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Many people think that when you are involved in a creative venture like music or art, you don’t need to worry too much about business skills.  To quote Jeremy from Peep Show, “Here be beauty, there be pie charts”.  Certainly, what will ultimately make you succeed is your talent and creativity, and further down the line you may have people to take care of the business stuff for you, but when you’re starting out and trying to grow your following and even make some money out of your band, thinking of your band as a business can really help you.  Here are some business concepts that can help bands focus their efforts outside of writing and playing, this is equally relevant to a wedding band as it is to a band who write and play their own music.

Branding

Of course, this is just business speak for stuff you already knew was important, like your image.  Bands, like businesses, work best if they have a focussed and defined brand, which is shown on all of their promotional materials.  You should decide on a logo, and keep it consistent across anything you put out, from record sleeves and flyers to your web presence (which includes your own website and any social media pages for the band).  Your brand is more than just your logo, however, it is the unique package that makes your band what it is, which is what you want your new fans to be able to easily get a sense of.

Marketing and Promotion

As an artist, you want to be heard.  As a business, you want to make money.  The only way to achieve either of these things is to make as many people as possible aware of what you are doing.  Marketing and promotion is not just about making sure your next gig is well advertised, it is also about researching your target demographic – which means learning what else people who like your genre of music are doing in any city you want to play in and tapping into things that will help make them aware of you and that you are one of the professional bands for hire, who play the type of music they are looking for.

Networking

There are very few things you can try and do where knowing the right people doesn’t help and music is no exception.  Obviously sidling up to record company executives and trying to become their new best friend hardly ever works, but use any opportunity you get, physically and via social media, to build relationships with people either in the music industry or in complimenting fields, such as owners of venues where you could play, bloggers who could review your gigs and people who can provide services you might need (such as wedding photographers or guitar shops).

Finance

You need to be able to plan and forecast the spend involved in things like touring, producing merchandise, advertising and so on versus potential return on investment. This is sometimes something you can do quite easily – for example how many ticket sales you’d need to make or how much a venue would need to pay you to make a tour or gig worthwhile in money terms (of course this is much easier if you play corporate entertainment for fixed prices). In other cases, you have to deal with more long term or abstract ideas, like whether the increased exposure a tour would give you would make it worth, in the long run, making a loss on actually doing it and advertising it. of course location can be quite relevant these days with the cost of fuel to consider, so if you are one of the party bands who are based in Devon, then try to find local gigs, as the costs will begin to spiral if you are playing a wedding in Hampshire not to mention the extra time involved in traveling.

Tags: corporate entertainment, finance, gigs, hire, music, party band

Posted in party band