Need creative ways to promote live bands upcoming appearances.

October 14, 2009 12:27 PM

I need some 'out of the box' thinking on some different ideas to promote a local (to Clearwater) band's upcoming live performances.

They have myspace & most of the band members have Facebook. They also have a website as well.

They are The Black Honkey's... They play funk, soul, & rock. Amazing live band & have been doing it (performing) either together or in other bands ... for many years...

They have 1 album...but they aren't too interested in 'doing albums'... but rather ongoing live performances at some venues they play at regularly.

They are a spectacular live band, and 2-3 songs into their first set, people dance through the rest of the night....

Any thoughts on different ways to spread the word?

posted by foodybat to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

hang out with other bands, go to lots of shows and chat people up about their band, hang out in bars and chat people up about their band (in your town and in surrounding towns - think 25 or so mile radius)

put up flyers

get in good with the clubs they're playing so the manager/owner cares more about promoting hte shows

play house parties for little to no money and hand out flyers for the next paying gig

put videos up on youtube and put pictures up of the shows on flickr and tag them

play a mix of all ages and 21+

find out who runs the closest college radio shows and try to get on the air

make sure you have a merch table! make sure you have tiny things at the merch table to give away - stickers, buttons, etc

instead of taking up a mailing list at the merch table, get people's twitter names - start twittering show announcements and new songs on the myspace
posted by nadawi at 12:42 PM on October 14, 2009

You know those tables full of flyers promoting upcoming shows at various clubs, record shops, coffee houses, etc? Burn a bunch of demo cd's, label them with info promoting the upcoming show, and leave em there. This trick once got me to go see a band I had otherwise never heard of.
posted by waxboy at 1:42 PM on October 14, 2009

A test-prep company had written several very short, witty messages (think along the lines of "got milk?" or as simple as "friday night") in bright chalk on the ground in highly-trafficked areas in my alma mater last year, complete with an easy to remember website address.

If you are serious about the "out of the box" part and have lots of time on your hands, consider doing something similar with a catchy MySpace or Facebook user ID that would link to the band's performance schedule? The writing on the ground certainly captured my attention, especially because it didn't look like an ad but like a student- or community-organized event.
posted by halogen at 2:51 PM on October 14, 2009

If your community has a public access cable channel, make a video and have them air it.
posted by OilPull at 10:16 AM on October 15, 2009