Learn booking fundamentals while identifying and communicating the qualities that make an artist competitive to venues, promoters, and international partners.

Outcome. Approach venues and promoters in a way that gives them a reason to say yes, and read the offer you get back.

Research local bands first and share audiences with them. A bill with a local act that draws is the most reliable way into a new market and is cheaper than advertising.

Every approach names the date, the draw you can honestly claim, the other acts, and what you will do to promote it. Vagueness on any of those reads as inexperience. Reach out to college and local radio in each market at the same time, and engage with the local scene before you need something from it.

Then read the offer. A door deal pays a percentage of ticket money collected, typically sixty to eighty percent to the artist, sometimes split between acts, and sometimes only after basic expenses are covered, so seventy five percent over three hundred dollars of expenses is a very different number from seventy five percent of gross.

A flat guarantee is a fixed fee, and you must read whether it includes you bringing sound and lights. Guarantee versus percentage pays the higher of a floor and a percentage. Guarantee plus percentage over an expense figure pays the floor plus a share above it. Guarantee plus bonuses pays the floor plus set amounts at ticket thresholds. All of it is arithmetic you should be able to do in the room.

What you will produce

An outreach package, a tracked contact list, and worked calculations of all four deal types at your own ticket price and room capacity.