There are some common mistakes many semi-pro and amateur bands make when approaching venues for gigs. Avoiding these will make a big difference to your success in getting bookings.

1. Making it tough on yourself
The easiest places to approach are those already featuring live acts like yours. You can persuade a bar or club to try a live band but this will be harder than giving a venue “more of the same”.

2. Limiting your targets
Don’t restrict approaches to that handful of places you can immediately think of when you’re considering locations to approach. These are only the start. Constantly research for unknown venues via other band’s websites, local press ads and word of mouth.

3. Only thinking of yourself
Many musicians put pressure on themselves by focussing only on what getting the booking will do for them. Keep in mind how the venue could benefit from you playing there. You should be trying to hep them improve the entertainment they give their customers. Focus your thoughts on how your band can give their customers a night to remember or swell the money through their tills by the people you take along to watch you. It will make your attempts to persuade the venue much easier.

4. Wasting time and effort on people who can’t give the booking
Concentrate your efforts on the decision maker, the person who actually books the band. It’s pointless giving your demo CD to a member of the staff. You have little hope it will reach and get listened to by the person who can give you the booking. Make a phone call to check for the name of the person who actually books the bands and best time to contact them.

5. Approaching at the wrong time
Don’t start trying to sell your band until you’ve prepared. Make sure you’ve established in your own mind what’s different about your act. Also, there are wrong times to approach venues. Avoid the weekends and Thursdays and don’t try them in peak trading hours.

6. Giving up too soon on a particular venue.
Just because a venue says “No” when you first try them doesn’t mean you should cross them off your list. Venue managers change. What if one of their regular bands may split up or decide they don’t want to play there again? You need to make sure yours is the band they think of when they look for a replacement.

7. Only trying once in a while to get some bookings
Devote regular time every week for making contact with new venues. Get into the habit of making a set number of approaches a day if you can.

8. Using one way only of approaching.
Widen your methods of gig-getting. The phone is often the cheapest and most successful route, but try a regular newsletter to update venues about the band’s activities and development. Call in person if the venue is local enough.

It’s tough for bands to make it big. But that doesn’t mean yours can’t. Here are six ways you can promote your band, get gigs, and get noticed.

Build a website. If you don’t have a website up, you should. It’s a great way to connect with fans, sell merchandise, and publicise your touring schedule.

Use word of mouth. Word of mouth can be an effective way to promote your band. Make sure your family, friends and coworkers know every time your band has a gig.

Go on tour. Touring is a great way to get noticed, but if you’re a no-name band, it can be difficult to get gigs. So try getting creative. If you develop a tour with a theme that’s quirky and interesting enough, you’ll definitely get media coverage.

Get creative with your merchandise. Nobody reads brochures more than once-but people will read your band’s name thousands of times if it’s printed on a handy tool they use every day.

Open for others. Get in touch with other local bands that play music in the same genre as yours, and offer to open for them.

Make teaser CD’s. These are small CD’s that contain one or two of your songs, printed with a label that features your band’s name and website address. People are much more likely to take these home and listen to them than they are to read a brochure.

When you’re a new band just starting out, it can be tough to get noticed. But there are things you can do to get the word out. With these methods, you’re much more likely to be able to build a fan base.

Getting started is one of the most difficult thing to do. For a starting musician, getting a gig is extremely the most difficult in a very competitive music industry. There are some steps that your band can do in order to book that very first ever gig and give you that desired break in the music industry. You have to prepare everything including the press package, record a demo cd, attend open mic nights, be an opening act for free, solicit press kit, join free concerts, go to booking agents, get a sound technician, internet promotion, get a free web hosting site, send e-mail to local newspaper, get band manager, & join battle of the bands

So maybe you have considering hiring an agent to help you promote your music, or maybe you simply cannot afford this type of service. Perhaps you have used various paid methods of promoting your band, and failed to produce the results you wanted for the money? Either way, there are some key ways you can promote your band in a low cost, or even free manner, that will surely help you to gain a great deal of exposure.

First thing you need to do is lay the groundwork for proper promotions. Have press kits ready, postcards, business cards, t-shirts, hats, and mini CDs or samples of your music. You need to be able to give out these items to newspaper reps, friends, fans, agents, and anyone at all who crosses your path, especially while playing shows and so forth. You can get many of these items to promote your band at a very low cost through services like vistaprint. Pocketreels.com is good for mini CDs to give away. This is the groundwork. You need to be somewhat prepared to give people something to hold. Imagine if someone substantial hears you music, asks you for a demo at a show, and you have nothing to give? A disaster possibly. You don’t need to spend a lot of money, but have a few things to give out at all time. Plus the more you give out to people with your bands name on it, plus the more free CDs you can give out, the better. If you have recognition and want to charge, then so be it.

Okay, next, play as much as possible! Yes, that’s right, play even when there is no pay involved. After all, you are doing this for the fun of it anyway, right? So play charity events, fundraisers, school events, open mic nights, or even karaoke nights! If you are really serious about making it, play as much as possible and get your music in front of people. Then give out your CDs and so forth (See groundwork section, above).

Finally, make sure you have online exposure. That means if you have a website make sure it is properly optimized for traffic and rankings. You either need a website, or a MySpace, that has pictures, samples of music, listings of events for fans, and ideally an email list for fans to subscribe to so you can keep them up to date. You must have one or the other. If you need a website, you can easily build one online for a few bucks a month. You must, must, have a MySpace and/or website. I would venture to say the MySpace is important for rock bands, but cover bands should have both. If you want the professional image, you should have a website, plus a MySpace. If you are just looking for rock band exposure, and hope to make it big, but don’t book weddings and so forth, then a MySpace will do.

Good luck!