[Dixielandjazz] Dixieland booking

[Larry Walton Entertainment]

Today I booked another gig from my mailing and it was for more money and a larger band than usual.  Asking them what their budget is pays.  I got $125 a man for one hour.  That's very good for St. Louis.

Spending a little thought on your advertising and your sales pitch really pays off.

The postcards from www.Vistaprint.com  plus the mailing was about $40.  To learn how to write up your band or yourself go to some old vinyl records and read the write-ups on them.  Write in the third person and don't be ashamed of yourself.

On my advertising I point out the shows I do, some of the bands I play with, places I played while in the Air Force and some of the  other places I have played.  Some of us call it shameless advertising but if you aren't going to say it who will?  I do 16 different shows so while I am selling nostalgia music I don't play exclusively Dixieland.  My most recent show is old time Gospel which may go over at the religious Senior homes.

I have also added about 30 venues to my mailing list since my mailing.  It takes work to ferret out addresses and phone numbers but you only have to do it once and you can print out labels over and over.  Adding that 30 should increase my gigs by at least 2 each mailing.   

The additional cards will cost about $10.  If you carefully target your mailing list you should get a good return on your mailings.  Mail advertisers go nuts over a 1% return on mailings.  I get 5-10% or more especially if you count return gigs from new venues.  So far with this mailing I'm doing about 7% with 100% bookings from the calls I got.  

Many of these people file my advertising and I may get a call next year from a mailing.  That makes a return even more likely.  Many of the rec directors change jobs and that file becomes more valuable when someone new takes over.  This is where guys that only call lose out.

There are senior citizen venues and clubs like the VFW and American Legion, Eagles and Moose clubs are good too.  If you want to target clubs add them too they like summer picnics.  

Receptions are harder to book but you might look in the wedding sections of your local newspapers.  BTW that's a lot of work to do and the leads go away quickly.  One time we had a printer with the band and we could put cards on the counter.  Lots of girls came in for printed invitations.  He always handed them a card.  In those days we did two and three receptions a week.  Just a thought.

If you are willing to call on venues your bookings will do better than that.
Larry
StL