An artist should always promote their events. If you don’t promote you can’t expect a full room. The artist that promotes gets the shows. You better believe venues keep records. They have expectations. Shit…they have the internet. They see what’s going on and who is pulling their weight and who isn’t. They’re not going to have an act back if they didn’t promote…it’s just bad business, and afterall, this is the Music BUSINESS.
Take note of the details. Often performers won’t take the time to pay attention to the costs of a show. It should be the priority of every musician to make sure they know how much money is going into the event, “A lot of bands don’t care what expenses are or don’t bother asking. If you’re playing in a band, you NEED to know what you are paying for,” says Sam Edgin of Phantom Note Productions. This benefits everyone involved. If the artist is on the same page as the talent buyer and Promoter then there shouldn’t be any surprises on the payout at the end of the night.
When an artist is booking events for itself they should be taking into consideration how often they are booking shows. The rule of thumb is a show a month, if you’re booking more than one show a month in the city, than you’re doing too much. Often bands or performers will play
out weekly for the first several months in order to get their names around to other venues and tighten up their set, but they too should pull back on the playing. It’s better to play one
memorable show a month then one memorable show and three mediocre events. You want
every show you play to be a big deal. If you’re on a different bill at a different venue every week, it takes away from the hype that you can build if you put your focus into promoting one special
night of entertainment.
Finally the community needs to support it’s own. Awdazcate (a Chicago hip hop staple) has a saying, “Support what supports you.” Truth if it was ever heard. We don’t pay for records anymore, we stream or steal every chance we get, and then we want to be on the list for our friends show. To keep a culture alive you have to support it. You have to become a part of it. An actual living member of it. Chicago is seeing more and more talented individuals make their way into the center stage of the hip hop scene, but for those artists to rise above and break into that next realm of existence, they need the support of the fans. Like I said, artists paint the picture of what is around us…they should be rewarded for it.