If you want to get some attention for your band, you need to do something that draws attention.
Your band is probably not ready for a nationwide tour, but if you think smaller, you might be able to create some great marketing opportunities.
By smaller, I mean a "mini band tour.
" Consider setting up a tour on a smaller scale, like playing three popular towns near your base, or all of the big cities in your state.
If you have a dependable van and some gas money, do a tri-state tour.
You can make a tour cover any region you want, and it can last as long as you choose.
A band I worked with here in Ohio did a 7-day tour of our major cities a few years ago.
They gigged in Cincinnati, Dayton, Youngstown, Columbus, Toledo, and Akron, and finished it up in their hometown of Cleveland.
We selected seven cities exactly so the band could play a show a night for a week.
But the time and places isn't the most important part.
You also need a theme, and this is the time to be original and clever because it's the theme that's going to get the media involved and get you some help from other bands.
Some ideas could be seasonal.
You could do "The Start of Summer Rock Tour" when summer vacation starts or the "School Sucks Tour" for the first week of classes.
You could do the "Pop Explosion Tour" or the "20 Weekends of Rock" (a show in a different town or city each weekend for 20 weeks).
Get creative.
An even better idea, I think, is to make your band tour a charity event.
This not only gets you attention, but it can draw attention and support to your favorite cause.
It's a win-win situation.
When my musician friends did their 7-day tour here in Ohio, they also raised awareness and money for child hunger in the state, a crucial need.
At each show, the band's singer talked to the audience about how important it was to feed the hungry.
Also, each club owner agreed to donate the money collected from a cover charge to the local food banks.
It was great.
The band received media attention, it made new fans in new cities, and it raised enough cash to feed more than 4,000 hungry children.
But a word of caution here.
Fundraising for charities has to be done with care if you don't want to run into problems with the law.
In many cases, you would need to partner with a non-profit charitable organization, and they would need to be responsible for the money.
The rules are different from state to state, but I found that if you contact a lawyer who specializes in non-profits, he/she will sometimes advise you for free.
This is because non-profit attorneys sometimes have big hearts, they want to see you succeed, and they want to make their own contribution.
If you can't find a charitable attorney to advise you, think about paying them.
Helping others is always worth it.
If you want to assist a charitable cause, but you would rather not deal with money, consider doing a tour just to raise awareness.
This can be nearly as helpful to your favorite charity.
The goal is to draw attention to a problem: homelessness, pancreatic cancer, etc.
In this case, the purpose of your mini band tour is to educate your audience about the problem with pamphlets and possibly a guest speaker who can talk to your audience while bands are breaking down and setting up.
Now, you might be asking how you can get gigs booked in places you've never played.
Good question.
The trick is to find one or two bands in each city that are both popular and compatible with your music.
They will want to work with you because you're not just bringing your music, you're bringing a whole promotional package with you, you can give them a slot on the "tour," which they can use to promote themselves.