I was sitting there thinking about my experiences throwing shows and my experiences performing at shows. I was also thinking about branding and value and community. I think artists get things kind of twisted. Artists are supposed to sell tickets. That’s actually one of their main jobs.
I know, this is a wild proposition. What artists are often saying to you when they say “I don’t feel I should have to sell tickets” is that they don’t want to cold call their list of contacts and put that work in selling tickets. With the limited free time they have left after their various hustles or parental obligations, they feel they should be focused on their craft.
Artists tend to have to spend money to perform, especially to prepare for the show, so they feel they should be compensated for their work. This whole selling tickets thing is probably holding a lot of people back. Let’s spit some harsh truths.
No one owes you anything as an artist
I think this heading title is going to appear a lot across my blog. It’s something that needs to be said over and over again as people believe they are entitled to success. The general public did not ask most of us to become an artist, we chose this life.
We chose to spend all the time, money, blood, sweat and tears to become the artists we are. We chose to pursue something with a ludicrously high failure rate (when thinking of commercial success). I know exactly what it feels like to know you were meant to be an artist, then be stuck doing other things, but again, this is our problem. Not anyone else's.
At the moment I’m aware of a solid 1000 people who rap in English in Montreal. There are probably another 2000-3000 people out there who rap, in English, I never met. That is one genre of music and that’s a lot of people. Add in the French community and we are talking over 10000 people who rap in the Greater Montreal Area easily.
Almost everyone I meet has a rapper friend. The competition is so insane that it’s delusional to believe you are simply one song away from a big break. This isn’t the 70’s, anyone with money is looking for people who figure out how to cultivate a community around them. They expect you to prove you are a fiscally viable investment.
That makes it the artist’s job to find people that like their music. It’s their main responsibility beyond art creation. If they can’t find 20 people to pull up and spend money to watch them perform, are they even that special?
A lot of people can’t sell 20 tickets
Say you want me to pay you 200$ to come perform at a concert I throw. If my concert tickets are 20$ each, I expect you to pull a solid 20 people, pulling back 800$. Honestly, that number is me lowballing myself in the deal.
I’m the one fronting venue costs, promotional material costs, House DJ costs and all kinds of things. I may even pay someone like DMS to do a promo plug and get even more eyes on the show. We had one show where it easily cost 4000$ to throw, yes we made some bad choices. There are also a lot of time costs. I don’t even have fun the night of the show.
Now if I am already down a lot of money, and you want me to pay you to perform, the exchange is not only are you helping me recoup, you are helping me to make profit. In order for that to happen, you are going to have to sell far more tickets than the value of what I pay you. Otherwise what are we doing here? If you didn’t bring people to the show, I would just lose money paying you.
Now in this perfect utopia, me putting your name on a flyer is a draw. That alone gets 20 people to come. That happens consistently and there is no question. Having frequented over 100 events since COVID policies relaxed, I can assure you this is not a goal people are meeting with much frequency.
Artists have to actually build a fanbase
Getting people to come to a free show is pretty easy. Those fans are wonderful and I love them all. The number of people you can pull at a free show is not reflective of what happens when people have to actually spend money to support you. The same can be said about free
festivals, even if you are getting paid (go get that bag though).
When we talk about fanbases, I want to be clear I mean people that will spend money to support your career. If you don’t have those, and are not prioritizing finding them, you are just doing the fun parts of art. It’s pretty damned boring to do market research, but if you don’t learn who you are selling to and what your community looks like, you aren’t going to be able to put your name on a flyer and attract people.
I do think it is a promoter’s job to promote a show. A promoter can’t get an artist new fans on their own. Only the artist can do that.
It’s not my place to tell people how to spend their time. I will say that finding fans to buy tickets is a grind. I know if I had to sell 20 tickets, I could. It would take hours and I may have to have 500 conversations, but I’d do it. Once I play the game long enough, my name will help sell tickets just by appearing on a flyer.
One time I had to endure a lecture from Lemme Kno about how I should be better than spam DMs. I’m not, that literally turned into my main gig. I spam DM for a living now.
Currently my name does not sell tickets. I am writing this to myself, it’s not about anyone else. It’s on me to make better visuals, make better promotional material and come up with more creative endeavours. Once I do my job of finding people to fund my art better, I will then be able to make bolder demands. I can’t be mad no one’s handing out bags to me.
The bulk of people in art are not willing to work on the right things
It’s easy (fun) to work on a song. Then work on your performance. It’s boring to write out pages of documentation defining the personas that make up your target market. It’s easy to dream up an idea. It’s boring to go find the 30 companies that already do it and figure out how you can actually stand out. It’s simple to say yes and dream, it’s hard to say no because you have other commitments.
There are so many artists out there. Most of them are talented too. A lot of those same talented people wait for others to come do the boring shit. This is not meant to be an attack but an observation. When people complain about the haters and what not, ask them to define their target demographic and how many business plans they’ve written to support their art.
When my whole Bridge The Gap wave started, it came after months and months of planning. I looked at what other people were doing and slowly taught myself, step by step, how to achieve my goals. Then I got caught up with performing and being in the wave of socializing and forgot to stay on top of my planning.
Now I need to go do the same boring shit I think people neglect here. For the next while, Tuesdays from like 8-11 PM will become “plan my life in Notion” time. I’m mostly writing this blog so people can call me a hypocrite if I don’t start doing all the things I need to do.
To summarize, instead of whining about how hard it is to sell tickets. I’m going to go find fans who will buy tickets.
Live Long and Prosper Everyone
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