The all-important question. The death knell to any email conversation with a prestigious venue:
“What’s your draw?”
This is what separates the children from the adults in the music performance world. It doesn’t matter how much time you put into producing your little bedroom pop demo or how many online fans you have. How many asses can you get into those seats? That’s all the venue that doesn’t have a built-in draw gives a shit about. Whether or not that’s a good way to run a small music venue for up-and-coming artists is a conversation for another piece. Sadly, it’s the nature of the beast.
If you're reading this and you're a musician, you're probably well aware that this is indeed the most difficult thing to hack when it comes to being a performing artist. Oftentimes, money is the barrier to entry with things like touring and recording, and time is the barrier to being good (gotta practice so you don't suck).
But how do you get warm bodies in the venue to watch you do your performance therapy?
Gurus, influencers, consultants, music veterans, and con artists will all sell you some horseshit about ways to increase your draw, but the long and the short of it is...no one fucking knows. Some shit takes off, and some doesn't. If there was an instruction manual, a lot more of you would be able to quit your day job.
I don't claim to be one of the above con artists; I'm a humorist. But I've had enough experience in the scene to notice some gimmicks—cough—sorry…no, I mean gimmicks that seemed to work.
I know this sounds counterintuitive since you want folks to pay to go to the show and buy your merch, but you’d be surprised how many people will come if you say you'll be giving away free…anything! Something like this is easy on Halloween or some other candy-flooded holiday because you can just buy a bunch of Costco-sized bags of goodies and throw ‘em in the crowd. But you can get more creative than that. I once saw a poster for a show where they had “Free Taco Bell” in bold print. Obviously, I had to call their bluff and attend, and they did not lie. These crafty bastards bought like 100 soft tacos from Taco Bell and chucked ‘em out in the audience, as promised, near the end of the set. This might not be the most cost-effective way to get folks out, and it might piss off the venue, but hey, it worked!
Well, let me rephrase: if you're attractive, get naked. But also, just say you’ll do something if X amount of tickets get sold. You’ll take a pie in the face. You’ll let yourself get kicked in the balls. Debase yourself! People love it! This is another real thing I saw someone advertise on their poster. If a certain amount of people paid to get to this artist’s show, she'd take her pants off. Now, don't worry, parents and Christians, she had booty shorts on underneath; this isn't a Jesus Lizard concert. Still, it worked! That was a packed show. Give the people what they want! Nudity! I’ve seen multiple shows that advertised gals wrestling in some form of lubricant in a kiddie pool, and boy howdy, those were not ill-attended shows.
See, here’s the thing. Everyone is a selfish bastard who wants attention. All humans want to be on camera. If you say that you’re filming this show for a music video, I promise you’ll see numbers you’ve never seen before. All your friends have seen you play your shitty songs before, but they haven’t had the chance to be in a music video that’ll be seen by four people on YouTube! So long as you have someone with a camera at the show; otherwise, folks might get suspicious that this was all a ruse to get them to come to your show. This tactic only works once (maybe twice), but hey, you also get an actual music video out of it! Just splice in footage with some artsy shots of the sky and the band looking sad or some shit.
Again, the best way to get people to come to your thing is to make it about them. A costume contest is easy. People love to dress up. As dumb as raffles are, they will keep folks in the building ‘cause they’ll want to see what cheap shit you bought at Walmart they won. Have the audience members draw their silliest caricatures of the band. Whichever is judged to be the best gets…I dunno, free Taco Bell or something.
Fuck it, just lie. Choose your favorite contemporary band and say they’re showing up as a special guest. Spread it like a rumor. A super secret headliner, except not so secret 'cause you'll let people know on social media and tell your friends. What's the worst that'll happen? People show up? Say that Kendrick Lamar, Deafheaven, or Sabrina Carpenter are totally going to come and perform. The audience will stay through the whole night waiting. A literal captive audience! Granted, after the promised super secret headliner doesn't show up, you'll likely have a riot on your hands, but at least for one night, you'll know what it feels like to play to a packed house.
