So if you want to “make it” as a band, all you have to do is sell 20,000 CDs. Let’s assume you have a solid CD ready to go. Your practiced and ready to start gigging. And now you’re hitting the road with a purpose. Your going to play in some new music clubs to publicize your band and give people a reason to buy your CD. You’ve identified what you’re trying to accomplish by going on tour. The next step is organizing and advancing it.

Rather than looking at a new market as a cool place to tour to, look for a market that is close to your hometown as well as close to another market you can also tour to. You should be able to get back to that market very easily and often because when you start developing a market for your band, you need to hit it hard and often in the beginning.

Now that you have your target market in mind, you need to do a little research. What kind of a music scene is there? What are the music clubs like? Are there any areas of town that would be good locations to do some street promotion? Do you know any bands from that market that can give you some inside info or possibly trade shows with?

At the same time, you want to be evaluating the music clubs in the market. Keep in mind that your probably not going to play in the biggest or best music club the first time you get into town. Don’t get discouraged, there is nothing wrong than playing at smaller music clubs when you’re first starting out in a new market. Look for the music club that fits you best, despite the size and reputation. If your style of music plays best at a particular music club, that’s where you need to be. Remember, your primary goal is selling CDs. If you play the cool music club but don’t sell a single CD – you’re not doing anything to reach that goal.

Finding the right music club is much easier if you have a little basic help. If you had a copy of the Music Phone Book, you would have all the information you would need to start building a relationship with the music clubs in your new market. Knowing who to talk to at the music club makes a huge difference, so does knowing what kind of music they are looking for. Nothing annoys music clubs more than bands that call trying to get a show when their style of music doesn’t suit the music club.

So now you have narrowed your list down to a handful of music clubs that seem to fit your band. Your next step is to make your band stand out from the other couple hundred bands that are calling the music club already. Keep in mind music clubs have far more bands calling than dates available. The music club’s number one priority when booking a band is how many people will the band bring, period. Of course booking a band that can play great music is always a good thing, but if your not drawing for the music club, your chances of coming back are slim.

Music clubs don’t turn a profit from the cover charge, they make their money by selling booze. More people in attendance equates to more liquor sales which results in the music club having a good night because they booked your band.

Most bands mistakenly play up the angle of how many people they will bring to the music club when they talk to the music club’s talent buyer. The problem is music clubs know that game all too well. “I used to say there was a divide by seven rule when dealing with bands” said former club talent buyer Doug Van Leaking. “Whatever number they told me, id divide by seven” he laughed. “Bands always exaggerate when they talk to club booking agents, so we take what they say with a grain of salt. The funny thing is, none of the bands know that every band does the same thing – promising tons of people but no reason why other than “we rock’. I want to hear what they are going to do to get people to come to my music club. Flyering the parking lot to every live music club in town, getting support on the radio, having an organized street team that work with the music club, whatever. Come up with some sort of plan. Give the music club a reason to believe your going to fill their venue and keep their customers from going to another music club.”

More than anything else, you need to build and cultivate relationships with the music club and that isn’t something that happens overnight. Remember the music clubs have bands call them all the time. They have the same phone call over and over, so you need to do something to separate yourself from all the other bands vying for that open date.

“One guy wanted me to book him at my music club and was very persistent” said Van Leaking. He called a couple times a week, but kept on missing me. So finally he talks to one of our waitresses and convinces her to set up a display for his band in my office. So I get to the club a few days later and see these life sized cardboard cutouts of the band with a huge poster on the wall of a packed crowd. Then she hands me a newspaper from their home town opened to an article about how the band packed this music club. It was so funny and different, I had to check them out. So I called the club from the article and talked to the guy who put together the show. He had good things to say about the band so I decided to give them a shot at my club.”

That brings us to an important point. Something many independent bands don’t even consider. It’s not about playing at the biggest or best club, it’s about growing into that big club. You do that by working hard to make sure you pack that smaller music club – EVERY TIME YOU PLAY. If you do it repeatedly, your band starts negotiating from a position of power. Once you become a proven commodity in that market, the other music clubs will take notice and start calling you. You’ve built name recognition for your band in that market. Name recognition is an important factor to the people who book music clubs. If they have heard of you, they’re more likely to consider booking you.

Which leads us back to our friends at the Music Phone Book. The publisher David Codr explains. “A question I ask all the bands I talk to is, what have you done to promote your band, to the people who are going to hire your band? Usually there is just dead silence along with that deer in the headlight look. The best they can come up with is ‘We call the guy who books the music club all the time’, but that’s literally the lease you can do”, Codr says laughing.

That’s also the same thing every other band who wants to play at the club does. So we list the top 500 US independent bands in the Music Phone Book along with the 3,000 national touring acts. Just about every music club out there gets a copy of the Music Phone Book and they use it every day. If they open the book to the page the band is on, and the band has a bold or and ad there, its all the person’s going to see and that leads to additional name recognition. It may not get a particular music club to call you, but when you call the club, the guy has already seen the band’s name dozens of times”.

When you consider the bold listing Codr referred to costs only a few dollars a month, that’s a small price to pay to promote your band to someone considering hiring your band. To put it another way, what else can you do for a few dollars a month that can have such an impact on getting booked at a new music club? Most bands cant think of a single thing. That alone should illustrate the importance of a little advertising.

So you have done your homework and started building a relationship with a new live music club. After a little persistence and follow through, you secured a gig at a new music club that seems well suited for your band. You have started your journey to reach your primary goal of selling 20,000 CDs,, but you’re not there yet.

But there is much to do after booking a show to ensure a successful live music event and it all starts with quality publicity and promotion. That music club isn’t going to pack itself full of people you can sell your CD to, that’s your job.

Which leads us to promoting your band in a new market. Coincidentally the subject of next month’s For the Record.