Posts by Matt Ford - Founder and CEO
A Brief and Semi-Complete History of Concert Photography
Photography was invented in 1822 by the French inventor Nicéphore Niépce. But as cool as it would have been to see actual images of lisztomania in action, the average photographic exposure in his newly invented device was between 8 hours and 2 days. So, our story of concert photography doesn’t start here. Instead, we have…
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Prioritizing Accessibility: Giving Everyone the Best Seat in the House
Although venues are legally required to make themselves accessible to disabled people, many disabled music lovers can recount plenty of times when they’ve felt unwelcome at shows. The law isn’t the only reason a good venue should ensure that anybody who wants to see its shows has the ability to do so—it’s just the right…
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Pitching Yourself to Promoters and Venues: A Guide for Artists
It should be simple enough for a musician to let a promoter know you want them to book you and why. That is, if there weren’t thousands of other artists doing that very same thing in emails to that very same person, all crowding for space in the same inbox (and concert calendar). If you…
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Six Venues Worth Traveling For
Chances are if you’re a music fan, you’ve visited your local dive bar, concert hall, or mid-sized indie venue more than once. Which is cool—local landmarks, coupled with a brew and a ballad have been the basis of many memorable nights out, cool dinner party stories, and unlikely friendships. Why not take this memory-making recipe…
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How to Promote a Concert: Building Relationships with Local Press
Booking the best calendar of events and assembling the best marketing plan will put any music promoter in good standing—but no business can truly thrive in a vacuum. You know how to promote a concert yourself, but getting third-party approval and buzz is the key to building a legitimate groundswell and building past that first…
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It’s [Not] Only Rock ’N’ Roll: Creative, Venue-Filling Alternatives to DJs and Bands
DJs and bands are great, but some venues and promoters are experimenting with creative alternatives to discover new audiences. One example—which gives new meaning to the term, “ridiculous”—is the Kaiju Big Battel. Part professional wrestling, part Japanese monster movie mayhem—think Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah, Rodan, and things like that (Kaiju is Japanese for “mysterious beast”)—the…
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How to Involve Radio in Your Promotional Strategy
It’s one thing to sponsor social media posts about your upcoming shows, but it’s another to engage directly with music lovers in your region. The music listeners in your community are the people most likely to go to shows, but venue staff doesn’t always directly interface with showgoers. To bridge this gap, consider working with…
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Using Twitter to Grow Your Venue’s Following
Social media is a dicey proposition for any business – trying to extend a hand from your company to customers that they can identify as a friend rather than an extension of the advertising barrage we all face daily. Luckily, concert venues are already meeting consumers halfway: Your venue is housing the music and performances…
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Music Venue Management: How to Save Time and Build Your Business
Hours You’ll Never Get Back According to an Eventbrite survey of nearly 50 live music venues, the average venue employee spends between one and four hours every day on booking and ticketing alone. That’s a lot of hours doing just a few things when we all know music venue management is about a whole lot…
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How to Make The Most Out of Your Music Performance Contracts
A music performance contract is an agreement between a booking agent and a venue to eliminate payment disagreements and clarify performance expectations and provisions. It protects the rights of both the venue and the music artist. Music performances should never be based on a handshake, even if the relationship between the agent and the venue…
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