How To Promote A Super Underground Music Show: A Theory

As I am getting back into the thick of performing I am starting to think more on how to actually get humans into the room.

Across the journey I’ve seen so many shows be hyped up on social media to only pull 37 people. While I’m all about building community and showing love and appreciating the moment the more you spend on your craft the more you need to think about the recoup. Unless you have money like that, upon which fine, do you boo.

Our mission as performers is to create a hospitable environment for people who are looking for an escape to enjoy themselves. 

As much as the promoter has a job to sell the show, so does every single performer who agrees to be on the show. 

Even if people think they are above selling tickets, they should not think they are above hustling an event. 

For an event to work, each of the performers has to show they are excited to be there, and to see each of the other performers.

The competition should be between events, not between performers

In the past, one of my frustrations with the nature of flipping ticket packs is that it creates a competitive sphere in a bad way. 

Promoters may gamify the slot order based on sales. People within your own camp are trying to get to mutual fans first to claim that sale. Everyone has their quota they are trying to hit and people are not thinking of the big picture.

If there are 15 of us on a flyer this is an opportunity if we work together. Picture a video with the entire line up, turning up in a Reel, like we are about to throw the greatest show ever. Flash to live footage of our best moments. Flash to more celebratory shots. Flash to the actual promo part with the details.

Imagine if we all used the collaborative post feature with each other. We can literally put 20 accounts on one post. But nooooo all of us post alone in a fucking silo. 

Having the entire roster there, invested, wanting to sacrifice their time to show people how much we like each other. Now that, my friends, is the foundation of how we sell some shows. 

You may wonder why I’m writing this and it’s because most of what people do isn’t working.

The average promo run is not really selling tickets

There are two ways shows tend to get organized in Montreal.

There are people who understand how to acquire funding, from grants and sponsors, then use that to throw events. These events include budgets for artists. Those artists will usually get chosen for reasons ranging from nepotism, to filling minority quotas, to actual desire for good talent. End of the day those artists who get those gigs are in a world where ticket selling really isn’t on them. It’s the way it “should be” in the eyes of a lot of artists. 

However the people who get those opportunities consistently, on merit, do a lot to make themselves interesting. They tend to not rely on casual IG posts, and story shares, telling people to pull up. If the established acts do that, there are a lot of dates and it is impressive.

When it’s the local show, and your whole post is basically saying to check out these names on a flyer, it’s a tough sell. It’s not interesting. People scroll right by and frankly it just turns into another piece of bad content in a sea of social media posts.

Throwing money at those posts may get a couple of more people to come, but unless the product (the show) is really good, it’s going to be a tough sell. It’s still worth throwing a few dollars at ads to force the flyers in front of your friend’s eyes, but you probably need to do more.

The more should be based around having the artists hype up the other artists performing.

Promo runs for local events need to introduce the community to the people on the flyer

As I brainstorm on the fly I had a few immediate ideas we could all do that would spam the feeds with archiveable content and still push the show.

• Each artist creates Reels/TikToks where all they do is react positively to the other artist’s music. They make it a point to let their fans see what they are getting into. They hype it up. 

  • Each one is a collab post with every artist. Flood your fucking feeds. You can delete it after the show. 

• Each artist creates 5-6 fun fact videos about themselves that are more personal in nature. The CTA is, “come meet me at the show and get to know me better”. Let’s get a drink and party vibes.

  • Each one is a collab post with every artist. Flood your fucking feeds. You can delete it after the show. 

• The promoter curates a YouTube quiz show styled experience where maybe we spoof trends like have some girls there and have them pop balloons at us to say we’re unfuckable. Something that is dumb and engaging

  • Each one is a collab post with every artist. Flood your fucking feeds. You can delete it after the show. 

I work in food promo. The goal of a food promo video is to give you, the viewer, a sense of what it’s like to be there so that you crave that experience. You see the food and then want to eat the food. It’s hospitable. It’s engaging. 

It’s not just a flyer with a burger saying 2 for 5$. Though if it’s close by, that’s a good deal. Remember when burgers were cheap? 

We need to take our promo in better directions. Ones where we take the time to introduce who we are to the audience and make an effort to show them what a good time looks like. If artists don’t want to sell tickets, but put the effort in to make this content, we’d end up with capacity issues.

We should also book smaller venues that we can actually sell out, literally. To artificially create demand. I love Belmont but it looks goofy with less than 250 people there.

I hope someone can put some of this to work as I figure it out in my circles.

Let me know how it goes.

Live Long and Prosper Everyone