By Kristine Mirelle
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Dear Fellow Artist, Whether you are just starting out, or looking for a way to amp up your career, I’m excited you decided to get this awesome list! This took thousands of hours to compile and is in incredible list of fairs and festivals that pay artists like yourself to perform! I created this resource with the artist in mind! I wanted to help independent artists who are not signed to a record label or have a manager book their own shows and make money using their talent. There are thousands of small festivals in this resource that pay hundreds to thousands of dollars for performers and musical acts. But my advice is to submit to as many as possible. I personally have performed in some of the smallest obscure towns and have made anywhere from $1500-$4500 a performance so don’t underestimate what you can make in many of these overlooked areas! Plus they don’t usually have as many talent submissions and if you’re really great at what you do, they’re really going to appreciate you and support you since they aren’t visited as often as some of these larger festivals! These are some of my favorite places to play because you can really make some TRUE fans! My recommendation is to read the PDF in this document about how to best go about booking with each of these festivals to greatly increase your chances of getting some cool shows! Although I can provide the contacts of those who do the booking, it is up to you to provide the TALENT and get them interested in booking you. Polish your show, work on your performance skills, and carefully read the articles in this PDF on how to create an EPK so that you can have a great presentation to be able to get some fun performances under your belt. Keep in mind that people who are in charge of booking do change frequently, so you might encounter an email or link that no longer handles the booking for that fair or festival. If that happens, please just let me know and I will fix the email so that it becomes updated! The next updated version becomes available in June of 2020. You can email [email protected] Your kick-ass musical friend, Kristine Mirelle Join Our Facebook Group How to Create a Great EPK to Help You Book Paid Shows! By Kristine Mirelle Before you start sending out emails to the contacts in this book I recommend that you put together a nice EPK. An “EPK” stands for “Electronic Press Kit” and basically serves as your digital resume. Having a great-looking EPK will greatly increase your chances of booking shows and making a great impression! You will want to send one to agents, venues, or promotors like the ones in this resource who you are trying to book shows with. It is important to have an EPK because they need to see you and hear what you sound like. They want to know that you are a great candidate for their event or venue and in order for them to take you seriously, you need to send it to them in a professional way. You could be the most talented act in the world, but without a great presentation, an agent might overlook you so we want to make sure we get you the best chances of getting booked!! An EPK can be delivered in the form of an email or website online. A good EPK should have the following things in them: -Short Intro/About Me -Promo Video -Additional Links -Possibly some photos -Contact Info I have explained in other videos/PDF’s that I have had great success booking 100% of my shows (I do more than 200+ Paid Shows a Year) without having to use a website or use an EPK Host Site (IE Sonic Bids, Reverb nation, etc) but I will get into the options you have, let you know what has worked for me, and you can choose what you think is best for your career. 1st Option would be what I recommend the most. And that would be to send an email including all of your information and promo video (Will cover how to make a promo video in a bit) so they don’t have to click anywhere else and go to any other websites. (This saves the the booking agents time and energy) 2nd option is to host your EPK on a site like Reverb nation or Sonic bids. They have nice organized layouts where you can input your bio, links, videos, etc. They look professional and presentable and make it easy for you to easily send an agent to a website to view all of your information. Once again, I prefer the first option because if I am emailing an agent, and then send them to a website and they aren’t familiar with how to navigate through the website, they might get frustrated and log off. Sending everything in an easy to navigate email just seems like a better option in my opinion and has worked tremendously for me. Short Intro/Description of what you do For an intro that you are going to be using for booking gigs, I recommend that you keep it very short and sweet and relevant. (I keep mine at only two sentences) For the purposes of booking gigs, you want to just cover just the basics. I don’t recommend sending a full Bio because most agents are busy people and will only look at your submission for a few minutes MAXIMUM so you want all your information delivered quickly and easily viewable! They just want to know that you are a great performer, know some awesome songs, are professional, and are going to deliver value to their venue. Describe what kind of music you perform. Describe the genre and also what kind of energy you like to bring. If you create upbeat music that keeps people dancing say it! If you are more of a jazz singer performing music that someone can have a nice conversation and cocktail to, say that! Whatever it is, an agent will need to know what it is that you do so they’ll know whether you are a great fit for their venue. If you do original music or cover songs specify that too! I have a great tutorial on how incorporating cover songs in to your set can mean lots more bookings for you and can actually help you promote your original music too! Here is the link if you’d like to check it out! VIEW THIS TUTORIAL AT: http:KristineMirelle.net/Cover Songs Also, I personally like to send everything in first person rather than third person. I want the agent to know they are taking to a real human being and for it to feel more friendly and easy- going rather than be too stuffy and serious. Everyone will have their own opinions on this, but of the hundreds of shows I do a year, I never send anything in third person so I’ve had great success with this method. Examples of a First Person Short Intro might be: 1. I’m a singing pianist who performs Top 40 and Motown hits as well as my own energetic original music. I keep people dancing and singing along in high energy environments or I can keep it quieter and more melodic for quieter events! I specialize in taking requests as well! 2. I’m a jazz guitarist who performs popular jazz standards over instrumentals. I work perfectly for cocktail hours and lounges or any environment that needs some great background music. 3. I’m a singer-songwriter who performs folk music mostly consisting of original upbeat sing-a longs. I also incorporate well-known cover songs and know how to keep an audience engaged! If you choose to send something in third-person here are some examples to follow as well: 1. Kristine Mirelle is a singing pianist who performs Top 40 and Motown hits as well as her own energetic original music that will keep people singing and dancing all nightlong. 2. Bob Smith is a jazz guitarist who performs popular jazz standards over instrumentals. He is great for cocktail hours and lounges or any environment that needs some great background music. Music Links This isn’t entirely necessary to send to book gigs. Your promo video will already do the work. Once again, I prefer to keep emails very short and straight to the point because many of these agents receive tons of submissions and don’t want to go clicking on tons of links or trying to find relevant info. If you absolutely want to include music, my suggestion would be not to attach it to the email but to send direct links instead. Sometimes, booking agents’ email filters will throw your email in the trash or reject it if it has attachments. Plus, I know from experience that it’s just kind of annoying to have to download music when its way easier to just click on a link and take a listen to someone’s music that way. Soundcloud.com is a great place to host your music or you can include it on an EPK host side like Reverbnation or Sonicbids. But I will reiterate that by hosting it on another website, you run the chance that they won’t be familiar with it and could become frustrated and abandon the whole email all together.