graphic courtesy of Jeremy Wardlaw and Duffy's Tavern
[Editor's note: This story is part one of our HN DIY series. Also read Promotion Online: A Band's Perspective and Promotion Online: An Industry Perspective.]
Promoting an upcoming show can be a real grind. First, you have to get a venue to give you a date. Then you have to find other bands to play with that you’ll either enjoy, or that will get some heads through the door (hopefully both). Then you have to do your best to get people to pay cash money to see your band play songs you wrote and enjoy playing.
No one wants to play for just the parents, the boyfriends and girlfriends and the staff. Trust me, the staff gets miffed pretty quick if it’s obvious no one is coming to the show.
I’d argue there are a few crucial components to promoting any concert. Word-of-mouth and posters/flyers. Word-of-mouth is pretty obvious. Tell everyone you know, face-to-face. If you can’t even do that, don’t be grumpy about the poor payday at the end of the night.
Postering takes a bit more effort for a few reasons. Who designs the poster? Where do you get it printed? Where do you hang them?
I’m here to help. During my time as a promoter, I’ve had a few designed, printed and posted. Here’s a quick primer on what I’ve learned in trying to get the word out about whatever show is coming up.
Poster Design
We can’t all make posters that look aesthetically pleasing, or in other words, fly. It’s OK. We are surrounded by amazing artists who want to help the cause. Sometimes you get lucky and someone in your band knows their way around Microsoft Paint, and also enjoys the art of making, well, art. Take advantage. Buy that guy an extra beer when you’re out drinking away the part of the day you cannot sleep away at O’Rourke’s. Keep him/her happy.
If you don’t have a visual master in your band, you’ll have to outsource. In Lincoln, I know if I want a quality screen print (read: high end) I usually hit up the guys at Doe Eyed Design. They get national contracts so know that time is money here, but the end product will be immaculate.
If screen printing is beyond your needs or means, go digital. There are quite a few designers in town that can scratch out something within a week or so, schedules permitting of course. This list can go on forever, but my usual go-to’s are Jeremy Wardlaw over at Duffy’s, Adam Williams at the Bourbon and David Ozinga (Carrot Carrot). The main point here is to identify your friends who have a visual talent and are happy to promote local music. Just make sure to get them a small stipend, whether it be $10, lunch at Yia Yia’s or a six-pack of tall boys from time to time. It’s a scratch-each-other’s-back type of mentality.
When getting a poster designed, I’d argue it’s most important to consider the what, when, where and how much of the event. Who is playing? Where are they playing? How much skrilla is it going to cost me to get in? The art of the poster is important, but with local (<$10) shows, if people aren’t familiar with the bands and don’t know what style of music is being performed, you’re not helping your cause. Consider throwing in a little info about where any touring bands are from, perhaps a quote from a recent newspaper profile that describes the music, or merely a quick listing of the genre of music people can expect if they walk through the door. It can’t hurt.
Printing
The biggest cost of creating a poster is arguably the actual printing of a poster. Expect costs of $3-$4 a poster for screen prints on top of the cost of the design ($50+). When going digital, the costs go down a little, and at this point, it mostly comes down to where you get your printing done. Most of us don’t have color printers at home capable of slamming out 50 11x17s a show, so we are damned to depending on places like Kinko’s and Office Max.
As Dub from Duffy’s would subscribe, if you need a thin paper 24×36 print, then Kinko’s is the way to go. You can grab one of those for $2 or so for a black and white. But when you get down to 11×17 color prints on better quality paper, you’re still looking at about $1.80 per print, regardless of quantity.
(The Machete Archive poster by Jeremy Wardlaw.)
One of this town’s best-kept secrets when it comes to printing is the UNL Copy Center. It’s located at 17th and Y streets (just north of the intersection). Any day of the week, color prints at 11×17 are a buck. That’s already almost half off what they would cost at a national printing service that spends a grip on letting us know they exist.
The real deals come when you grasp the concept of size, and can stay sober enough to know which day of the week it is. 11×17 is pretty standard for concert posters, but the more often you’re putting them up, you’ll realize that space is always at a premium, so work on printing something that is big enough to read and small enough to fit in most windows.
My favorite is the 8.5 x 14. Not too hot, not too cold, but just right. The Copy Center has long run a deal on Thursdays where 8.5x11s along with 8.5x14s are only a quarter for color prints, IF YOU GO ON THURSDAY. Some quick math tells me that 40 posters will cost $10. Not a bad deal at all. If your budget is more limited than that, go black and white. Black-and-white prints cost a whopping TWO CENTS a piece, again, ON THURSDAYS. Same 40 copies? Eighty cents. Ridiculous. Consider that, too, when it comes to flyers. Four a page, that’s half a cent per.
Distribution
So your posters are printed. Where should they go? The no-brainer answer is at the venue you’re about to play, duh. But you’ve got to look further (not a Grateful Dead reference). Those of us who like to go to shows go a lot of other places in town in between musical voyages. Restaurants, bars, coffee shops, supermarkets, etc. The first rule of thumb here is to play it safe. Ask someone the first time you want to put a poster up, what the policies are for putting posters up. Mostly, they’ll be nice and let you know if it’s cool or not.
Outside of obvious places like The Mill (8th and P), The Coffee House (P St. between 13th and 14th), Yia Yia’s (O St. between 14th and Centennial Mall) and The Black Market (O St. between 10th and 11th), some hidden gems include Lefty’s Records (28th and South), N Street Liquor (18th and O) and the Downtown Lincoln Association kiosks (drop five by the office, and they’ll put them up for you!). Areas near Lincoln’s various college campuses (UNL, Wesleyan, Union College) are must-hit spots as well, providing you have the time to drive all over town.
My best advice for putting posters up is to make a list as you go and keep it updated. Every time you book a new show, add to the list if possible. Make it an enjoyable excursion.
(Mogwai poster by Doe Eyed.)
Sure, it’s tough to enjoy postering in the dead of winter when no amount of layering can shake off the cold of a minus-10 degree day, but a good chunk of the year provides acceptable weather. Grab your iPod, make a new mix and rap along with Jaydiohead while you tape and tack. Better yet, listen to the music of the bands you’re about to play with. Knowledge of a song makes for a great conversation starter, and they’ll know that you appreciate their efforts on the stage.
In closing, as a promoter (I’ve never played an instrument), it always warms my heart when bands are willing to do their part in the legwork of promoting a show. On the local level, I would expect every band to want to try their hardest to get people out to every show they play. That’s not necessarily the case.
We’ll do our part to get posters designed and printed and then email all of the bands on the show and say, “Hey, we got these posters, want to put them up for the show?” and never get a reply. That’s sadly more often the norm than the exception. There are a decent number of bands that do respond to such a request with gusto. You know who you are. My hat (it’s a fisherman hat that people poke fun at way too much) is off to you.
This whole business of performing, getting people out to shows and providing an atmosphere where everyone has fun is a team effort. Let’s get after it.
Jeremy Buckley referenced Soul Coughing and Modest Mouse in this story, but not the Grateful Dead. You can reach him at jeremyb@hearnebraska.org.