How can a band make the most of their performances? How can you get (and keep) an audience’s attention? These are questions bands ask us all the time. So, we thought we’d give you some answers straight from some of Europe’s biggest festival promoters. Check it out below:
How can bands help promote their gig at a festival not in their home country?
Bands can promote their gigs best on social media like Facebook or Hyves. As we also provide a playlist of all bands performing at the festival at Spotify, we can reach a lot of people that might be interested in the festival or the band.
- Leo van der Velden, Metropolis Festival (Holland)
What is the best piece of promotional material in your opinion for a band utilize to book or promote their gig?
Live videos are great! It's the best way for both fans and promoters see how the band performs on stage and how the audience is responding. This way the promoter can also see how the band would fit into a specific venue or line up.
- Thomas Heher, Waves Vienna Festival & Conference (Austria)
What are some cool ways you’ve seen bands grab the audience’s attention at a festival?
Well there are several ways, and they also need to be “suitable” for the individual band & style so it is hard to give out a blind idea… not talking with the audience is not always good, too much blabla talk also taking the energy out of the show… 2-3 smart short funny (writing it is easy) comments to the audience (maybe about some local news)… everything else would be show effects…
- Harry Jenner, FM4 Frequency Festival 2011 (Austria)
What’s the biggest mistake a band can make around their performance at a festival?
Our festival gets many, many applications every year for our music and art festival in Hamburg in the north of Germany. The biggest mistake a band can make is to sound like 1000 other bands.
- Enno Arndt, MS Dockville Festival (Germany)
What are some things that festivals promoters usually do to help bands have a good festival gig, especially if they’re from “out of town”? Are there any promotional opportunities the band should be aware of and should check with the promoter?
At VESTROCK, we really try to make an effort to make sure that the time a band spends at our festival, and especially the backstage area, is as pleasant as possible. We make sure that we look after the hospitality rider, as long as the requests are reasonable. For this year, the bands have their own bar in the nicest tent we have at the festival.
But even more important, we try to ensure that the people visiting the festival know about the bands. Of course, there's no need to do so with the bigger names, but as it is our policy to book the most happening and upcoming independent bands, there are a few names that festival visitors may have never heard of. To attract people to these bands, we especially use these bands to showcase in press outings to local and regional press. And for this year, we have created an iPhone and iPad App that will give information about and music from all bands.
- Marcel Verhaar, VESTROCK Festival (Holland)
What’s the best tip you could give a band to make their festival gig a successful one?
Bands should just do their best to impress the audience in a way they know best. No concessions. Just do the thing that convinced our program staff to book you. And playing in Holland, try not to get wasted before the gig.
- Leo van der Velden, Metropolis Festival (Holland)
Always try to present your audience something special on stage. The "live experience" is not only about the music you hear it's about what you see on stage too. And think of some special merch or give aways - not just t-shirts - for your fans after the show that they remember the gig as something special.
- Thomas Heher, Waves Vienna Festival & Conference (Austria)
Don’t just rely on the promoter to promote everything for you especially when you are a new band… try to promote your gig at the festival also yourself upfront, it has never been this easy as with the “social web” these days…
- Harry Jenner, FM4 Frequency Festival 2011 (Austria)
The biggest tip is not to sound like 1000 other bands.
- Enno Arndt, MS Dockville Festival (Germany)
Enjoy yourself and try to be nice to everyone at the festival. Everyone is there to have a good time, and at each festival people, mostly volunteers, are doing their best giving up their spare time to make the festival, and also your gig, happen together with you. Even though you're the performer, when you're playing you need the support from the people who made the festival a living reality.
- Marcel Verhaar, VESTROCK Festival (Holland)
