How to get more work at Alive Network

If you’re wondering how you can get more work from Alive Network then it’s important to understand a few basic principles of how we work:

• Customers choose the artists they want to book, not us

• We base rankings on how popular acts are with customers

• Acts who present themselves most effectively and most competitively will win the greatest share of the work

Alive Network doesn’t really have any venues or clients for whom we directly chose the entertainment. We have little sway over which artists a client picks, and although we may show some favour towards the acts we book the most when we’re specifically asked for a recommendation by a client, we only ever recommend acts who clearly match what we know the client wants.

If we look at your profile on our web site and we feel it isn’t exciting, it’s out of date, or it just don’t look as appealing as another similar artists profile, then we probably wouldn’t put you forwards as we risk losing the booking.  

Clients act in exactly the same way; they make enquiries for the most exciting looking artists who best fit what they’re looking for.

Getting your business head on

As artists is very easy to focus on your performance ability and assume everyone will be able to tell how good you are. However, in the real world, where 90% of customers are not musicians, are booking an act for the first and only time, and can’t always tell the difference in performance standards from one act to another, you really need to understand which factors are going to most influence a customer to pick you.

You need to look good (photos / image), sound good (audio demos / repertoire), and be priced competitively.

Client turn-ons

From our direct experience, these key factors influence a client’s booking decision the most:

• They can afford the act, and the act is competitively priced against other similar quality acts

• They like the overall sound / vibe of the artist, in particular the lead singers voice

• The artist has recorded and has contained in their repertoire, a lot of the clients favourite music, and music they feel a lot of their friends / guests will also like.

• Unless they specifically want a vintage style act, the image and audio recordings / repertoire of the act are up to date, including hit songs from the past 12 months for rock / pop bands

• The artist has quality controlled their audio recordings and repertoire so they only play music that suits the band, is played properly, and which sounds totally awesome

• The artist looks good, has professional photos, and has taken care to style themselves effectively.

• The band has its own identity and doesn’t look like it’s dressed in a boring ‘standard function band uniform’.

• The artist adds to the client’s personal ‘cool’ factor. No client wants to book a band that their friends will think are lame.

• The band are of a similar age to the client, or at least give the impression they’re on the same wave length as the client (see previous comment!)

• The artist has plenty of customer reviews available to read

• The band has a good quality video which shows the band in action at the kind of event the client is booking for, and which includes some talking so the client can see you’re professional but also nice people that they would be happy to have at their event

Below are examples of two promo videos which have proved very effective for these bands, both of whom have become 'best sellers' at Alive Network. These videos were produced by Alive Network and are an example of how we can help your act create promotional materials gears towards our client base.





Turn offs

The following things are a huge turn off:

• Second rate performances of their favourite songs, incorrect parts, sounding busked

• Poor quality audio recordings, or ‘all live’ recordings which don’t sound polished compared to other bands recordings

• Performing music that doesn’t suit the band or singer

• Out of date audio and repertoire

• Poor quality photos

• No distinct band identity, generic function band

• Dated or poor band image, bad haircuts, poor clothing coordination

• Over pricing compared to better looking acts, especially once travel is factored in

How we can help your act get more attention from our clients

We now offer a free profile review service where we will look at your act in detail and review every aspect of how you’re being promoted to our client base.

We will review your

• Sales and enquiry performance over the past 12 months

• Demand for your act type, including demand in the locations to which you are most local

• Prices, including travel costs across the UK

• Your audio recordings & repertoire

• Your photos & image

• Your profile text and references

• Your competition on our web site

We will talk through with you what you feel your strengths are, the feel and vibe of your performance, and make sure how you’re being promoted properly reflects this. We will review your act against the best-selling similar artists in your genre and make suggestions as to how you can compete with them.  We will put together a list of suggested development activities which we feel could improve your sales through Alive Network.

In most cases we can arrange recording studio time, photos shoots & video shoots.

In some cases, if we feel your act will sell well enough, we may subsidise these activities so you don’t need to pay any money up front.

Having optimised your profile on our web site to a standard where we feel you can compete effectively with other better selling acts, we will consider giving you a ranking boost so you have more opportunity to be seen by more clients.

We will periodically check in with you to make sure things are progressing as we’d hoped and help by suggesting further optimisation if we feel it’s required.

 

Factors that we are not able to help you improve

Age

If the average age of your act is quite a way above the age of the clients you’re hoping to get work from, we can’t do anything about that, other than try to capture a youthful look in your promo photos! It is a sad fact for more mature musicians that younger acts will always significantly out-sell them in the function market, especially in the rock & pop genre, and especially for wedding bookings.

If you are an older act, or have an older lead singer, you can try to use this to your advantage by focusing on music that is more in line with the likely requests of similar age clients. Although the wedding market is much smaller for age 40+ couples, it still exists, and it may be the case that by focusing on your strengths you can win more work here where perhaps the client isn’t looking for youngsters.

Vocalists

If your vocalist is trying to perform songs that just don’t suit their voice or style, then nothing is going to fix the fact that the entire band will sound weak as a result. The best bet is to ONLY record and perform music that suits the band / singer, even if that means leaving out popular songs that you know people will want to hear. This can be a hard decision to stick with, but insisting on quality will serve you well as a long term business strategy. At the point of booking, clients will compare your version of a song to another bands version, and if your singer really doesn’t suit the track, the other band will win the client. At a gig, if your band sounds a bit naff playing tunes that really don’t fit you well, you won’t build the reputation and therefore referral work necessary to sustain a career, or command decent fees.

Summary

Alive Network is here to help promote your act to our client base, and to help you get as much work as possible. We have a good insight into our market and how to effectively sell acts in all genres. Our advice is free of charge and you have nothing to lose by booking a profile review so that we can identify areas where the promotion of your act can be improved.

Book your free profile review here