The Perils of Ignoring Good Advice

Good advice - it's not hard to find if you look in the right places and more often or not it lands on your lap

If you've played our gigs before you'll be aware of the 14 page promo tips document that we sent out to help bands effectively market themselves - yes you read that right - 14 pages of free advice and as far as I'm aware we're the only Manchester based promoters that do this!!

It's something I put in place as I knew what hard work was needed on the marketing and promotion when I managed a young band - the band in question had a sizeable fanbase playing their own shows to 300+ people each time as well as gaining support slots to 700+ gigs and yet it took a huge amount of effort to get in that position

When the band split up I looked at the disparity between what i'd done on a management level and then what I was seeing other bands doing so felt the easiest way was to start with a promo tools document and then regularly blog on music marketing tips

The 2 most read fruits of which are the following 2 Blogs which both were retweeted to audiences over 36,000 by the likes of Tom Robinson, Michael Brandvold and Kerrang DJs amongst other

* 8 Reasons Your Gigs Aren't As Busy As You'd Like - Click Here

* 10 Things Bands Need To Do Every Day - Click Here

So what happens when bands ignore good advice?

You stay stagnant and your audience dwindles - sounds harsh, but it's true!

Each month we put on around 30 bands and most are thankful for the advice saying things like "We don't get that level of support with other promoters and are just used to having no help"

It's fantastic to see a band who don't get social media and don't get marketing suddenly get it and go from a handful of fans to a full room.... who then buy their EP and T-shirts and the circle begins of escalating success and bigger crowds

Occasionally you'll get situations where a band has more members on stage than in the audience and when doing so I always go back to the 2 blogs above and can pinpoint exactly what went wrong for them. It's a shame cos more often than not these are fantastically talented bands who get given advice, read it, choose to ignore and don't have the best possible opportunity to shine

Just last week we had a band who pulled out of a gig at short notice - they hadn't bothered to check emails in over a week, they hadn't updated their facebook page in 2 weeks and they'd have had to be blind to have missed the 2 articles above.

Sadly i've learnt the hard way that you can't help a band who aren't prepared to help themselves

So if you're reading this please go and re-read the 2 great advice blogs above, share this article out and tell us your own good advice to push bands forward on our facebook page - we're as equally keen to hear advice from the new bands playing our all ages gigs as much as bands who have been playing for 10 or 20 years - we've always treated under 18s bands with the same level of respect as over 18s bands and are always keen to learn new ideas!!

Also remember to follow us on twitter @designermag - we tweet out industry advice from music industry experts every single day

And if you like what you've read here - book a gig with us by clicking here

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