How to book a concert tour (part 3): constraints and objectives

In part 2 of this blog series on “how to book a concert tour for yourself” I discussed the four levels of contacts to approach for help. I realise that it’s somewhat unconventional to do so.

Most musicians would contact the concert producers and venue owners directly by blitzing them with generic, templated e-mails. Any replies would then be followed up. While this may be the fast and efficient way, I prefer to know who I’m writing to. That’s why I advised to look into other indirect approaches to getting a concert. It may take more time, but in the end, it’s more rewarding as relationships get formed and built.

Bouquets after a concert in the Netherlands

Now that you have your sizzle and contact list, how do you go about getting concerts?

Let’s take a step back and set the constraints and objectives of your tour.

What are the earliest and latest dates of your tour? In other words, give yourself deadlines. For us, we had to arrive in the USA by 21st October 2010 or else our visas would expire worthless. For that reason, we were happy to get a concert on 21st October 2010. This meant we had to arrive by then. We also fixed a date to arrive in Maui, by Thanksgiving.

What are the must visit places on your tour? You can set your priorities by deciding on people you want to see and places you want to visit. In our case, we chose to begin with New England in the Fall — a top tourist attraction. It was that time of the year that was the prettiest to visit Massachusetts. We spent the first two weeks of our tour in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York. As neither of us had been to Phoenix, Denver, Davis, or Sacramento, we looked forward to new experiences. Finally, we plugged in other cities where we had friends and/or concerts booked: Durham, Houston, and San Francisco.

Decide on your objectives of your concert tour.

If you want to cover your expenses, be sure to book enough gigs and sell out your CDs. Try to get as many concerts in one area as possible. We gave 4 concerts in 2 days in Phoenix. There was one day in Houston that we clocked in 2 radio shows, a duo concert, and a guitar solo concert.

We approached our America Tour very differently from tours in the past that were primarily vacation with a concert or concerts that did not cover the expenses (Slagelse 2004, Cape Town 2005, Cortona 2006, Houston 2007, London 2008, Madrid 2009, and Taipei 2010).  We obtained visas for the USA to work not play. We were not on vacation though it felt like we were because of the generous hospitality provided by our hosts. All concerts that we gave were paid for — either by the hosts or the audiences, except those that we volunteered ourselves for, e.g. MD Andersen Cancer Clinic, and radio shows.

Besides covering the expenses, we wanted to broaden our network. We did so by contacting composers, producers, patrons, performers, and just about anyone who loved classical music enough to be involved. We reconnected with old friends, classmates, and colleagues we had not seen in years. They introduced us to people they knew. We made new contacts at concerts. It was very enriching to meet people who so supported the arts — face to face.

Back to the first question I posed in this 3-part series on booking a concert tour for yourself: which comes first — the concert or the tour?

If you get invited to give a concert somewhere, see if you can stay longer and give other concerts.

If you want to go somewhere (for vacation, training, family visit, etc), see if you can book concerts while you’re there. The spin-offs are considerable: leads for concerts in the future, hospitality, reciprocation, and surprises.

Feel free to comment or ask questions about this topic via the LEAVE A REPLY box below.

 

How to book a concert tour (part 2): content before contact

In part 1, I mentioned the need to put together a sizzle. It’s the equivalent of a menu in a restaurant. Your menu consists of your repertoire. You are the chef. Describe what you can do to turn the indecisive to the decisive, convert a stranger to a friend, and turn your audience into fans.

Monument House Concert Series: outdoor concert in garden, May 2010

Once you are happy with what you have to offer, you are ready to contact the people who can help you. There are several levels of contacts.

1- People who know you and have offered to help you before

These are the people who are committed to getting you a gig. They may not necessarily be the ones who book you for a concert, but they will help make that happen.

We knew our friends in Houston and Phoenix wanted to help us. They told us so in the past. Although we did not know exactly when we would arrive, we tried to keep them updated of our plans. They in turn checked with their contacts — the ones who could actually arrange concerts for us.

2- People who are willing to reciprocate

Barter is an activity older than cash payments for goods and services. Anticipated reciprocation is implicit bartering of getting something you want now for giving something the other party wants in the future. Think about what you have to offer. You have your contacts in your neck of the woods. Can you help others in the future?

If you ask other performing musicians to help you get gigs for your tour, you are implicitly offering to help them in some way in the future. Composers want their works performed. Performers want to perform elsewhere. Concert producers want to be introduced to new musicians they don’t know already. Audiences are eager for new experiences.

Ask yourself if there is something you can bring to the table.

3- People you want to meet and collaborate with

If you are like me, you would have been following and perhaps corresponding with interesting people with interesting ideas. I do this through Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Often one thing leads to another, and I stumble upon somebody I’d like to meet. Use your concert tour to meet these people.

One such person was Chong Kee Tan, who started a new yahoo discussion group for organisers of classical music house concerts. Our online discussions on hosting, audience development, and other issues pertaining to the economics of house concerts led me to ask if he would consider organising a concert for us in San Francisco.

This is like asking a stranger to do something for you — quite unheard of surely! The preparation for a concert allows you to collaborate with the person and get to know him or her better. Indeed by the time we finally met in person, it felt like we already knew each other.

Ask yourself this:

Is there someone you want to meet that you can involve in your concert tour?

4- People who produce concerts or own concert venues

This is the group of people most musicians immediately think of when they contemplate getting themselves booked for concerts. I put this as the last category because everyone else is thinking the same. Your sizzle really must sizzle and dazzle and spark. You are competing with other musicians that want to perform.

I heard that arts organisations and big concert halls require a year’s notice for concert bookings. We did not have a year to plan our tour. We did not even have time to apply for funding. We were self-funded.

The first concert that got booked became the third concert on our tour. It sold out a month before the performance date. The house concert series in rural Connecticut is well-run and well-attended. Our second concert came from a lead from producer of that house concert series. The third concert that got booked became the opening concert of our tour — due to a cancellation in a new concert series in Boston.

Once you have identified who you want to contact, think about the best way to contact them. Some react to phone calls. Some to e-mails. Some prefer to skype. Do not, I repeat, do not send out a generic e-mail and expect a reply. I have received many of these as co-producer of the Monument House Concert Series in the Netherlands. I prefer the personal approach.

Next: how to book a concert tour (part 3) constraints and objectives

How to book a concert tour (part 1): a peace of mind and the sizzle

Back in early October 2010, I posed the circularity of booking a concert tour. It’s the chicken or the egg question. Do you book the tour first or the concert?

In other words, do you get the gigs lined up before you book the flights and cancel other commitments? Or do you book the flights before the fares go up and then hope that you can fill your tour with concert bookings?

Time is the answer. [Someone else would argue: hire an agent.]

The more time you have before you start on your journey, the more opportunities you have.

We knew in late April 2010 when we got our visas that we wanted to give concerts in the USA. We did not know where to start. We sounded out a few people we knew well. Every time we wanted to book our flights, an obstacle came up. Where do we fly to? Where do we come back from? When do we leave? When do we come back? When we finally answered those questions, we discovered we could not leave without a peace of mind.

Bekkers Piano Guitar Duo in San Francisco, November 2010

Step 1: Make sure you have a peace of mind (BEFORE you embark on a tour).

Can you leave your job?  Robert asked for permission to take an unpaid leave of absence. In less flexible parts of the world, this is unheard of.

Can you leave your home? Do you have a mortgage to pay? How will you cover the bills? Can you leave your home empty?

Do you have enough savings to buffer uncertainties that may arise?

Can you cover the large costs of air travel (and others) without bankrupting yourself? [This is a future blog post. Classical guitarist and composer Derek Gripper offers some suggestions.]

Step 2: What do you have to offer —- to get yourself booked?

What are your unique selling points (USP)? How are you different from any other classical guitarist playing solo guitar? Why would anyone want to hear you? Why would anyone want to organise a concert for you?

I call this the Sizzle.

Create a one page document that contains a few words about you, a short biography, your programme, some validation points so people who don’t know you can associate you with something, someone, or somewhere better known & that’s been validated. A sizzle should sizzle. It should make you shine and make the reader want to meet you and find a way to hear you.

For our America Tour, we created a 3-page PDF about ourselves and what we would like to share. We linked the PDF from a webpage that we used to add other things we could not fit in the 3-page sizzle. This webpage became the central depository of concert bookings: dates, locations, and links to stories we wrote on our blogs.

To create a sizzle, you need the following:

• good photographs (72 dpi for web images and higher resolution for printing)
• short biography that’s easy to read
• programme: titles of works and their composers
• description of the programme: this could be a summary, especially if you offer a choice
• audio clips
• video clips
• quotes from reviewers or other third-party validation
• contact details

Another item you should have readily available is the programme notes of what you would play. It should be in a format that you can edit so you can adjust the length of the programme and the text, change the date, time and location of the performance, etc. We have a copy in Word document but we linked our concert tour webpage to a PDF version for easier viewing.

Next: How to book a concert tour (part 2): content before contact

Local knowledge, inside information, income opportunities (part 2)

Part 2: Get affiliated!

In my previous blog post, I mentioned yard sales as a way to get local knowledge and shopping tips. You’re unlikely to get such advice at department stores or public shopping places. Similarly, at house concerts, you can more easily acquire information by asking than at a large public concert venue where it’s harder to make conversation (to strangers).

If you don’t know anybody before you arrive, how will you get assistance? Check into a hotel with a knowledgeable and reliable concierge? Stay at a bed and breakfast and ask the owner? Stay at a youth hostel and ask other guests?

There are other ways to do this.

Get a job. Any job. Temporary or not. Part time or full time. As fast as possible.

Enroll on a course.

Join a choir.

Volunteer.

In other words, get involved. Get affiliated!

This is one reason musicians sometimes get gigs that pay below their normal rates because they also get side benefits such as personal contacts and useful information. My instrumentalist classmates from conservatory have played in orchestras not just for the experience but also to get on the grapevine. Gossip about conductors, new ensembles, projects in the pipeline, … in short, work opportunities, often flow, unprinted and unpublished, by word of mouth.

The Chinese saying “Ride a horse to find a horse” translates to “Get a job to find a job.”

My dear musicians, we can’t expect to be invited to perform or get discovered if we stay at home practising all day!

Cold calling tips for musicians

COLD CALLING 101: learn from database marketing

A cold call is a phone call to someone who has never heard of you, whom you’ve not spoken with before. Cold calls are difficult to make because

1. it’s hard to get the right person on the phone;
2. it’s hard to get the right person to stay on the phone;
3. it’s hard to get the right person to respond to you;
4. it’s hard to get the right person to do what you want him/her to do.

In other words, the chance of getting it wrong — getting rejected is very high. And nobody likes to be rejected. So people tend to avoid cold calls unless they have to.

We don’t always have the luxury of warm calls. We don’t always meet the right people, let alone get introduced to them. How is a musician going to get gigs? How will you expand your concert attendance beyond your circle of friends, family, colleagues, and neighbours?

Cold calls, just like cold emails, are inevitable if you are to go beyond what’s and who’s familiar. You will step out of your comfort zone —- and be uncomfortable talking to strangers.

Unless you get used to it…..

This means cold calling takes practice… until you get used to it.

Here are my notes taken from a conversation with a successful musician who has cold called to make his database of contacts. Year after year, he renews the contracts, builds the relationships with these contacts, and gets enough gigs to sustain a living: 250 gigs per year.  Although these tips make a lot of sense, I have not taken steps to implement them.

Why not? For one, it’s not easy to make cold calls in a language you’re not good at, in my case, Dutch. Two, it’s hard to get hold of someone who doesn’t work full-time or keep regular hours, as do a great majority of the employees in the Netherlands. Flexible working hours is more than the norm than the exception, especially in my line of work (music). But I’ve learned over time that cold calling can be fun. Just as I enjoy meeting strangers, for the lure of discovering something unexpected and refreshing, I shouldn’t shun from speaking to strangers on the telephone.

The following are tips I’ve summarised from that successful musician who shared his secrets with me – and my own experience of making cold calls.

To make a cold call, you must warm up first.  Call someone you know. Get into the swing of chatting on the phone. Get over your nerves. Never make a cold call in the cold.

Before you make any calls, warm or cold, make sure you prepare yourself. Do your research.

Make a list of the decision makers you need to talk to. There will be gatekeepers you have to get through. These are receptionist, partners, assistants, and anybody who picks up the phone, takes notes for the decision maker, and get in the way.

Write a script, i.e. exactly what you will say on the phone. Never attempt to “wing it” —- don’t vary the script, but you have a choice what happens. Type this script so you can read it clearly.

Get a feel for objections. Anticipate the 5 or 6 standard objections. Write out your responses for each objection. These objections may consist of the following situations:

1. the person is not there
2. the person is busy and will get back to you
3. the person answers but can’t talk long
4. the person doesn’t want to talk to you
5. the person says he knows what you want but doesn’t want to give it to you

When you are on the phone, make sure you listen well. Get connected with the person. Take notes. It’s not about how great you are but being able to fish out the person’s needs and make a connection.

Never get someone to call you back. They won’t.

Keep a calendar. Take notes. Suggest a follow-up call after a few weeks.

Persist. Don’t give up.

———

Why am I writing this blog on making cold calls? I was once very good at doing it. I was paid handsomely to get through the fierce receptionist at a bank and set-up an appointment with the decision makers for a technical service provider. I called in London and while on vacation in France. I didn’t give up until I got the appointment. I was highly motivated to do it because of the pay and the deadline.

Nowadays, nobody pays me to make cold calls. I start the process and stop. I don’t follow the steps listed above. I lose momentum because of it. I get demotivated by rejection or the lack of results. I am like all other musicians who would much rather make music than cold calls. Without the luxury of an agent or plentiful warm leads, I will have to bite my lip and make cold calls.