Booking Breakdown

Booking is rough. Its time consuming and no-one wants to do it. Its repetitive and one of every artist's least favorite things to do. So many artists are looking to find bookers but cannot find one that will work with small artists, or they find one that just has a handful of venues that they work with. Today were going to break down, why you no longer need to spend so much time on booking in some areas and why you need to increase time spent in others. Also, why artists are always searching for a booker, but once a booker takes them on they are already at a point where they no longer need a booking agent.

Once an artist develops a relationship with a venue, that venue is much more willing to book them in the future. It makes the relationship run much more smoothly and takes out all of the doubt when it comes to booking a run or a tour. Getting your foot in the door is the hardest step. I highly recommend cutting down on the time used to send booking emails and increase the time spent calling the venues to add that personal touch. First let's talk about reducing time spent sending emails. YES! Emails are the most important tool for booking, but just use our 1 Click Booking. By using our 1 Click Booking you can send 50 emails plus scheduled follow-ups to venues in about 2 minutes. Saving you an extradentary amount of time. The average email takes between 1.5 minutes and 2.6 minutes to sent. With IRM's 1 Click your looking at roughly less than half a second per email. These emails also will look nicer and gainer you much more attention than your typical Gmail worded emails with your EPK link attached at the bottom.

Now where should artists spend all of their new found free time? I recommend venue outreach by other sources such as social media messages and phone calls. We provide you with the social links and phone numbers as well for a reason. Reach out to these venues via phone first. A call is a great way to separate yourself from every other artist reaching out. Even if the call is unsuccessful, worst-case scenario is they write your name on a sticky note and the booker comes across it, then sees your email pop up in their inbox. It's traditional marketing. Get your name in front of the venue as much as possible. And don't worry, your manager can coach you through the aspects of the call and what to say.

How much time should I be spending on booking? Well, a full-time artist needs to be spending roughly 10hrs a week for the first 2 months on booking to get the call rolling. Then once the schedule starts to fill up, they can taper off to 5hrs a week or just 1hr a day. That should allow you to call roughly 15 venues per hour. Resulting in roughly 75 calls per week. Don't forget that call-backs are going to play a huge part in that number, so you may only actually contact 30 new venues each week. Also make sure you're using the artist portal to keep track of when call-backs need to be make and what the venue says. Do this by just clicking on the venue and adding a note. You can even add a tag that will appear on the main screen and is searchable, such as add the date in which the call is supposed to be put in, then search that date and there you go, everything is nice and organized.

That is just a simplistic breakdown of the how and when's of booking. Remember that your music career is a business, and you should treat it as such. For more info just ask your manager!