Lately, I have been thinking a lot about touring and venue productivity. I guess I’ve been *mostly* quietly observing the local music events over the past couple weeks and trying to figure out why I am getting this overwhelming feeling of dissatisfaction. Quite frankly, there is some weird shit going on, and a recent concert I attended finally helped me put my finger on it.
This past Saturday, I attended an OK Go show at Tipitina’s. I was thrilled that tickets were only $17.50 (including ticket fees), and I have been looking forward to this show for months. I was shocked to see a nationally touring band coming through at such a (relatively) low price. I was also shocked to see how few people were there. This, to me, says there is something very wrong with the way our venues are promoting their acts. I have seen OK Go before, and they put on a great show. They are certainly not the biggest band to hit New Orleans’ stages, but they are big enough that it should have been sold out. OK Go has an extraordinary amount of web presence and has always done an excellent job of keeping up with their fans…half the work is already done. What’s even more upsetting is that the only reason that I found out about this show in the first place was by checking OK Go’s website. I didn’t hear a thing about it in the local media until the day before.
I have said it before, and I will say it again. I believe we are getting lazy. It is simply not enough to put a few flyers on a few telephone poles and hope some people show up. Wondering why we don’t get many touring bands through this city? THIS is why. I love seeing a show at Tipitina’s, don’t get me wrong, but we are not in a place in the local economy where anyone should be resting on their name alone. People love this city, but love doesn’t pay the bills. We need to offer artists the same kind of accommodations and support that they are getting in bigger cities like Austin, Chicago, New York, Nashville, Boston, etc. before we can start getting on the map. Clearly, we have a size disadvantage, but so what? We live in what could arguably called the music capital of the country, and we can’t fill our venues. We need to start working harder….and I truly do mean “we.”
Damian Kulash (OK Go’s lead singer) said something on stage Saturday night that really struck me. He said, “In all seriousness, you have better music in this city than anywhere else in the country. I mean that. You need to do better. Go out and see live music. Stop seeing shitty rock bands like ours and go see people like Shamarr (Allen).” While, in context, this was meant to be a compliment….I think it was also meant to wake some people up. What are we doing? Why don’t we take more pride in what we do down here? Why aren’t we living up to the name people have given us and we have gladly claimed? It’s disappointing, and now we are disappointing others.
We do have incredible things taking place in our little bowl down here, and it seems that everyone is taking notice but us. It shouldn’t take multi-million dollar productions like Voodoo Fest and Jazz Fest to get people to realize that we are, in fact, no longer under water. Believe me, I’m glad someone is doing it, but we can do better. WE NEED TO DO BETTER.
Listening to: OK Go – “Skyscrapers” live from Tipitina’s
What is missing is clearly promotion. Good professional promoters would have had the house packed in a combination of 2 ways: 1. reaching more actual fans and getting them to come to the show, and 2. a common (but little known) practice called “papering the house”, where a promoter lets free tickets out through various avenues, careful not to let it seem to obvious they’re giving away a huge % of the tickets. Why? Because the band will play better to a big crowd, it enhances the performers’ perceived popularity among the attendees, and what they didn’t do in ticket sales they might make up for in merch.
A good web presence is a great asset, it can be a great tool, but it in itself is not a strategy.
Agreed. Too often, I think promoters think that one kind of promotion is going to be the “missing link” (i.e. web, print, or television). Like you said, a web presence is great, but it doesn’t make up for a lack of presence in other arenas. We have so many different ways to spread the word and connect with people these days; it depresses me that so many people don’t take advantage of them simply because the internet is “easy.” People need to know about things in order to show an interest in them, and we’re making that more difficult than it really needs to be.