Gigging

Playing live is the lifeblood for most bands. Whether they want to call it a concert, gig, or live performance etc., it all means the same thing, which is getting out, and connecting with your audience, in a face to face setting. It's the single best way for an unknown band to develop a following, and earn fans, in my opinion. It's also the main way, that up and coming bands, as well as established ones, generate income, these days.

Before the age of mp3's, iTunes, and digital distribution, artists earned most of their income from album sales and hit singles. Back then, an artist would would put out an album, and tour to promote the album. The tour's goal was basically to break even. Some might earn a little and some might lose a little, but all in all, it was not the artist's main source of income.

In today's world, the exact opposite occurs. An artist signed to a major label, hardly earns anything on album sales, unless it is a smash hit and sells millions. These days, the artist's primary source of income is through touring, and playing live shows. Have you noticed how much more, concert tickets are these days? The reason why? The artist still needs to be able to cover the costs involved, in putting on the show, and now needs to be able to make a profit from the show, as they are no longer generating income from album sales. Where as before, a show was done to support an album, now an album is done to support a show.

To date, Sand Dollar Rodeo has played two live shows, and one internet broadcast. Roy originally booked the two live shows, as Roy Holliday solo shows. We changed them to Sand Dollar Rodeo shows, once Roy and I teamed up. We thought this would be a great way to get SDR jump started. The first ever Sand Dollar Rodeo show, was held in McKinney, Texas, at the Mack Farm, on September 2, 2012. The event, was a brand new festival called "Okra Fest", that was hosted by Jeff and Shelly Mack. Jeff is a part of the filming crew, for the televison show Troubadour, TX, which chronicles the lives of Texas musicians, all across the state. For more information, and show times, check out their website at http://trobadourtx.com

Our second show was held in Seven Points, Texas, on September 22, 2012. The event, was the "Angels In Tropical Shirts" cancer benefit. It was an all day event, and featured many other talented musicians such as Ben Reyna, Scotty Lee Shuffield, Lucky Boyd, Terry Rasor, Don Burke, Mike Elras, Joe Bennett, Dennis Davis, and The Bad Monkeys. This is a wonderful benefit and it raised over $14,000.00, for cancer research.

Our first ever internet broadcas,t occured on October 20, 2012. We plan to do these from time to time, as our schedule allows. We call these shows, "Rodeo Radio". We had a nice response from our first broadcast, and had listeners tuned in all over the country. Among the states represented, were Michigan, Pennsylvania, Massachussetts, and of course Texas. If I missed your state, please forgive me! I'll do better next time, I promise!

One of the hurdles, facing new bands, is just being able to book a show. You can sound great, have a great promo pack, really present yourself well, and still have a problem, landing gigs. I think there are probably muliple reasons that this may happen, but I think the biggest one, the venue is concerned with is, "How big is your following?" I can see that being a concern for a venue, as the last thing that they want to do, is bring in a band, pay them, pay their staff, and then have an empty venue. It's a real Catch-22. On the band side you can say, "How are we supposed to build up a following, if no one will book us, and let us play?" I think this is the reason a lot of bands, fold up the tents. You have to believe in yourself, plus have an incredible drive, and passion for what you are doing.

Roy and I were previously spending a tremendous amount of time, trying to obtain show bookings. A lot of times, we would get no response back from the venue at all. One venue, in particular, had a phone number listed on it's website, to call for bookings. I contacted this number several times, left messages, and received no call back. There were numerous others, that wanted you to email information to them. I would follow the instructions, and get no response back. When I would get a response back, it was usually something along the lines of, "What kind of following do you have?" "How much do you charge?" "Do you also play covers?" "How many gigs have you played?', and so on. The last one, was an actual question I received. I'm thinking, "Huh, what does that have to do with anything?" I had one venue contact me, said they liked the music, and wanted to book us. I replied back, that day, and told them, "That sounded great." I asked them for some more details, never heard anything back, so I contacted them again, a few days later. They responded back, that day, with more details. I replied back, the same day, to confirm a date and time, and again, never heard back from them. I attempted to follow up, five days later, and never received a response back.

Roy was having the same kind of issues, that I was. One day, he said, " This is almost getting comical." I agreed and asked, "I know it sounds ridiculous, but should we maybe look at getting a booking agent?" He agreed with me that it was ridiculous, at our level, to need an agent. He came up with an idea, to post an ad on Craigslist, (ahh... Craigslist again), to get feedback on our music, and to get opinions on where we should be looking for gigs. He received a response from a booking agent, named Marti, who said she liked our music, said their was a good market for it, and that she could get us booked.

Shortly thereafter, we had a conference call with Marti, to go over all the details. We decided to bring her aboard, to handle all of the bookings for SDR. Roy and I handed over all of our booking information, to her, that we had been working on.

Marti is off to a running start, and has been doing a phenomenal job. She has already been able to make contact with several of the venues, that Roy and I were unable to. She just booked a show at a venue, that I had no luck with, and is in the process of booking several other shows. If you are interested in booking SDR for an event, please email Marti here eventsbymarti@sbcglobal.net with information, and she will contact you back.

Roy and I both felt like a weight had been lifted off of our shoulders, when we brought Marti onboard. This has freed us up to concentrate on other areas of SDR, namely rehearsing, writing new music, and recording our album. We plan to hit the live shows hard, starting in January 2013. Until then, feel free to catch one of our Rodeo Radio events. The next one is scheduled for Saturday, November 17, 2012, at 2pm Central Time. For more information on Rodeo Radio, please check out my blog post entitled "Rodeo Radio." You can also find out more, at our official website www.sanddollarrodeo.com

Well, that's all I have for now. Until next time, thanks for reading and I'll talk to you soon!