Great gigs for first timers

Whether a band or a solo artist, every performer has to start somewhere when it comes to performing live shows, even if these initial gigs aren’t always the most exciting or glamorous. Once you’re off-book with a solid time block of material, here are a few great “early” gigs you should try and play.

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6 considerations for summer shows

There’s a lot to love about summertime shows and concerts. From a performer’s perspective, concert venues in the summer are usually outside which not only allow for more people in the audience but offer a more fun, festival-like performing atmosphere. Paired with the nice warm weather, summer shows prove time and time again to be a hit with performers and audience members alike.

But as a performer, you know that you must be prepared for anything to happen to ensure the most successful show possible. Take a look at our 6 considerations to make sure that you’re adequately prepared for your next outdoor summer show!

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How To Create An Attractive Stage Setup For Your Next Country Music Concert

The attractiveness of your stage depends on your target audience. You want to design something that will appeal to your audience and fit within your venue requirements. Here are some of the factors that you should take under advisement for your next country music concert.

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Does Every Outside Concert Venue Supply Facilities For Attendees?

An outside concert venue can take more time in order to prepare for the event. You have to take into account the number of people that will attend and any permits that may be required. Here are some of the things that you’ll need to take into account so that you can provide the attendees with a fun and safe experience.

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Tagging Fail: How To Keep Your Music Venue Free Of Graffiti

While bouncers and indoor surveillance cameras do a good job of protecting your music venue and the guests inside of it, you may be overlooking the outside of your club. Night after night, the outside walls of your business run the risk of serving as a graffiti artist’s canvas. Graffiti is unsightly and sometimes difficult to remove, so it’s important you take steps to prevent problems.

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UPDATE: Jennifer Holliday Cancels Performance Trump Inauguration, Addresses The Backlash

UPDATE: January 14th, 1:16 P.M. EST…

Jennifer Holliday has ultimately decided to cancel her involvement in the Trump inauguration. In an open letter published by The Wrap, Holliday apologized to the LGBT community, to whom she credits the birth her career, for her “lapse judgement” and explained the initial reasons why she wanted to perform. The singer added that a widely-shared article published in The Daily Beast inspired her to pull out the performance.

Stay tuned for updates.

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Yesterday, an ficial announcement was made that Jennifer Holliday would be performing at Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration next week. The Grammy- and Tony-winning singer said she doesn’t understand the negative feedback she’s been bombarded with since the news came about.

“I was like, nobody knows that I’m alive and then I decide to sing a song and I wake up and they all hate me,” the Broadway singer and actress told Billboard. “I haven’t even endorsed anything,” she says, “I’m not singing for Donald Trump; I’m singing to welcome the people America. He cannot be the only face that’s gonna represent us. And just to have all white people up there singing is not going to be a fair representation either. So you’re just saying don’t go? Really? I’m just very disheartened by it that it would be so much hate.”

She goes on to insist that her decision was not a political one (in fact, she voted for Clinton), but rather she was inspired by what she thought President Obama wanted us to do. “I didn’t hear any that hate] spewed from the Obamas,” she says. “I thought that they told us to move on and try to be hopeful and make this a smooth transition. I didn’t understand that the orders were a wink and a nod to make sure that America doesn’t succeed or that Trump doesn’t succeed. … I thought we were just trying to pull together.”

Ms. Holliday is the latest performer to be announced in the inauguration line up alongside 3 Doors Down and Toby Keith. She remains the only black performer on the bill after acts like Celine Dion, Kiss, and Kanye West declined to hit the stage. Members the African-American and Broadway community, who have been at odds with Trump’s positions on social issues involving minorities, immigrants and women, have denounced Holliday’s decision to participate.

Still, she insists she’s not worried about the impact this will have on her career. “If everyone’s trying to say that’s the end my career, then I guess that will have to be, but I’m going to believe that that won’t be and that maybe other people will try to also see what we can do to unite the country on what little hope togetherness we have left.”

SOURCE: Billboard | IMAGE CREDIT: Getty

UPDATE: Jennifer Holliday Cancels Performance Trump Inauguration, Addresses The Backlash

How To Quickly Become A Professional Musician

Out of all the musicians who try to make it in the music industry, very few ever will. This is because the majority of them spend their time doing things that won’t actually accomplish significant success in the music business. As a result, most musicians will become very frustrated and quit pursuing their musical dreams.

Here are six reasons why you have not become a professional musician yet, and what you should do to immediately move your career forward

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Ten Music Biz Predictions, Hopes & Dreams for 2016

1 Return of Real Songs

Millennials will come out of their collective fog and realize that what passes for pop music these days – well-produced, pleasant, beat-driven, formula, lyrically repetitive, singsongy, non-melodic music – are not really songs. Real songs – narrative stories with beginnings, middles and ends (as well as the clever bridges) - will stage a comeback, and real songwriters and performers will breathe a collective sigh of relief.

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6 Dead Giveaways That You're Uncomfortable Onstage

This post originally appeared on the Sonicbids Blog

Performing live music is a nerve-racking experience. No amount of singing in the mirror or head-banging in the garage can quite prepare you for the moment when the lights come up and you’re there. The center of attention. The subject of scrutiny. “Here we are now, entertain us.”

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How To Be A Successful Performing Artist In The New Millennium - Part Two

Last month, in Part One, we established that the only money in the music business right now is in performing your own songs and owning your own publishing and merch. We looked at the eleven things an aspiring singer/songwriter needed to do in order to be able to take the next step into learning how to become an entertainer and communicate and connect with an audience. Part One involved a lot of hard work and long, boring hours of practice and re-writes with little to no payoff. Now it gets interesting, although there’s still plenty of hard work ahead. Part Two assumes that the artist has completed all the steps in Part One.

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How To Become A Successful Performing Artist In The New Millennium – Part One

“The great thing about rock and roll is that someone like me can be a star.” – Elton John

It shouldn’t be news to anyone in the music business today that the smart (and maybe the only) money is in live performance, merchandising (which is kind of tied into live performance) and publishing (and all of its Constitutionally-guaranteed income streams). The bottom line: If you want to make a living these days on the artist side of the music business, you need to write and publish your own songs and perform them from the stage in an entertaining manner. Here’s a step-by-step list of how you might go about doing that – starting with the live performance side. (Note: There are probably a couple hundred other ways to accomplish this – but the odds are better this way. You’ll see why.)

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Performing Music Gets Us High

There’s a reason why we play music. Performing music makes us high. Every musician who’s ever gigged has experienced the rush on stage when you played something so cool that they rest of the band would give you that acknowledging smile. Or when the whole band does something at once in such a tight fashion that it’s like thinking with the same mind. Or hearing the whistles and applause at the end of a song. That’s what keeps us doing it. Now new research confirms what we’ve always known.

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How Flexible Pricing Can Help You Sell More Merch

This article originally appeared on CD Baby’s DIY Musician Blog.

Why the Value of Your Merch Changes Every Day

Let’s say you just started a hot-sauce business. The price of your product probably changes depending on the buyer; lower-end grocery stores, shi-shi markets, restaurants, and direct customers on your website will all pay a little something different for the same mouth-burning sensations— to say nothing of the folks who will try free samples at the store.

Musical products aren’t that different; the value of your merch changes from gig to gig, and should (or could) be priced accordingly. This is NOT “Name-Your-Price,” but an alternate system where the band and manager keep the context of the concert in mind when setting today’s “market price.” And unlike fish, your music won’t grow stale,… right?

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The Four P’s of Playing Live Shows: Preparation

The “Four P’s” is a term used to describe the traditional Marketing Mix: Product, Price, Placement, and Promotion. Well, I’m going to borrow from that expression and talk about the Four P’s of Playing Live Shows: Preparation, Promotion, Performance, and Post-Show. This series of blog posts will cover the things that you can be doing as a live performer to maximize each show. Part 1 is all about preparation.

The Four P’s of Playing Live Shows: Preparation

We’re going to start with the assumption that you’ve chosen a venue and confirmed a date with the venue booker. For tips about getting booked, see one of my previous posts 5 Ways to Impress Venue Bookers and Get More Gigs.

Once the gig is confirmed, here are some things you will need to prepare for the show:

Who will the opening band(s) be?

I guess the first question really is will there even be an opening band? The answer will almost always be yes, as the benefits are clear. An opening band can warm up the crowd, hopefully bring their own fans to the show, and help with the promotion of the show. So when choosing an *opening band, a few things to consider (*and if you happen to be the opening band, much of this advice can still apply):

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