Speaker 1: What's going on y'all today we're going to talk about how to get started working concerts and music festivals. How do you get started getting a career in the live side of the music industry. So we're going to talk about three three different tips and then some skills that you should learn to go along with those. So first one, super basic. It's all about getting reps right but so working as many events as you possibly can. So if you're literally starting out with zero experience, how do you get started. One of the first ways to get started is just to volunteer working events and work, any kind of event possible and it doesn't matter if it's a, a dog show or if it's a dog walk or if it's a 5k if it's whatever right that doesn't really matter what type of event it is if it is a free event, work the free event is it if it's a ticketed event work definitely work ticketed events because you want to learn as much as possible about ticketing securing your perimeters of a event site, and just how security works how backstage there's anything to do with music or dealing with clients backstage, knowing the separation between the backstage and the front of house the front of house where the audiences, so just volunteer at as many events as possible. get some reps working events, if you can get your way into ticketing somehow if you work the box office whether it's at your local house of blues your local hard rock live or your local arena college arena, whatever any type of venue, even if you can't get in right away. If you work at a small theater and you work in the box office, that's a really really great way to get your foot in the door. Next step, number two, reach out to as many venues and artists as possible reach out to all of your local venues, reach out to all the local bands that are performing at those venues. You can even reach out to the national bands mainly the opening acts. When you're first starting out right so some of the opportunities you can get into and working shows at local venues, you can help sell merch right help the artists sell merch, tell them, you know you're you're local to the area, maybe you're a music business student, or maybe you're just new to the music business and you're trying to get some experience. And you just want to help them sell merch, or being the merch assistant if they have a touring merch seller right to assist them with merch most artists are going to be okay with that and if you worked with one or two, then you can also say you've also worked with such as such right now you can start building a track record of artists you've worked with, and how many shows you have worked with everybody worked 100 shows once you get to your first hundred shows that's really really impressive. Other things you can help with with the venues and artists, you can be a virtual or physical street team members so you can pass out flyers put up posters all around town right ideally create yourself a route right so if you're driving down, whichever street so in in New Orleans if I was driving down Decatur at Decatur street. In which order, and which of them will accept flyers, which will accept posters, which ones will accept both create a street team map on us on a spreadsheet or something that'll really really help you navigate through through the routes easier in the future, and then also look at what other events there are in your area that you can pass out flyers that right. You can also help with the virtual street team, sharing graphics and videos of an upcoming show sharing the event page inviting people to the event page, sharing it on your your stories on Instagram sharing it on your Tick Tock, wherever right and and make sure you always tag the artists always tag the venue, so they can see your promotional efforts, and they will definitely take notice especially if you're promoting consistently and frequently right those things help a lot as well. Another thing you can help with is loading in and out gear right especially again the opening acts they usually don't get anyone to help them at the club level so if you're at the 500 capacity clubs and smaller. A lot of times these opening acts don't have a lot of help with getting their gear in and getting their gear out and especially locals they don't usually get any help at all they have to carry all their own gears, and they'll usually be pretty pretty happy to have an extra hand, helping them out, and you'll just be helpful don't don't ask for any favors, don't ask too many too many questions it's good to ask questions but try to be there more to help and add value versus trying to get value out of right you're already getting value by getting the experience. And then I know a lot of people are interested in becoming tour managers are going on tours are two main routes to go on tours it's the second point is long, I do have a third point, but two main routes to become a tour manager you either get in a van with a local band and just start touring right and while you're on the road with them, help them with some marketing stuff help them take some content. Help them post some content right take photos take videos, while you're on tour the band so you can document the entire journey for them so we have that content today a lot of times, don't don't think about getting or they're just too tired to get that will help add a lot of value to and it's also a great way to get into the world of artist management. Another route besides getting in a van and going on tour is being a runner for venue so now being a runner even though that's kind of still entry level position. For an artist you're helping them get all the food and snacks that are on their hospitality rider all the alcohol that's on their hospitality rider, you might be taking to and from the hotel, you might be taking them to go do their laundry somewhere you might have to run to the music store, so if you're a runner just imagine all the potential needs and artists might have and have solutions like quickly available right almost be like a. Say like a phone book, but maybe almost like be your own Google search engine right if you notice stuff off top of your head, yes, you can always Google it but if. Off the top of your head, you know where a fluff and folders you know where a lot of coin laundry is that's close by so you can do their laundry you know where good local coffee is you know where you can get. A really good bite to eat a local bite to eat or maybe local breweries or anything know where your music stores are when they open when they close, maybe visit the music stores frequently and just have a connect in the music. Music store, so you can have someone directly, you can speak to add a music store and you have to pull a favor know where the radio stations are know where. Just things are all the hidden gems maybe locally right the band has an hour between soundcheck and and. From when they loaded in so we have an hour between when they just got there and soundcheck and they want to go do something because they don't get to see much while they're on the road besides. Highways and hotel rooms and venues right so know where something really cool is to do, I can do for an hour right something that will take 510 minutes to get to. That they might enjoy just being outdoors being away from from everybody and just kind of decompress a little bit so know where all the hidden spots are and that's. How you become a really, really good runner become memorable as a runner and also can work your way up to being a promoter representative or promoter rep which we'll talk about in a in a future video. The last thing I'm sure share this this blog post with y'all for point number three. gives you a couple of places to where to get started so here's a blog post I wrote it's making a Christian comm forward slash blog forward slash career in music. Just a little motivational rant here in the beginning, and then we dive into just a bunch of resources right so here's your two major promoters live nation and ag presents, then you have a bunch of other top promoters. That that might have job opportunities are all around the world, most of these are in the United States, though. So a bunch of resources here, you have your your big six talent agencies which are going to change a little bit after a post COVID pandemic world and then here are your your main boutique agencies so smaller agencies. That that also have could have opportunities for you right and you can see, look at all these agencies links to what what job opportunities they have and what what artists, they represent as well. I will be needing to add a few more boutiques in here because from some of these bigger agencies there's agents to have left during the COVID pandemic and started their own independent boutique agency so we'll add those in there as well. Here are your three major main major labels here are some music publishing companies here's a link to artists management companies just because there's way too many to to list. A great way to start right so these two sections, you see, after this one, also, then we here's a link to some independent music PR and publicity firms right so you can learn about some of these, and then okay here's the two main sections for those of you starting out in the music industry. So, you have your production touring and music festivals production companies, these are different production companies that will either offer production, or even staffing for shows right so one big one here is crew one productions, they have a lot of really great opportunities. So you guys can just take a look through these and see what opportunities these different companies offer and most of these are anything from from staffing to actually providing the production but even when they're providing the production elements like sound audio lighting and so on, they will still have staffing opportunities as well. Then the other big one you want to pay attention to is the live events staffing and VIP ticketing companies. These are great, they have all kinds of different opportunities. So Andy frame services and contemporary service corporation. They usually offer event security and ushers. And that's also a great way to get your foot in the door if you have no experience yet. Go work security at events will work security for your local arena and you're going to work just concerts you're going to work, potentially basketball games, hockey games maybe football games soccer games and so on right, but it's all live events experience and you get to work with security you get to work with box office getting people into and out of a venue safely right all important elements to working concerts. So again, that's Andy frame services right here and contemporary services corporation, then companies like artists arena CID entertainment future beat and OMG VIP these are VIP experience companies, they will manage the VIP experience for an artist from checking in the guest to managing the VIP area setting up the VIP area breaking down the VIP area and breaking it out ever setting up every part of the VIP experience right so if it's Metallica you might work the setup and work the Metallica museum that they have a touring museum that goes on shows with them, or it might be a meet and greet you're working or it might be a john Lennon did a talk where he talked about his his wine right so there's all different types of VIP experiences that these companies offer. And then here's another really really great foot in the door. And then here's just a few job listing sites that you can check out as well to find opportunities in the music industry. And then lastly, I was gonna mention some skills that'll be really really good for y'all to learn right. So first one, you got to get good with the numbers learn how settlements work learn how finances work learn how to use spreadsheets learn some formulas I would highly recommend an Excel class, you don't have to have any super advanced right you have to make charts or anything but just be able to put together a settlement sheet, be able to put in the formulas for settlement sheet. I know on the YouTube channel we have some settlement videos so at the settlement training videos in the description below as well as a link to through that blog article. Another thing a really really great skill to learn is the digital marketing stuff you know really learn how to run ads on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Tick Tock. They're not that hard to learn and it's pretty easy and find all kinds of great information online. I am going to have a couple videos on the YouTube channel as well we dive into that stuff. And then there's also a lot of good free courses out there right so the Google suite. They have really good courses on Google Ads Google YouTube ads, all kinds of stuff and analytics certifications take those free certifications you can do them over you probably do them over a weekend but you can do the three main ones to Google Analytics to Google Ads and then the YouTube certifications you can probably do those in three days back to back just really, really focused for three days and block three days out of your schedule to get those done. Facebook's blueprint courses are pretty good I don't think they're free anymore but they have some good courses, and then the HubSpot Academy also has some really really good courses, and they also talk a lot about when someone comes to your website and how do you really optimize your website to collect email addresses and so on so a lot of really great courses there. And then for content marketing the Content Marketing Institute is another really great resource when it comes to creating content that will get people engaged right new people subscribe and connected with your, your brands or your artists brands. Get, get as familiar as you can with photography, video, video editing, doing basic Photoshop stuff right. All of those are skills that will help you a lot in the world of artist management and in live entertainment if you can do simple things like that right. They're not simple some are pretty complex but you can learn them, you know, learn them pretty easily and just get the reps I mean the more you practice with a video camera and taking photos and editing video and creating little flyers on Photoshop the more skilled you're going to get it's all about getting reps in all these things and, yes, we do have an academy as well we have the making it Academy. You know video wasn't made for to pitch that but if you want to learn more and want to learn how ads work. We have now 24 videos as of the, as of this video premiering on YouTube so 24 lectures and exclusive podcasts and workshops that are in the making Academy. Just go to patreon.com forward slash making it Academy to learn more. You can access the entire library for 10 bucks, and I get access to the live workshops and live podcasts for 20 bucks so pretty pretty affordable. But anyway, I hope you guys learned a lot from this and this little quick tip. And until next time, go see shows meet people make stuff really really important for getting experience, go see shows meet people make stuff. That's the tagline for the Academy, and it really really works. I mean when you go in to see shows, you're going to meet people right so go to shows consistently see the familiar faces network with them meet anyone from the door person to the bartender to the sound person because you never know what their career aspirations are they might be the ones booking the venue one day, and then go make stuff go create content, go write blogs go put up really really great photography on your Instagram channel from from shows do little show recaps make stuff right go see shows meet people make stuff. Until next time, spread love positivity and kindness in the world and live the life you love. Peace my friends.