Music & Fashion Pt Deux

In our last blog about Music & Fashion, we highlighted how these two elements can come together to make a powerful force in the entertainment and fashion industries. You can take that on and allow yourself as an indie artist to be a part of that force. Today, music artists are setting the latest fashion trends. Consumers are being inspired by what today’s hottest artists are wearing on red carpets, interviews, appearances, concerts, and even on their social media during random outings. Some wardrobe choices are only meant for the stage however, fans are constantly wondering, “What are they wearing? How can I get it?” This blog can go for up & coming fashion moguls as well. You want your clothes to have more exposure in your industry, team up with a great artist to help build that brand. Gain their fans as future customers.

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Post-Show Procedures: 8 Things Every Band Should Do After the Performance

Do you have a post-show plan? Is there a set of procedures that you work on after each performance? Or, does your band simply work on the next upcoming event – the next show, the next rehearsal, time in the studio, etc.?

In almost every professional endeavor, there is some kind of routine or review period to measure performance or follow-up with customers:

• In sports, the coach diligently sits down with the entire team to review footage of the previous game. Team member celebrate successes and most importantly, look for areas of improvement.

• In corporate business, the board of directors and executive staff look over stock performance and make decisions to keep their shareholders satisfied.

• In the arts, performers carefully review each element of the show to see what delighted audiences and what could use work.

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How Artists Should Deal with Auto-Renewing Contracts

It’s easy to fall into the routine of scrolling past terms conditions agreements without thinking much about them. However, they can often affect the future of your music, where it can be released, who controls it, and how it can be distributed. For example, a licensing agreement can change how future revenues are received (or waive future royalties entirely); a contract with one distributor might limit future opportunities with another; some sponsorship agreements will bind you/your band members to one specific type of product. These are all instances when you are limited by the choices made without full consideration of long-term effects.

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How to Suck at Asking for a Sponsorship

For some reason, I’ve been getting a lot of emails this week from artists asking me to sponsor them directly. I’m guessing it’s a combination of me writing about the subject and laziness where they don’t realize that I don’t provide those services directly, I simply provide tools for artists to aid them in that area.

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Need help winning Joe Bonamassa's Blues Masters Competition

Hello my name is Hollaman Lindsay and I am asking all of you to see if you can possibly aid me in my attempt to win Joe Bonamassa’s Blues Masters Competition. The first round for this contest is based off of viral popularity and how many views and shares your audition video gets, now I aint sayin that I cant generate that many views and shares because I dont have the talent, Its just that I live in Hiram Georgia and we got more stock in rakes then we do computers so its hard for me to find many people around me to support it. So I am inquiring you to see if you can help me get my name out there and get my audition video views and shares because if I can get past this first round and make it to guitar duals I think I got it made in the shade.

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Creating an Unstoppable Kickstarter Campaign: Start With the Fans

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by John Lee Dumas of Entrepreneur on Fire. He was launching a new podcast series called “The Great Business Experiment: Kickstarter.” It featured interviews with ten successful Kickstarter campaigns to talk about what worked, what was learned, and what can be done for the future. 

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Pitching Your Band

If you were presented with the opportunity to pitch your band directly to the Chief A&R representative for Capital Records, what would you say? If there was a venture capitalist looking to invest into the dreams of one band, how would you convince them to choose you? If your favorite band was in town and looking for an opener, what would you tell the promoter about your act?

Being able to pitch your band is one of the most important steps in being able to book shows, secure sponsorships, get a booking agent/manager, receive press, and even to getting on a label. It’s also one of the areas that I see independent musicians struggling with the most. Even though I have a disclaimer on LastStopBooking.com that we are not accepting submissions, I still receive about 50-100 EPK submissions and query letters per week. 90% of these sound the same: the band describes themselves as having “great music,” and they almost always say they are different than other artists because they are “hardworking.”

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