Creating a Booking Contract or Performance Agreement

Last week, I received several questions about bands or venues cancelling last minute and what the repercussions were. Between that and taking law classes at night, I’ve had a lot of contracts on the mind. Hopefully this will help answer some of your questions about band contracts, if you need them, and how to create one.

I’ll cover some of the more popular questions below:

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5 Features Of A Great Electronic Press Kit

Much like crafting a sound job resume, there are key features within an electronic press kit that are instituted for the best results. Learn the five requirements that every musician must include to create a powerful and effective EPK that will provide numerous booking, broadcasting, and licensing opportunities.

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Getting paid gigs - a mindset issue?

An interview with Simon Scardanelli of Dr Scardo by Eliza Michaels, author of The Fan Formula.

Chatting to Simon Scardanelli about his new band, Dr Scardo, he mentioned most of their gigs are paid. I was intrigued so I asked Simon how he does it.

Scardanelli is able to look back on a long and varied career with an ironic appreciation of its highs and lows. As a child of the 60’s, Simon has been singing, writing and recording since the age of 16. He’s worked extensively in Europe and the US. Having been signed to both major and independent labels, Simon has an uncompromising attitude to his work and now releases independently through Resonator Records.

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The Real Reason You Fail To Make Money From Your Music

I’m going to keep this one short and straight to the point. The music industry is a hard one to make money from, we all know that. When it’s all said and done however, if you’re talented, have been making music for a while and don’t make any money from it, you’re doing the wrong things!

For a lot of people, their idea of promotion is adding people on Facebook and Reverb Nation and messaging them about their music. In all honesty, this is doing next to nothing for your music career. How much money do you ever make from doing this? My guess is none, at most you’ll get a small ego boost when the odd person replies saying your music’s good.

The thing is, this type of marketing is very short term and a big waste of your time. While social media should be a part of your strategy, looking for fans one by one isn’t the best use of your time. If you stop and analyse your results in terms of sales from this promotion, I’m sure you’ll come to the same conclusion.

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Think Outside the Venue To Get That First Gig

Most new bands approach the first part of their careers like this: We need to find an audience, but in order to find an audience we have to play shows. If we want to play shows we have to get a talent buyer to book us, but talent buyers are going to want to know we can draw an audience before they’ll ever consider letting us play. It’s a frustrating catch-22. Thankfully, it’s also not the only (or even the best) route to finding your first audience or building your initial fan base. It just means that you’re going to have to go around the gatekeepers and find fans somewhere else.

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