to college radio. Most college towns also have an "underground" newspaper that focuses on music. In Nashville that would be the Metro magazine, in Atlanta, Creative Loafing. Creative Loafing can be found in several large towns these days. In Athens GA it is the Flagpole. Always look for these type of rags when you are checking out a new town for gigging. The can be very handy for finding out what kind of bands play which clubs. You can also determine what kind of money the club is paying by looking at the cover charges. These publications are usually easy to get press in if your present yourself properly and have something "newsworthy" to write about. At the very least you can get your name printed in the nightclubs calendar in the club directory. Sometimes the club will put your name in for you, but if your pay directly coincides with the door receipts then I would suggest that you make sure it goes in yourself. Another good reason to play the college towns is because they draw students from all over the country. And if they like your music they'll take it with them when they go home and play it for their friends. Then you've got folks all over the place checking out your music. How much money can you make at a college town club gig? It has been my experience that it is hard to get a set price for playing these rooms. Some never guarantee anything. Most will let you play for the door. Be careful to promote yourself heavily if you are playing for the door. If you can't get the club to at least meet your expenses then try and find another place to play. Once word gets to other club owners in town that you'll play with no garnet it's hard to get one. A good way to do that is to structure your deal with the club like this: $XXX.XX granted $XXX.XX Sound/Lights (if the club is providing) After that suggest splitting the door 75%/25% in your favor of course. If you have to give up money for the PA make sure that your garnet covers you for your expenses and maybe puts something in your pocket. I don't think that it's unreasonable to expect X amount of free beer/soda and also a cheap motel room if the garnet is low. You can position yourself for the future if you are flexible with the club owner the first couple of gigs. Just don't give yourself away. So many variables come into play when booking college gigs. It helps to have a copy of the schools football schedule handy when you're looking to play. During home games it is best to try for fraternity or sorority parties. That's where the students will be during those weekends. I have found that Thursday night seems to be the best night for most of the college towns that I've played. On Friday students tend to go out of town, to the beach or home for the weekend. That may not be the case everywhere. The best way to get "frat" gigs is by playing in the college clubs. If they like you they'll usually stumble up at some point in the evening and tell you that they've got a party coming up, ask for your card, (which they'll promptly lose) and offer you a beer. It can be a very hard task to try to book the frats yourself. The social chairman are usually hard to get a hold of and if you live out of town you can run up your phone bill in no time flat. For that reason I think that it is a good idea to let a booking agent handle fraternity parties. First off, they can probably get you more money. They'll usually charge about 15% commission. It's best to make sure that you can pay everyone a good nights pay after taking out the expenses and commission. Most of my out of town frats have paid about $1000.00 to $1500.00 gross. Less 15% that's $850.00 to $1275.00 after commission. If I have to hire a sound/light company, usually for around $250.00 to $300.00, that leaves $600.00 to $975.00. Then you have the cost of fuel, rooms, meals and whatever your "require" to make your gig more comfortable. For a four piece band that's not too bad if you don't have to drive more than four hours and you can go in one or two vehicles with a small U-haul on back. Fact is most Pro players in Nashville are making that kind of bread. Even the guys touring with big acts aren't making much more than $150.00 to $200.00 per man a night. But they also usually don't pay their own expenses outside of meals and some of them get a per diem for that. This should give you a good idea of what the college scene is really like. It AIN'T easy, but you can make some money if you do it right and have an awful lot of fun at the same time. Look for more on this subject in Gigging Part Two coming soon. Good luck.