Now’s the time of year where you’re likely to get spammed by bands you don’t know to vote for them to play Warped Tour. And while playing the summer festival even for one day is a huge deal, there’s certain things you can do to improve your chances (or flushing them down the drain).
Our friends at Zach Neil Company have posted 5 good ways to get your band on Warped. Check it out after the jump.
Originally posted by Zach Neil Company
“After owning and booking a stage on the Vans Warped Tour for almost a decade, I figured it was about time to share some advice for artists trying to get on the tour. Starting in October every year I start to get about 15-20 emails a week from bands looking to get on my stage on the tour. By march that number is 100-200 emails a week and sometimes more. I once received 600 emails about warped tour in one day! I cant possibly keep up with or even reply to that many emails, especially when I am expected to click every link, listen to every band and discover who they are and what they are about. If I am getting that many emails how many do you suppose the tour owner Kevin is getting or his staff? Probably easily twenty times as many. The idea is not to annoy those you want help from but to offer something of value in return fr what your asking for. Below are the top five BEST ways to get on the Warped Tour.
1. Be relevant… This simply means, if your in a small town band that doesn’t at very least sell out or pack your local 200-300 capacity venue, than why are you trying to play warped tour? Its not the tours job to “get your band big” its your job to bring paying customers out to the tour. That doesn’t mean that we wont book a small band or an upcoming band but it means that you need to at very least be relevant in the town your from. Many times I rely on popular local bands to get people out to support the tour and the stage. Knowing that solid local bands can bring in a crowd is a good reason to book them in their perspective market. Usually in a situation like that, if I know the band is going to be good for the tour in one or two markets, Ill book them and to help them out I will add a day or two in other surrounding markets where they aren’t that strong to help them grow as well. Its a trade off in a sense, they are bringing something valuable to the equation and so I also give them something valuable in return. It’s really common sense, if your an upstart band you wouldn’t expect to be playing Madison square garden right? So why would you bug the tour to add you to something your clearly not ready for? With that said, if your project has some juice and you think you have a reason to be on the tour, make sure you present that in an honest way which brings me to point number two…
2. Tell the truth… If your band is actually buzzing chances are we already know about it. We live our lives in the entertainment industry, we know everyone and have our fingers directly on the pulse of what’s going on. If by some very small chance we miss something, one of the dozens of people who work for us would catch it. DON’T email the tour bookers telling us all the hype about your band. Honestly, we don’t care who you toured with, what producer you worked with or what big studio you recorded at. The reality is that even if the same guy that recorded the last Foo Fighters record recorded your record its irrelevant. You’re not the Foo Fighters, and who your engineer or producer is, or what band you opened for doesn’t effect the real world or your situation in any way at all. It also doesn’t change the fact that if I haven’t heard of your band, you’re not buzzing yet! So don’t try to sell me with “Lies” or fake hype. Its the biggest turn off for me personally. According to some of the bios I get, these bands should be headlining sold out arena tours yet they have less than 1000 likes on facebook and no one is talking about them. There is a very detailed and precise system that we use to select many of our bands. We research bands by region, we look for what bands have a lot of social media and web traffic, we check concert listings at all the local venues to those areas and see if those bands are playing there. We check pollstar and call local promoters that we are friends with and ask them what bands are killing it in their towns or venues. We read dozens of “taste maker” websites and blogs that cover buzz bands and regional acts that are growing. After that we break down a short list of bands we are interested in, and then make picks based on what bands we think are talented and deserving enough to be out with us. Even if a band is buzzing or their popular, if we think they suck or have a bad attitude we probably wont book them. Bands that we book for our stage usually look something like this… FACEBOOK LIKES NUMEROUS, real social media traffic and local blogs and zines talking about and covering the band, Usually unsigned or signed to a very small indie label or newly signed to a bigger label but NOT on their fourth record for a bigger label! We are looking to be a stepping stone for tomorrows headliners, and we have been. We debuted All Time Low, Forever The Sickest Kids, Four Year Strong, Down With Webster, Motionless In White, and many others. All of those bands were buzzing when we found them and met the criteria we look for to be out on the stage. So if your band has some juice like I said, here is a perfect example of the email you should send to try to get booked.
“Dear warped booker, my name is ____ and I play in the band ____. We are from ______ and we have started doing pretty well here. On average we draw at least ______kids when we perform locally. Our local press has also been covering our band the local newspaper and popular blog (www.——.com) have been talking about us. The local radio station ____ has been playing our stuff and we really feel its time we get on a bigger tour like yours. We would really like to play the tour when it comes through our area. We can promise we’ll bring a good crowd out to see us and well promote like crazy. Here’s a link to our music and videos for you to check out. ALSO here is the phone number to our local concert promoter who can tell you how many kids we have been drawing when we play locally. Thanks for your time, hope to hear back. PS. Even if we aren’t able to get a date, I’m still coming to the tour that day and would love to meet you in person and talk about what my band is doing and see if maybe we can talk about next year”. INCLUDE LINKS TO SITES AND PLACES THAT CAN BACK UP WHAT YOUR TELLING US. Be honest and include facts and real statistics that show us why we want to book you and what it means, and what exactly your looking to get out of it. This gives you a better chance of getting a returned email and possibly a booking.
3. Promote, Promote, Promote… Find a sure way to show us that you have fans that want to see you on the tour. DO NOT have your fans email or harass us that is a sure way to NOT get booked. Instead a suggestion would be to create a facebook page or group, something like “send ____band to warped tour. Get a thousand or more people to like the page and promote it as your own “battle of the bands” type of thing. “We need our fans to show warped tour you want to see us there” That type of alternative thinking and promotion is exactly the type of stuff we like to see and it shows real fan interaction and support in a non invasive way. Once you have the support your looking for, email us a link and tell us what your up to. Include the date or dates you have fans at. An even better way to show us where to put you would be to have your fans post comments on that page and suggest what date they want to see you on. If you do get booked on a date or dates, you should continue to promote as much as humanly possible. Make it your goal to make a big splash. Try to make it so that when someone google searches “warped tour” on any of the dates your playing, your name pops up on the first few pages. Tweet, facebook and promote anywhere and everywhere you can. This type of action shows us that your a serious act, hard working and you want to be there. It also goes a long way to getting invited back in the future.
4. Enter a battle of the bands… YES THE BATTLES DO WORK! There are several going around, and they are specifically designed for the bands who are upstart and need to make a splash. Some are online battles, there are a few physical battles in different parts of the country and some online contests as well. REMEMBER, if you have to email us and ask to get booked you’re probably not ready to be booked. Not in EVERY case, but in most cases this is true. So instead enter a battle of the bands.
5. Attend the tour as a fan, DO NOT FOLLOW THE TOUR AND SELL YOUR CDS IN THE PARKING LOTS OR ON THE LINES… This may seem like a great way to promote your band but it is not and it aggravates everyone on the tour and makes you look foolish to your peers. ALL of the bands that are playing the tour have worked very hard, spent money and time and earned the right to be there. One of the rewards of playing this tour is getting to sell your merchandise to the thousands of fans who attend the tour everyday. The patrons of the tour come with a limited amount of money to spend on band merchandise and sponsor apparel. When dozens of bands show up that aren’t playing and they pimp the lots and lines with their cd’s and goods it actually hurts the bands playing the tour, the vendors and the tour itself. The money you are accepting is coming out of the pockets of the bands that are actually on the tour and the vendors who have paid a lot of money to be there. Your essentially a THIEF or a SCALPER hustling the lines for something that’s not yours and that you don’t have the right to do. Your taking money and potential sales from everyone who has earned the right to be there. If you want to make an impact, here’s two better ideas for you.
Follow the tour but buy tickets to the days you want to come. If that seems expensive email someone on the tour production and tell them you’d like to follow the tour for a string of dates and that you PROMISE not to sell anything or be in places your not permitted like backstage etc. Tell them you would volunteer for a few hours everyday for anything they need from runners, to helping set up catering in trade for free access to the tour. If you are permitted bring a few hundred cds and some swag with you each date and GIVE IT AWAY FREE on the lines or in the venue. No one will get angry about free goods and its a sure fire way to get some love for your band. DON’T SNEAK IN, if you cant get in for free buy tickets, your not special, you haven’t earned the right to be there and you haven’t been invited, so why on earth would you think you should be allowed there for free?
In closing, i recommend to have a positive attitude and outlook at all times. Let that positivity shine through your dealing with your project, be polite and kind and that type of positive energy will flow through to the people you meet and help elevate you. Do things the right way, don’t take shortcuts, earn the right to be the places you want to be in your life. When you finally get there it will feel great and be a real reward for you. So maybe you don’t get on this year, start working towards next year now! Earn your place and you will have it!”
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