How to present a successful concert

If you've never organized and promoted a concert, it can seem like an impossible task. In fact it's
not all that hard if you understand the basics. What follows is a rough outline of how to organize and
present a concert in a public venue, as opposed to a house concert. I hope you'll find these suggestions helpful.

You will need: musicians, a good venue, a sound system (usually), and an audience. Once you've read
through this page, you'll also see the need for some help, preferably two or more volunteers.

Please take a little time to think about what you're doing and why. My feeling is that a concert should be an
enjoyable gathering of people to hear music, where the musician(s) have the chance to give their music to
the community, and where the community can give back to the musician(s) in the form of money to pay for
food, housing, gas, etc. Concert presenters sometimes expect to make something for themselves or their
organization, but be aware that there's very little money to be made from small-scale concerts. If your main
motivation is to make some income, fair enough, but you might want to try something else.

Well... your venue doesn't have to be THAT big.

The Musicians - Your musicians unless they live locally, will need a guaranteed fee for this kind of appearance. Someone, or some group of people, will need to sign a contract agreeing to pay a set amount, regardless of whether or not ticket sales are enough to offset it. Musicians really can't travel without guaranteed fees. If you do things right, you should be able to recoup the fee as well as the other concert expenses through ticket sales. The key is in having reasonable expectations all around. By the way, if you get a successful concert series going, don't worry about finding musicians, you'll be swamped with groups wanting to play for you.

The Venue - There are several things to consider when selecting a concert venue, including
1) Seating capacity - This needs to be balanced against the cost of renting the place, reasonable ticket prices, and musicians' fees.
2) Acoustics - You don't need to be an expert acoustician... if the place is used for other concerts it's probably fine.
3) Parking
4) Familiarity (does the public know this place as a concert venue?)
5) Cost - Some halls charge a flat fee, others an hourly rent, some take a percentage of ticket sales, some take just their costs.
6) Ticket sales - It's an advantage to use a venue with their own ticket sales setup, but you usually pay quite a bit more for it.

The Sound System - It's CRITICAL to have good sound... after all the trouble you go to in order to present your concert, the last thing you want is to be unable to hear the music properly. It's usually best to hire a sound engineer with his/her own system. They'll set it all up, do the sound check and run the board during the show. But you don't have to hire a gigantic, arena-type sound system. There are usually musicians or sound engineers in most towns who have small to mid-sized systems and affordable rates. Ask around at music stores for advice. There are situations where a sound system isn't necessary, but in general you'll need them for anything larger than a house concert. The sounds system is more about balancing the volume of acoustic instruments than it is about blasting the audience with sound.

The Audience - Getting a good audience is the trickiest part of the process. There's a LOT of competition for the public's attention, and people are often just reluctant to go out and hear live music at all. You need to reach everyone in your community who might be interested, and there are several ways this can be done. The gist of it is to present the information about your musicians in a way that will stand out and capture the interest of those people who are their natural audience. The musician (me) needs to furnish the presenter (you) with good promotional materials [photos, bio information, recordings] which you will furnish to local newspapers, radio stations, etc.. Many musicians (including me) have ready-made posters that only need to have the concert information inserted.

It's a good idea to have a checklist to make sure you do everything possible to get the word out. If you have the budget you might consider paid advertising, but for the most part it'll be email, maybe a website, word of mouth, posters, newspaper articles, and radio airplay that will bring out an audience.

Most newspapers, especially in smaller communities, are looking for interesting material for their entertainment pages. Contact someone personally in the Arts and Entertainment section, tell them who you are and that you're promoting a concert and ask if they'll run a preview article. This kind of thing in the local paper is very effective, especially if they run a photograph of the musicians. The photo works wonders, so be sure and ask if they can use it.

TICKET PRICE - You'll need to do a bit of research to see what people will pay for a concert like yours in your community. This can be tricky; it depends on who the performers are, how much else is going on in your area, and lots of other factors. If you underprice it people will (really, no kidding) think it's not going to be high quality. But if you overprice it they just won't come. The issue of ticket pricing is one of the hardest parts of the equation. Your best bet is to look through the papers, online, etc., and see what people are charging for concert tickets and try to hit a comfortable mark. Don't try to get what Neil Diamond is getting at the arena. ;-) Some people use this rule of thumb: TWICE THE COST OF A STANDARD MOVIE TICKET in your community.

TICKET SALES - The basic approach is to offer tickets for sale at the door only, at a single price. Or you could offer advance sales through a local music store or other business. They may or may not do this and they might charge a small fee per ticket. Or you could link up with an outfit like Brown Paper Tickets to provide online ticket sales. In general, the more opportunities people have to purchase tickets, the better your sales will be. Most people these days are accustomed to buying things online with a credit card, and if they can't do that they may not come at all.

The Concert - Allow plenty of time to get the sound system set up, to organize the seating if necessary, set up a table to take tickets and money, and a place to display and sell the musicians' CDs during the break and after the concert. Most concerts consist of two 50-minute sets of music with an intermission of 15-20 minutes. Ask the musicians if they mind being audio- or videotaped, then make an announcement to the audience before the show starts. Ask people to turn off their cell phones. Be ready to lower the lights when the music is about to start, and bring them back for the intermission and the end of the concert.

MORE TO COME...