the promoter's job

[Kelly Ashkettle]

Jeremy wrote:
 
“The most fundamental job of a promoter job is to *promote* in order
that people show up at the show. There are also the other jobs of
making sure the venue is booked and ready, making sure that there is a
sound man, paying the band, supplying food and a place to sleep,
travel accommodations, etc. but all those can be negotiable. However,
the most basic part of a promoter's job is to promote. Now, in return
for doing all of these jobs, the promoter gets the musician to make
music from which the promoter gets to keep all the profit, so it's
hardly a raw deal to be a promoter. If he needs help with his job from
his clients, the band, then he's probably not very good at his job in
the first place.”
 
 “Making sure the venue is booked” and “paying the band” should not be glossed over. 
 
If I want to feel confident that a club owner is not going to screw me over and bump my show, I need to stay in good communication with him so he knows that I am working to bring people to his club, and so he understands that he has a good chance of profiting from my work in the future. This can take a lot of time, money, and effort. If a band books a show through me, one thing that they are paying for is the benefit of that relationship which I have cultivated. 
 
Another thing that cannot be overemphasized is that promoters take on the financial risks for a show as well as potential benefits. Say you’re a local band who agrees to play for 25% of the door after 100 people pay a $10 cover, but only 75 people show up. That means you don’t get paid by the promoter. But maybe 25 of those people each paid $10 to buy one of your CDs that cost you $7 each to make, so you actually made $75 as a result of the opportunity that the promoter created for you to perform. Plus you got your name on a bunch of flyers, you got more people talking about you, you got more practice playing in front of an audience, and all the other intangible things about shows that make them help you advance your career. 
 
Meanwhile, the promoter only took in $750. That was enough to pay the $400 venue rental fee (which included the sound engineer’s, bartender, and door people’s pay), but it was only enough for $350 of the headliner’s $400 guarantee. That means the promoter will have to dip into her pocket to give the headliner their other $50, plus the promoter will not get reimbursed for the $100 she spent on food and alcohol for the bands or the $100 she spent on flyers.
 
In order to get 75 people at that show, the promoter probably had to trade emails to negotiate the terms of a show, drop in at the venue 2 or 3 times before the show to make sure everything had been communicated, design a flyer, print the flyers, pass out flyers all over town, make announcements all over the web, stay at the venue from load in to load out (which can often take a total of 16 hours and involve some lifting). So, not only did the promoter not get paid even minimum wage for all that work, she actually had to pay $250 for the privilege of working for 40 hours to advance your career.
 
Pay to work goes both ways.
 
 
  
Don wrote:
 
“Even if you have a really great promoter who has spread
the word like wildfire, there's always a chance you may be able to
reach people they haven't. If you're not willing to do this then you
probably don't have the drive it takes to be successful in the first
place.”
 
Exactly. Successful bands do whatever they can to promote themselves to advance their careers. Alexx is a good promoter, and that’s part of why ThouShaltNot is successful. At various points along the way, people like Patrick or I have added to what he was doing, but we could only amplify or help shape what he was already doing for himself.
 
 
  
Chris Rapier wrote:
 
“You mean actually figure out what audiences want and then try to
provide it to them? OUTRAGE!”
 
Exactly. The way to have a successful show is to figure out what the audience wants, and then give it to them. If the show doesn’t draw enough people, it means I didn’t do my job well enough, and I need to figure out a better way to do it for next time.
 
   
  --Kelly

		
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