As long as you head out there into the world and play some kind of part, you’ll have fans of what you do.
This may be real small scale stuff, like being an esteemed colleague at work. At a bigger scale, you may have enough fans to finance your dreams. Many of us are on a quest for that.
From my humble perception, in the beginning of a music career, the concept of friend/peers gets confused with fans quite easily. That leads to a path of disappointment as everyone expects reciprocity and no one can ever live up to that expectation. So people lose sight of ther real deal fans.
However they may manifest.
We get blinded when our fans appear in ways we didn’t expect
Recently I’ve had a 9 month beef with a guy in my neighbourhood Facebook group.
I wrote a hit piece on him without naming him. He slanders my name every chance he gets. It’s like a full fledged rap beef, but without the music or threats of violence.
Maybe I can go musical with it.
Across my campaign, I’ve garnered a small following of people who see me as an impolite truth teller who fights regular convention. In all fairness I am an impolite person if you follow that version of politeness where you’re supposed to lie all the time. There’s a little taste for ya.
The point is, inevitably people reached out to give me love for this, I mean like 6-7 months into this.
Even if they say nothing, people are watching.
If fans aren’t coming out to support, you are in the wrong environment for your fans
It’s very hard for me to sell tickets to rap showcases, where 15 other people are on the card and I get 10 minutes.
While in a perfect world a whole lot of my supporters would come to that show, they don’t really want to see 15 artists. They also don’t want to come all the way to a show for me to do 10 minutes. Maybe when we were younger the idea of partying in dive bars and concert halls was more fun, but as my late 30’s comes, things are different.
For me to sell tickets, the event has to be appealing or I need a long enough set to make it worth it.
Ideally both.
Chances are your fans like certain environments. Maybe they want daytime cafe shows, or they want to see you perform in the park. It’s on you to create an environment that attracts the people.
You can’t fight gravity on what your fans want.
Through all this you need to stay true to yourself
It’s a fair argument that if your fans don’t want to come out to bars on a Tuesday that they aren’t your fans.
It’s a fair one, but it’s pretty stupid. At the beginning of your career you need to meet people in the middle. You are on a mission to place yourself into a vibe that connects with people enough to support you.
Your fans are trying to figure out how to get the most bang for their buck. Put yourself in places you’d want to be, and people will come. I had a pretty good run getting people to come to the park, probably easier than the smaller venues I’ve done.
I don’t think you should conform to audience whims, but if you find yourself not succeeding in a particular environment, change it. Your fans are out there, when you meet them, find out where they wanna go and pick the stuff you like best.
Live Long and Prosper Everyone
Comentários