We're always sort of surprised when we see how people decide to promote their events.

Everything seems to be focused on a message that roughly translates to 

"Band X will be playing in city Y. Go buy tickets."

the usual suspects

Now we are of the opinion that this style of event promotion is leaving a lot of unsold tickets on the table. Why? Because the messaging is not reaching anybody except those that have a primary interest in Band X.

If Band X is a Tier 1 or Tier 2 artist (see more about our tiers here) that is all well and good and the show will likely sell out or at least be profitable. But if not, more effort is needed to find, target and persuade people that this is a show worth seeing and they should spend good money to do so.

Spotify and other streaming services rule the roost
Most people listen passively to playlists provided by streaming services

That means that they may very well know the music but not necessarily who's playing.

I quite often need to refresh my memory as to who these people are. Just the other day I saw an announcement that Cage the Elephant was touring this summer. This time around I knew the name, and I also knew that I liked their stuff, but I was completely unable to connect the dots and remember one of their songs.

Which is just as well, as every time I hear this one it tends to stick in my brain.

Now that my memory had been refreshed I was more than willing to go see them live.

I am not a fan

but I like them

Turns out that I'm in that large group of people who would totally enjoy seeing Cage the Elephant and Beck, but would not be reached by targeting and speaking to FANS OF EITHER.

Our research shows that anything below the top 2 tiers that fill any venue know to man with their excited fans needs to cast a wider net.

FANS (obv)

Of course you should still speak to the fans.

FANS of this type of things

I may not be a fan of the band, but I'm a fan of this type of music.

FANS of Fans

People who like people who like this band or this sort of thing

People who like going out

Don't underestimate the size of the "hey honey, it's been a while since we went to a concert" crowd.

Our tour pages contain a playlist of the most popular songs for the artist on Spotify - and a local view of upcoming gigs.

The landing pages you make for your events should do so as well - or ideally a video - to remind people who the artist is, or reinforce the feelings evoked in the fans.

But wait

There's more

These are really two distinct audiences.

You've got Beck's career going back to before videos were widescreen in the 90s and then Cage the Elephant people a full decade later.

So you probably need to speak to them in a different way - with different music highlighted.

So your efforts and material need to reflect that. You need to speak to fans, to indie fans, to people who'd like to impress indie fans and you need to reinforce the messaging with product samples (first one is free) and let them hear the music. And if the opening act has pull then you should do this for those fans and the wider audience as well.

Luckily we make that easy.

Speak of the devil

Another group of people to reach out to would be fans of the (now NETFLIX) show Lucifer, which has featured Ain't no Rest for the Wicked prominently.

Toti Stefansson
Promogogo co-founder
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