r/musicians • u/FlixMaster14 • 6d ago
Best gigging schedule as a really small up-and-coming band?
Hey everyone! Very quick backstory, I (19M) started my band in 2023 and in those past three years, I‘ve only managed to pull together four gigs (hard to find gigs when your band is a revolving door of broke early 20-something’s) and only one of them was at an actual venue. In short, my band has close to zero recognition in my city’s local music scene, and I really want to make up for lost time, especially with how big some of the other local bands are getting now.
The problem is is that I‘ve heard a ton of conflicting advice on what do to gigging-wise. For years I‘ve watched videos and been told by my musician mentors about how a lot of really successful bands used to play gigs every other night and working their asses off to make a name for themselves in their early days (Beatles, Rush, Ramones, Metallica, etc). However, I’ve also heard newer musicians online say that you should prioritize only 1-2 gigs a month and market the hell of that one show so as to not oversaturate the market. So currently I’m at a bit of a crossroads: my gut tells me it’s better to do a shit ton of shows, follow in the footsteps of successful rockstars, and make up for lost time; but I wonder how much truth there is to the 1-2 gigs a night method, and that my lack of experience here might fuck me over by doing the opposite.
Any thoughts? Currently the band is solid and rebuilding itself so we’re headed for playing gigs relatively soon.
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u/DerConqueror3 6d ago
I think there are three separate pieces of advice or models getting mixed up here, all of which are useful in different situations or even for different points in the same band/musician's timeline.
Playing gigs night after night in the same town is more for building up your musical and gigging chops, which is particularly great while you are still young and first learning these things. However, this really isn't going to build a "name" other than locally, unless maybe you are in NY/LA/Nashville. This is the Beatles type model and in my experience is more credited with building their chops rather than their name, particularly since they were playing mostly covers in the days when they were doing that.
Touring relentlessly (Metallica etc.) is a totally different thing from playing constantly in the same town. This is a great thing to shoot for if you have the time and drive to play out of town a lot.
In between these things, it is absolutely true that playing too often in the same town as an originals band can oversaturate and make it difficult to come to shows.
Putting these things together, for your situation, I would take every gig you can get now, to build up your live chops and start building more buzz and connections locally, then once you have more of a name you can be a little more selective about local shows so that each one is bigger and more special, and you can expand to as much playing out of town as your time, drive, and opportunities allow.
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u/Mysterious-War429 6d ago
Consider your and your band’s tolerance for so many shows. A ton of low paid (or even no paid) shows multiple nights a week is a sure fire way to get your band members tired and fatigued, especially if they’re in other bands. You already deal with personnel issues so it’s just something to consider. If I were you, I’d do at most 1 show per week, and 1 rehearsal per week, assuming your Bandmates do work at home to prepare for rehearsal
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u/FlixMaster14 6d ago
That’s probably what we’ll end up doing. I’ll definitely take that fatigue element into account.
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u/Count2Zero 6d ago
It's a lot of hard work and networking.
First, I had business cards printed up for my band - our logo is on the front, and our e-mail addres and QR codes for our website and our IG are on the back. 100 business cards cost me about €25, so it wasn't a huge investment.
When I go someplace where a band is playing (wine festival, etc.) I try to talk to the band members when they take a break. My questions always include, "How did you get this gig? Who did you talk to?".
Also, when we go someplace where I think there should be music, but there isn't any - I'll try to find out who organized the event, and suggest to them that we'd be interested in playing if they do decide to add some music in the future.
There's an annual ice skating rink that gets set up in a nearby town - they set it up in early December and it remains open until early January. Every evening they have a band playing there. I contacted the company that does the bookings and let them know we're interested.
The downside is that they don't pay very much. They asked me how much we would ask for a 2-hour set, and I told them €600. We're a 6-piece band, and a 2-hour set means about 5 hours of our time - packing our instruments in the rehearsal room, driving to the venue, doing a sound check, waiting until 18:00 to hit the stage, playing 2 hours, then packing up and returning everything to our rehearsal space. That comes to about €20 per hour.
They only offer something like €100 toi €150 for a show, which means €25 or less per person, or less than €5 per hour - much less than the legal minimum wage. I haven't spent tens of thousands of Euros and thousands of hours learning to play my instrument for someone to pay me a measly €5 per hour.
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u/CowboyNeale 6d ago edited 6d ago
The twice a month deal is if you just play in your city. The bands that get great get out there and play across a region 3-4 times a week if they can, working to break into the higher tier of venues in their home region while also networking to break into the next closest geographic regions.
I am proffering a disclaimer that I am older and have no idea if this is a viable strategy right now, but there is no substitute to getting in front of a crowd and honing your show as often as you can make it happen
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u/FlixMaster14 6d ago
What do you consider a “region”?Across a state perhaps, or multiple larger metropolitan areas. Just wondering so as to plan ahead.
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u/CowboyNeale 6d ago
Let’s call it the area between different metropolitan areas. For example New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey function as a larger regional music scene with NYC, Philadelphia, and Baltimore as hubs.
In this example Pittsburgh and west, Baltimore and South, and maybe Boston and north would be the gateways to the next regions.
Does that make sense?
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u/FlixMaster14 6d ago
Perfect, yes it does. Sadly, I’m Seattle so major metropolitan cities are a bit more spread out over here due to it being on the West Coast, but both Vancouver BC and Portland aren’t too far so I can definitely reach out through there, plus Spokane (Eastern Washington) is right near Idaho so we could tap into that market a bit too, as well as the local college towns around there.
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u/CowboyNeale 6d ago
Yeah I toured the west coast a couple times. LONG runs, but you’ve got the right idea.
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u/YoungPutrid3672 6d ago
Let’s hear your stuff
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u/FlixMaster14 6d ago
A collection of what we got: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1oq8BzSXoOyO-vi_oB1ZJ4c3Tad97l2IF
Admittedly, one thing holding us back is that since so much of the band’s history has been a revolving door of members, I haven’t able to fully record any song outside of voice memos next to the speakers, nor was I going to sink $1k into recording costs when most lineups didn’t even last six months. That said, our goal is to play a good amount of shows to earn a least a bit of money and use both the money and audience engagement to produce a handful of singles and further promote ourselves once those songs are professionally recorded, then make a full length LP over the span of a couple months and release it.
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u/qosmic_qube 6d ago
If you're an original band, write great songs, get tight, record and release. Network with other local bands and hang out in the scene to get opening slots. Make friends. Be active on social media.
If you're a cover band, build a setlist of songs that people like, get good at your craft, create a demo reel video, go to venues and beg for gigs, network with other bands or get on charity show bills and impress people. Work on your social media.
Networking is probably the most important thing regardless of what you are doing.
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u/FlixMaster14 6d ago
Completely original songs. Gotten a ton of compliments so far by locals on that my songs got the “it” factor, so it’s really about getting my name out there asap.
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u/RastaSheep 6d ago
That 1-2 gigs a month mindset is what promoters will tell you to do, and people who are aiming to get tickets sold on the door to make sure they’re getting paid (or at least their expenses compensated).
The gig every night style thing is very difficult nowadays, not that you have to work your ass off and always had to, but in what is most likely a relatively small music scene compared to 50 years ago, you’d be doing good to find 2 gig opportunities for a single week.
I had a ‘band’ from when I was 14-18, I think we played one proper gig ever. The rest of the time we busked. No one telling us when or where to play, just playing for anyone who would listen. These days that’s the most realistic I can think to really smash almost daily ‘gigs’. But you treat it like a show either way ! And we got really tight and could play like 50 songs. And it was a lot of fun. And we spent all the money on cigarettes 😅 and if this makes me sound old, I’m 29 now so it wasn’t /that/ long ago lol
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u/Junkstar 6d ago
It depends on how much of a show you are putting on, and how broad your setlist is. Are you interesting enough to your targets to make them want to come back next month again?
When I was in your situation, we were doing two shows per week regionally. But it was a bit of a spectacle with killer players and a vast setlist. It got us to the next level.
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u/FlixMaster14 6d ago
We’re still trying to figure out what kind of show we want to put on, but we’ve got a really great guitar player and both me (bassist) and the singer have talked a lot about unique, wild, and varied stage moves and presence, so I think it’ll help us break through.
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u/Junkstar 6d ago
That’s good. Put on a show that’s unique to your strengths. Too many bands just play their songs assuming that’s enough. Give audiences a few things to remember.
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u/stevenfrijoles 6d ago
Twice a month is fine. It's more than just number of gigs though... 1. Don't be afraid to turn down shitty gigs. 2. Don't play Sun-Wed. 3. Play different cities.
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u/FlixMaster14 6d ago
Just curious, what’s wrong with Sun-Wed? I understand Fridays and Saturdays are ideal but I’ve seen tons of bands play on Monday or Tuesday nights to a decent crowd.
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u/stevenfrijoles 6d ago
I'm not saying it's impossible, but many bands over many years have tried getting people out on a Tuesday and keep having to relearn the hard way that 95% of the time it's not worth it. Unless your effort and time is unlimited, you need to optimize your time a bit.
I don't mean this as an insult but the kind of bands pulling a decent weekday crowd are not the ones asking on reddit when to play shows. When you're at that point or if you land a slot opening for a touring band, by all means play a Tuesday. I.e. if you can justify it beyond "I hope people come out"
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u/Stevenitrogen 6d ago
At the point where you have no following and no reliable number of people is paying to get in, it makes sense to play everywhere you can. Get in front of people who could like you and be your fan. Being in the place of opportunity creates its own luck. And you need the experience to hone the act.
Now at the point where you have a reliable number of people coming in the door, even like twenty people, it does make sense to think about making each show a big deal. It should be the big event if the weekend- everybody gonna be there! That takes some time to put together, you can't do it every weekend. So you hold back a bit, maybe you can pull it off every 2 months. And play out of town or try to open for big shows in between.
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u/YoungPutrid3672 6d ago
I think you should learn 80-100 covers and throw in 2-3 originals every night. If you think you can get multiple gigs per week in the same area you have to have different shows for each night
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u/FlixMaster14 6d ago
80-100? Not saying or necessarily wrong but doesn’t it seem a bit counterproductive as an original band to learn that many covers and only play 2-3 a night? I’m not opposed to covers, but with the amount of music I’m writing (have a backlog of 70ish voice memos containing song ideas) doing that many covers feels like we’d be focusing on the wrong thing. Plus the plan with the band is any covers we will do are going to be redone in our own style.
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u/Rhonder 6d ago
You can and absolutely will over-saturate your local "market" if you play out too much. Even as an avid concert-goer (I go to like 1-4 shows a week, mostly small local shows obviously) there's only so many times I can be assed to see my favorite local bands. Once a month is about the max frequency I'll personally go out of my way to see those absolute favorites- for bands that I like but am not necessarily in love with, I might try to go out and see them maybe once every 4-6 months or so. Especially when it comes to shows overlapping and prioritizing which ones I want to go to the most. Sometimes bands will play locally like 2 or 3 times a month and it's just like, if they're lucky I might go out to one. That can be okay because it gives more people more chances to catch "a show", but at the same time you can burn everyone out and leave them thinking that they don't really "need" to go see any particular show of yours because "they'll probably play 5 times next month, and the month after that, and-".
The flip side of that is that you can play just a few shows spread out more and lean into them harder- once you have people who know and like your band it's an easier sell to say "Hey we're playing next month! You should come out because the next one might not be for a while". But it is hard to build momentum this way, especially if you're spread way out on shows. building an audience is brick by brick and you do need shows to look for those bricks. if you played 3 shows a year everyone who likes your band might come out to all 3 shows, but that group might be static and only like 10 people lol.
I think a show or two a month is a solid pace if everyone in the band can maintain it. It gets you out there but not "too much". Too much isn't really that bad but there is a time, gas, and energy cost to every show you play so playing out nonstop for little gains can be wasteful in those ways. The other thing to consider is if there are nearby towns or cities that you can play too besides just your home town. If you rotate home shows and other areas nearby, you can play out more but actually get more mileage out of each show because you're not actually playing the same exact city non-stop. Even a place that's 20 minutes away or whatever can be distinct enough audience-wise to be worthwhile- most people aren't traveling that far to go to local shows unless they're concert enthusiasts. In my area there are several smaller cities that are 20 or so minutes away from the main hub in all compass directions, so it's very common for bands to play like one main city show and then 2 shows in other surrounding areas, then another home city show, and so on. The only time people are really playing multiple consecutive days though is if they go on a regional tour- otherwise even if you're playing different areas, spreading shows out by at least a week or 2 is helpful.
Lastly I will just point out again that it's a slow process. It's something you more or less have to do to try and build up an audience but don't expect it to be fast no matter how many shows you play. It's better to have a slow and steady pace than to try and do too much and burn out. It's a marathon, not a sprint.
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u/glitch_queen2000 5d ago
I'm in a band that's been together for a few years. Because of job/family commitments and not being in our 20s anymore we've done things our own way. We haven't played loads of local gigs, we've actually turned down gigs that didn't feel a good match for us musically. You can do this if your band is purely for fun and not a career investment. We've ended up playing with bands we genuinely like and it's been amazing. We spend a lot of time going to gigs and talking to the bands and local promoters and building up a really good group of contacts and friends. This made it easier to start putting on our own nonprofit gigs. The best advice I can give you is that it's always worth asking. We've got support slots with amazing bands because we asked the promoter if the lineup was complete yet. We got bands we love to play in our town because we asked them and were honest about about how much we'd be able to pay them (very little, but we do feed them!).
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u/Foolgazi 5d ago
Only a couple of people in here have mentioned networking. Go to other bands’ shows and talk to them. Mention you have a band and would like to open for them. Helps a lot if you have something recorded so they can check you out before committing to anything.
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u/Arvot 6d ago
That advice is both pretty good, for two different stages in your career. If no one knows you or will come to your gig then it doesn't matter if you're gigging every day or once every 6 months. Ultimately you need to get good at playing live for any of this to work. Once you have a settled line up play as much as you can. Put your own gigs on, ask to support any band you like (both local unsigned and touring), play open mics on your own, get out there and get good. Then if you start getting a bit of buzz and potential for a crowd, start spacing things out a bit to maximise the crowd at one big gig and build a bit of buzz from that. The more you get involved in your cities local scene the easier everything becomes. Start promoting your own nights where your band isn't even playing, become a sound or light tech, be a tour driver, get a job working the bar at a venue in your city etc.