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Never Risk Your whole business on one show

This one is more for promoters/venues/ booking people than musicians, but sometimes a band will want to put on their own show or a musician might want to venture into the world of concert promoters, so read it anyway.

We've seen this happen too many times.  A new, inexperienced or stupid person puts on a huge show, looses their shirt and ends up bankrupt, out of business and generally worse off than they were beforehand.  The music business can be very risky.  A snow storm (or hurricane or other weather event) can ruin your show. Bands can get stuck in another state (geographically...) or get sick and cancel at the last minute.  The cops or fire department can shut you down without warning.  All sorts of unexpected things can and do happen in this business. You need to be prepared for the worst and make sure that whatever show/event you're planning isn't gonna ruin you personally, bankrupt your business or land you in court, jail or worse.

If you've come up with a clever way to exploit an apparent loophole in the liquor laws that would allow you to serve beer after hours, your should probably check out your idea with the authorities beforehand (an anonymous phone call from a pay phone asking about the laws in general can do the trick without giving them enough info to track you down) Most city and state governments want new businesses to succeed (and pay taxes) so if there's a way to do it legally, they might even help you get the right permits, etc.  Or, of there's a law/ordinance you weren't aware of, they'll tell you right up front, before you waste a lot of time and money or worse, before you get arrested.

A well planned event/concert should be profitable or close to it before you even open the doors the night of the show. Advance ticket sales, sponsorships, booth rentals, etc.  should add up to cover your expenses and if they don't, if they aren't even close, or if it snows two feet the day of the show, just cancel it. Many debts will not have to be paid if the show does not go on (some will - like the deposit you made on that huge national act) but anything you can cancel far enough in advance to prevent the vendor/band from showing up, will not need to be paid.  If the beer vendor doesn't sell any beer, you probably owe him nothing.

If you have no experience with putting together a multi-day, multi-stage festival, don't do it. Start small.  Book some shows into local venues with local acts first.  Get your feet wet and learn from experience.  Put on a one-day festival with one stage and make a profit before you expand to three days and six stages.  It just makes sense.

Here are some true stories of people who bet it all on one show and blew it, big time.

There was a monthly music magazine called Riff. It was doing well and turning a small profit. To celebrate their anniversary of two or three years they decided to throw a huge Halloween event.  They rounded up a bunch of volunteers, secured a venue and booked a bunch of bands.  The venue was one of those huge entertainment complexes with a video game arcade, bowling and tons of other stuff.  They set up several stages and scheduled local bands to play all evening and into the night.  We watched this all happening and noted that not one of the people involved had ever even helped out with an event of this magnitude before. When we heard that they'd booked a big national act (a big hair band from the 80's) it looked to us like a recipe for disaster.  We were right.  Stories started filtering out the next morning. There had been a guest list of hundreds of people (all the bands and volunteers were allowed to put people on the list) hardly anyone who attended had paid. Certainly not enough tickets were sold to offset the costs of the event.  There was a story about a brand new, big, flat screen TV being damaged by one of the punk bands in the green room and a variety of people who had been in there were taken to the police dept. to make statements.  The venue wanted $1500 to pay for the damage. But worst was yet to come:  The woman who was in charge of the event and who had booked the national act went on record stating that the band had asked for cocaine and she supplied it, as if that was a standard professional thing to do.  Needless to say, she had been arrested at the event and had serious legal problems to deal with.  With all this bad press and unwanted expenses the magazine went under, never to publish again.

This story goes back to late 1980s.  A hotshot young promoter arrived in Denver with the goal of establishing a concert promotions business.  He claimed to have been working for a big concert promotions company based in New York.  Anyway, he set up a concert here.  The headliner was not a big name that everyone would recognize, instead it was the lead guitar player for a big name band. The show was to be an all day outdoor event. After the first choice venues became unavailable (or simply turned the guy down, realizing the show would flop), the show was scheduled for the soccer fields at Auraria Campus.  A nice location, but one where alcohol was prohibited.  Then, he booked his opening acts.  He unwisely consulted with a local booking company, who promptly got him to book a load of local acts with the promise that each one would bring in 500 people.  This raised a huge red flag in our minds.  We were familiar with these local acts and knew that they commonly played shows with two or three of them on the same bill in rooms that could hold 250-300 people.  Those shows generally had cover charges around $5.  This big concert had a $15 ticket price.  We ran into this would-be promoter the night before his big show and he generously provide us with comp tickets.  We asked how the ticket sales were going, and responded that they weren't selling very well and then he dashed off to the airport to pick up his headliner.  Needless to say, the show was a monumental flop.  Our estimates at the time were that this guy had lost as much as $50,000 for his company (maybe less, since the half dozen local acts never got paid) and this promoter and his company were never heard from again in Denver.  His mistakes were many: Bad venue, with no alcohol sales, a headliner who wasn't big enough, unfamiliarity with the local scene, which resulted in him actually believing the local bands would bring in 500 people each. (At $15 a head, on a Sunday, with no beer) We had a good laugh when it started raining in the middle of the whole event and the several dozen people who did buy tickets cleared out pronto.  It's still funny from our perspective, but I wouldn't want to have been in that promoter's shoes.

Here's a much more recent story: A small downtown venue had been working hard and booking a variety of acts for a couple years.  They had become profitable and were building a strong reputation in town, when the owner was offered a large sum of money to sell the place.  He took the money and never looked back.  The new owners didn't have much, if any, experience with running a music venue, though, they did own other bars/restaurants. They remodeled the place to make it look really swanky.  Initially they kept the booking the same, with very successful Sunday and Monday night punk and metal nights.  After one guy put up a band sticker in the newly remodeled men's room, they canceled those nights.  But their big mistake was new Year's eve.  They booked The Supersuckers and started selling tickets for $100 a piece (which included a nice dinner).  Needles to say, the show flopped and the place was vacant within a month.  They bet the whole business on one show and lost.

Here's a story we were actually involved in: A few years back we set up a non-profit, tax-exempt organization with the goal of throwing concerts and donating the proceed to charity. We were approached by a guy who showed up at every meeting wearing his long expired Great White backstage pass on a lanyard around his neck.  He was an accountant by profession with zero music business experience, but a strong desire to be a big time concert promoter.  He showed us this big fat binder which supposedly contained his business plan for putting a huge Bonnaroo-style music festival.  We should have walked away and never returned his calls, but instead, we decided to go with the flow and see how things developed before bailing out. Over the course of a month or two his plans scaled down to a two day concert event at a local county fairgrounds.  In Colorado, you can't sell liquor on publicly owned property unless it's for a non-profit (who are also required to obtain the liquor sales permit and do the actual sales).  Now we were on the hook and a couple of our board members had gotten even deeper involved, becoming the de-facto production managers.  Of course, the plans for booking went awry and the show ended up being one afternoon and evening of country acts and a day of locals and has-beens with the headliner being... you guessed it, Great White. Knowing this was likely to be a disaster we did everything we could to salvage the show, including arrange for media sponsors, and make sure the beer distributors were in our side.  The country show flopped and everything was riding on the second day. Attendees were supposed to purchase tickets and then redeem those for beer/food.  When the tickets ran out, we started accepting cash.  We knew the whole affair was likely to end badly, in a financial sense, so we took in every penny we could for our charity.  Some of the other vendors weren't quite so lucky.  Towards the end of the show, the accountant's brother, who made a critical loan beforehand, raided the box office to make sure he got his loan back and then split.  The headliner got paid cash at the end of the night and there really wasn't much left after that. Not only did our charity get stiffed, but so did all the other vendors, the staging company, the sound crew, the security staff, the beer distributor and the local bands.  Mr. accountant with the fancy business plan, disappeared as soon as the legal threats started flying, and we, proactively, made certain no distributor in the state would ever go near him again.  Not only did this guy put himself out of business, he damaged a variety of other small businesses and stiffed a charity.  Never work work with a wannabe concert promoter, until after he has proven himself.

This one may be the most interesting.  A group of local musicians rented out a large warehouse/factory space in an industrial part of town where they lived, recorded and rehearsed. Eventually, they also threw a party. Realizing there was some potential for income they made a bold move.  They started throwing after-hours parties with bands.  In order to skirt the liquor laws, they charged a cover a the door, but gave away the drinks (at least until the keg ran dry).  They threw these parties once a month for maybe a year, using the proceeds to pay their rent.  Having played almost every club in town, they advertised by simple word of mouth and had really huge numbers in the door.  Mostly bar/club/restaurant employees looking for something to do after closing time.  Unfortunately, they hadn't found an actual loophole in the liquor laws, turns out the laws are clear that even charging a cover counts as selling liquor and when the parties got too big and neighbors complained, the cops found out and shut them down. Unfortunately, it was so serious that the organizers got hauled in to jail and eventually court, where big fines were applied.  The point of this story: Always make sure what you're doing is legal, before you get busted.

At some point every musician will ask him/herself: "Why didn't anybody come to my show?"

Every situation is different but we will attempt to describe some of the most common reasons nobody shows up and what, if anything, you can do about it.

Sooner or later, no matter how big or successful you are, you will have show that bombs. If you're successful and this is an uncommon thing, then don't worry about it too much. You're probably doing fine and you can just chalk it up to bad luck. If it's happening commonly, then you need to figure out why and try to do something about it. It could be a blizzard or a hurricane that ruins your show. Don't worry too much about the weather related problems. There's nothing you can do about them, so cowboy up and move on. Sometimes you may never figure out why people didn't show up, but if you can at least eliminate some common reasons, you may be able to avoid having a poor turnouts at all your gigs. Be aware, when booking, of things like holidays and the seasonal ups and downs of your particular market(s) and you can avoid some of those lousy shows before they ever happen. Check out our podcast/article called "Never Release Your New Album in December" for more details on seasonal and holiday bookings to avoid.

One common reason that people may not come to your show is simply competition. Maybe there's a huge national act in town that appeals to your audience and they're gonna go to that show instead of yours. This happens a lot and there's not too much you can do about it, except try to schedule your shows around the bigger ones. If you can manage that, then maybe you should also attend those competing shows and use it as an opportunity to hand out flyers and promote your act. After all, these are the same people that like your band. An ideal situation would be to get your band booked to open for that bigger act.

Another common reason people aren't coming to your show: They don't know about it. Have you sent out emails to your fans? Is it posted on your website? Your Myspace? Your facebook? It should be. If you don't have any of those, you need to make them and build up your fans/friends pronto. Did you make sure your gig shows up on any/all local calendar sites, news and arts weekly papers/magazines? Don't rely on the venue or promoter to advertise your shows. They should and usually do, but there's always more that you can do. The bottom line: If your fans don't know about your gig, they aren't gonna come. We've seen great bands playing wonderful music to empty rooms simply because nobody in the band could be bothered to promote the show. If you don't want to do it, then recruit your fans to help out or consider hiring someone who does it for a living.

Are you playing the same market too much? If you're playing in the same city every Friday and Saturday night, there are very few people who will be able to come to every show, much less want to. If your shows are spaced out enough, not more than once every six weeks or so, then it becomes an event when you play and your fans will try harder to make it to the show. If you need to play every weekend to make a living, then play different markets. In almost every part of the country you can drive 20-30 miles and find yourself in a whole new market. Rotate through as many markets as you can, so that you always have gigs, but never overplay in any area.

The last and hardest hurdle to overcome may simply be your performance. To put it bluntly: You might suck. You should be able to determine if this is the problem by watching your fan base. If it grows, you're doing things right. If it starts off big, with all your friends and family coming to your first couple shows and then drops off quickly, then you have a problem. What can you do? Practice more. Make sure all your band mates are playing as good as they can. If they can't cut it then maybe lessons are in order. Anyone can improve their performance musically and stage presence -wise. Maybe it's time to replace someone, try some different material or even quit. We hate to see anyone give up, but certainly, playing music professionally just isn't meant to be for some people. Sometimes, just changing the material can transform an act. We've seen new bands hit the road hard for a year and come back with a whole new confidence and understanding of how to capture and hold an audience. We've seen some bands, filled with highly talented players, insist on playing only their originals and no covers. Unfortunately, some great players aren't very good at songwriting and so the act never quite catches on and builds a following. Just throwing in a couple compatible covers here and there can excite a crowd and get people interested in your original music. People don't usually dance to music they've never heard before. In one case we know about a band that is very successful as a retro-1980s cover band and then under another name (and less cheesy costumes) plays all originals. They way they get the best of both worlds is to book both acts to play consecutively on the same night. A great example of this is Hank Williams III. He plays a set of old covers his grandfather made famous, then after a short break he comes back on stage with the same band plays a set of in your face punk. The set of covers provides income and brings in big crowds who then get exposed to his original stuff. To ease the pain, we've heard that some bands who must play covers in order to pay the bills will not waste time learning any cover songs that take them longer than 10 minutes to learn.

We hope this will help you understand and remedy some of the most common reasons people don't come to your show.

More detail on some of the above topics and related articles and podcasts can be found online at RockOnColorado.com

What is the best time of year to release your album?

Darn good question. Our answer is aimed at local and unsigned acts. Once you've hit the big time, a whole slew of different factors will come into play and certainly the major labels have experts in marketing to advise them. For the rest of the world, i.e., the vast majority of you out there, here's some advice based on real life observations and experiences.

Most bands want to release their new album immediately after they get done with the lengthy and oftentimes painful process of recording, mixing, mastering and production. At that point they are so sick of working on it, that they tend to rush the release part. Don't do it.

Do not schedule your album release party/show/event while you're still recording. Things can and commonly do pop up to cause unexpected delays and if you feel like you have to get product out by a certain date, you'll rush the remaining process and that can be bad for the finished product. Delays in mixing mastering and getting the artwork finished have delayed many many releases. So wait until you get your CDs (or whatever) back from the manufacturer before setting the official release date. You can book gigs, in the hopes that they might be release shows, but if that doesn't happen, just use them to hype your upcoming release. Don't book the official date until you have the product in your hands and have checked it for any problems (we've seen CDs arrive with the insert panels out of sequence and once they even had someone else's music recorded on the discs!). Give yourself at minimum three weeks to get the CDs out to local newspapers and magazines in time for them to write a review before or around the same time as the official release date. You can even sell limited signed editions as pre-release copies before the official release. This can help considerably with bringing in a little cash flow to offset all the money you just spent on the recording and production process.

Now consider the time of year (maybe this should happen before duplication/production even happens). You want to release your album when you can get the biggest crowds and therefore create the biggest buzz. In our local market the busiest times of the year for the clubs are in the Fall and Spring, while it's cold enough out that outdoor events and festivals aren't happening very much, but not conflicting with the holidays. Your market may be different, but it's not rocket science to figure it out. Ask your favorite venue booking person when their busiest season is.

The summer months are packed with festivals, which can be quite lucrative for touring/performing and for selling new merch, like your CDs. If you have a big festival gig booked, that might be an excellent album release show. But if you will be having the release at a club or bar, don't do it in August, when crowds thin out the most part at the smaller indoor venues because everyone is heading to the festivals and stadiums for the big shows. In December, or more accurately, the time between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve, people, including those in the entertainment and reporting industries want to spend time with their families, so they take time off, making it even harder to get reviewed or noticed. Additionally, in December thru early January many companies throw their annual holiday parties. These can be great gigs to play at, but it would be inappropriate to release your album at one. The other problem is that it's harder to draw a big crowd in December because everyone is partied out, broke from buying presents or traveling to be with family. The closer to Christmas, the worse the turnout is likely to be. New Year's Eve is another big party night where good paying gigs are plentiful, but not a good time to release your Album, especially if it's a private party/gig. Likewise, the first couple weeks of January tend to be slow due to bill paying, getting caught up from the holidays at work and the still fresh memory of that New Year's Day hangover.

If you want your album to be available for Christmas shoppers, make sure it's done in October or earlier. Releasing a Christmas album on Dec 14 doesn't give you much time to sell it. On December 26 the market will be gone until next year.

Other Holidays to avoid: The Fourth of July - Who wants to be stuck indoors when there's fireworks everywhere? St. Patrick's Day (unless you are an Irish or Celtic act), All the Monday Holidays (Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend) because people travel, BBQ and throw their own parties. Avoid Halloween and Valentine's Day, unless your act or release naturally fits into those themes. The Super bowl and other big sports events, like the Summer Olympics should also be given a wide berth.

One more thing to consider is the date you will print on your artwork if you release in December and and the copyright dates are all this year then, in January, your album will look like it's last year's news. Releasing earlier in the year can give your new product months and months of fresh shelf life. Releasing in the Spring or late Winter can insure your product is available for the Summer Festivals (that you should already be booking).

A little thought and research can help you avoid some common album release mistakes and get you the most bang for your buck.

Good luck with your release.