Tag Archives: Focus

Book Like A Sniper

When looking for shows, be choosy.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

(Fair warning – this post might start out with a particularly cranky tone, but that’s just to lay the groundwork for friendly advice and encouragement a bit farther down. All I ask is that you hear me out.)

I’m not currently the booking manager of any club, bar, or theater.

But when I was, I had a bad relationship with a particular kind of booking agent. I called them “Shotgunners.”

A Shotgunner was a booking agent or band member who had a “form e-mail” written up, and was sending out that e-mail to every venue in the path of their tour. The goal was to get “a show” (any show) when they were in Salt Lake, and so they half-blindly shot a bunch of messages into the general area. If they got multiple responses, that was great – they could choose a gig from the bunch. If they got one response, that was still okay, because they would have something to do that night.

For a good while, I responded personally to each Shotgunner. I saw it as doing the right thing, but as time went on the shotgun-booked shows turned out to be both poorly attended, not-fun-for-anyone affairs.

I started ignoring the Shotgunners entirely. Shotgunner emails were, on the whole, very easy to pick out from the worthwhile booking requests:

  • They were almost always sent from a major music market, like LA, Chicago, Nashville, New York, or Austin. (There’s nothing wrong with that, it was just part of the pattern.)
  • They disproportionately represented the metal-screamo-pop-punk pool of bands. You know, the genre where there’s always at least one musician who’s way too loud for the small-venue context, and where all the band names have a catchy cadence like “Deny Us The Planet,” or “Tear The Stars From Heaven?” (By the way, if there are bands with those names, I’m not ragging on you. I just made those names up on the spot.) Again, there’s nothing wrong with any of this. It was just “the profile.”
  • The e-mail writer almost always said something like “we’re routing through your area.” This was apparently code for “we’re going to travel through your city on the way to an important gig, and we figured we might as well play.” If I was particularly lucky, they would take the time to actually mention Salt Lake by name.
  • The Shotgunner would usually try to impress me by mentioning that their catchily-named band had shared the stage at [venue in their music market that was probably big there, but that I had no clue about] with [another catchily-named band that was probably big where they were, but I had no clue about]. The Shotgunners did get bonus points – for a while – if the band had been a part of Warped Tour or SXSW. After I realized that a band having been a part of either event was no indication whatsoever of whether anyone in Salt Lake would even know about that band, I stopped granting the points.
  • The absolute, positive, dead-giveaway that I was being Shotgunned was when the e-mail would inevitably reveal that nobody had bothered to read the venue’s booking info. The booking info clearly stated that we were a DIY sort of affair, where locals put together their own bills, there were no guarantees, and everybody (the venue included) was just getting a cut of the door. The Shotgunners would constantly talk about guaranteed payouts, and how it would be okay if local support acts were included. (A big factor in me no longer answering Shotgunners was becoming tired of having to constantly restate our booking info.)

Focus – It’s Good For You!

Everything I wrote about above was about how Shotgun booking affected me, but what I really want to focus on is you.

The musician who’s trying to build a fan base. The musician who wants to tour. The musician who wants to be heard. If you take nothing else away from this post, please take this:

Your music is worth so much more than a hasty e-mail that’s fired off and forgotten.

Read that again, if it hasn’t sunk in yet.

When you let a booking agent shotgun your info, or you shotgun booking requests yourself, you are doing yourself a disservice. You’re selling yourself short. You’re gathering up a big portfolio of shows that – for whatever reason – probably aren’t worth your time.

The fix for this issue is extraordinarily simple. All that has to be done is to trade the “shotgun” for an instrument of precision. In other words…

Book shows like a sniper.

Snipers are the folks who get called in to handle “high value” targets. Snipers become familiar with their quarries, figuring out what makes them tick. Snipers carefully maneuver into place, looking for the opportunity for the perfect shot. They are going to fire one bullet, and that bullet has to count.

(By the way, I’m not advocating for an adversarial relationship between musicians/ booking agents and venue bookers. This is all just a metaphor for focus and commitment.)

Booking like a sniper means taking your time on each individual show, taking the trouble to build a relationship with the venue, and taking care to have the long-term in view.

Better Shows Through Care and Planning

Shotgunning is a very tempting approach. It’s fast, and it seems easy – but remember how I talked about The Law of Conservation of Effort? Shotgunning saves a bit of time on one end, but all that time will have to be paid back later. It may even be paid back with “penalties.”

What I mean is that there’s a big payoff to spending the time necessary to really pin down a great show, in a room you definitely want to play, with clear understandings between the venue management and you.

  • For one, going into the booking process with a clear demonstration that you understand what the venue is about sends a HUGE signal. It indicates that you care about the show – and let me tell you, your caring about your own show makes everyone else much more likely to care about your show.
  • Another big point is that taking your time to find the shows and rooms that really work for you leads to a much more fun and profitable career. Sure, a Shotgunner may get more shows, but a lot of those shows will probably be mediocre. Even junk. Snipers, on the other hand, spend their time getting and playing high-quality, fun gigs. Especially if you’re just starting out, high-quality dates might not be as numerous as you prefer, but be assured that they are worth several “junk nights” apiece.
  • The final point is that a show you’ve taken your time on is one where both you and the venue know what to expect. A hasty booking may be fraught with confusion about who promised what to whom. On the other hand, a careful booking makes you much more likely to be compensated fairly – and also much more able to argue your case if anybody tries to pull a fast one.

“But it takes so much time!” you might be tempted to shout.

Believe me, I hear ya. Again, though, I have to hammer on The Law of Conservation of Effort. Let’s say you shotgun-book a whole ton of gigs. The law of averages will take care of some of them being good, no doubt. However, unless you’re really lucky, a lot of those shows won’t be worth much fun OR money. Even if they aren’t worth much, you still have to get everybody organized, practice, get everyone to the gig on time, load and unload your gear, play like you mean it, and then get “reset” for practice. Because the booking was done in haste, you might have had to renegotiate some things on the fly. You may get shuffled around in the lineup without any say-so. You might just get stiffed out of your share.

The gigs might be utter crap, and yet you still have to do a lot of work to make them happen.

At some point, doesn’t it just make sense to spend, say, a couple more hours on getting a few shows you really want, where all that effort is much more likely to be worth it?

Money Is Important, But Not All Important

Before I wrap up, I want to make one more point.

In my experience, what makes any particular show “high quality” or “worth it” can take a lot of forms. At some times, it will be all about how much money can be made. That’s not all there is, though.

I want to be absolutely clear that I think “fun factor” is a huge component of what makes a gig worthwhile. If you’re going to have a serious career, you will probably have to balance “fun” with “profit,” but it can be very easy to throw “fun” out unnecessarily. Every so often, you’ll run into a situation where the show is a genuine blast, but is financially weak.

Taking that date anyway is totally legitimate, so don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.

Every so often, it’s perfectly okay to say, “The show will hardly pay anything, but that place has the most amazing [food, drink, hot waitress, view out the window, whatever]. Come on, we’ll get the gas money back, be out of the house, and just play the songs we like.” As long as you don’t run your career into the ground by doing this every show, you’re fine.

…and notice that the hypothetical gig has been well considered, with everybody knowing what to expect.

Book like a sniper.