I hesitate to give specific advice from so far away, but my experience of music promoters is that they are some of the most entrepreneurial people out there (to the point that they will exploit you if allowed, of course). Offhand, I would look for ways to get income from the venues, whose economics are simple: book bands with fans, sell booze to fans, profit. They're much more likely to spend, and to understand their own economics than bands themselves. Start your research by calling around local and regional papers as if you had a pub or something and wanted to take out your own advertising - get the rate card of old-media publications and try to guess how much it costs a venue owner to bring the public inside the door and spending money. Or again, simply ask them.
The more I think about it, the more I think venues are your revenue stream. Bands come and go, whereas stages tend to stay in one place :-)
This is great, and probably the way to go. We do have a number of venues who update their listings on a weekly basis, so we must be doing something right by them.
So it's sort of a three link chain:
1. help the fans to find bands they like (and help the band to promote themselves to a wider audience)
2. help venues find bands with the most fans
3. connect these bands with the venues so the bands play in front of large audience and the venue sells more beer.
Point 3 is where we get the revenue stream.
This is good stuff, and helping me see things a bit differently. Thanks
Don't forget to close the circle - make sure the (local) fans know what's on at the venues, even if it's unfamiliar to them. Remember being young and single, and going out for the sake of going out. The exploratory and habitual aspects of cultural behavior are at least as important as the directed ones - but I'll stop here lest I start to sound like a marketing course :-)
Comments
I hesitate to give specific advice from so far away, but my experience of music promoters is that they are some of the most entrepreneurial people out there (to the point that they will exploit you if allowed, of course). Offhand, I would look for ways to get income from the venues, whose economics are simple: book bands with fans, sell booze to fans, profit. They're much more likely to spend, and to understand their own economics than bands themselves. Start your research by calling around local and regional papers as if you had a pub or something and wanted to take out your own advertising - get the rate card of old-media publications and try to guess how much it costs a venue owner to bring the public inside the door and spending money. Or again, simply ask them.
The more I think about it, the more I think venues are your revenue stream. Bands come and go, whereas stages tend to stay in one place :-)
This is great, and probably the way to go. We do have a number of venues who update their listings on a weekly basis, so we must be doing something right by them.
So it's sort of a three link chain:
1. help the fans to find bands they like (and help the band to promote themselves to a wider audience) 2. help venues find bands with the most fans 3. connect these bands with the venues so the bands play in front of large audience and the venue sells more beer.
Point 3 is where we get the revenue stream.
This is good stuff, and helping me see things a bit differently. Thanks
Don't forget to close the circle - make sure the (local) fans know what's on at the venues, even if it's unfamiliar to them. Remember being young and single, and going out for the sake of going out. The exploratory and habitual aspects of cultural behavior are at least as important as the directed ones - but I'll stop here lest I start to sound like a marketing course :-)
Lots of luck, and congratulations on the baby!