READ the article at:
http://saridelmar.wordpress.com/2014/01/17/20-sneaky-rules-about-being-in-a-band-that-no-one-ever-told-you/
It has good advice , such as:
#4 Promoters Don’t Like to Share with Each Other
So you are gaining some steam and every promoter in town wants you to play their venue! Yahoo! Great news. BUT there’s some politics with this. If one of the bars or bookers in town took a chance on you 8 months earlier (example time frame) and helped you gain the momentum you have now, going to the other booker in town would piss them off and hurt their feelings. They are feeling invested in your career and proud of you, and then you go and take it away from them to play a show with their competitor? This creates lots of tension and they curse your name and say things like “I’m never helping that band again!” They drag your name through the mud with other locals and industry. This is no good…
Why do they care?
Well because they need to grow their business. Their job is to pack a room and sell concert tickets. When they started helping you out 8 months ago you could only draw 10 people. You lost them money, but they helped you anyways. They put you on support shows or did extensive postering campaigns to help you grow! They invested real dollars in your success in the market so they could help get you to 100 tickets. Their reason in doing so is so they could fill that room and profit from your growth. You are an investment and partner of theirs now. Sure it’s not so formal, BUT it is an unspoken arrangement and if all goes well you will make each other lots of money for many years to come. Going to one of their competitors once you are able to draw irks them because of this.
If you do get offered a gig and you’d strategically like to do it with one of their competitors, the right thing to do is to talk about it with your promoter on record first and ensure they’re all cool with it.
Make sense? Play nice!
http://saridelmar.wordpress.com/2014/01/17/20-sneaky-rules-about-being-in-a-band-that-no-one-ever-told-you/
It has good advice , such as:
#4 Promoters Don’t Like to Share with Each Other
So you are gaining some steam and every promoter in town wants you to play their venue! Yahoo! Great news. BUT there’s some politics with this. If one of the bars or bookers in town took a chance on you 8 months earlier (example time frame) and helped you gain the momentum you have now, going to the other booker in town would piss them off and hurt their feelings. They are feeling invested in your career and proud of you, and then you go and take it away from them to play a show with their competitor? This creates lots of tension and they curse your name and say things like “I’m never helping that band again!” They drag your name through the mud with other locals and industry. This is no good…
Why do they care?
Well because they need to grow their business. Their job is to pack a room and sell concert tickets. When they started helping you out 8 months ago you could only draw 10 people. You lost them money, but they helped you anyways. They put you on support shows or did extensive postering campaigns to help you grow! They invested real dollars in your success in the market so they could help get you to 100 tickets. Their reason in doing so is so they could fill that room and profit from your growth. You are an investment and partner of theirs now. Sure it’s not so formal, BUT it is an unspoken arrangement and if all goes well you will make each other lots of money for many years to come. Going to one of their competitors once you are able to draw irks them because of this.
If you do get offered a gig and you’d strategically like to do it with one of their competitors, the right thing to do is to talk about it with your promoter on record first and ensure they’re all cool with it.
Make sense? Play nice!