BUILDING CONCENSUS I: Securing The Venue

You will be executing Part 1 and Part 2 of BUILDING CONSENSUS simultaneously.

College towns are the way to go. Especially if you can book your show for a Thursday night in these towns (most college kids have Friday off, or a late class, if that.) So a lot of venues have that night for a "college night" anyway. In your bigger cities, if you can link up with a great act, you want a weekday, Tues or Wed depending.

Try not to book on Sundays or Mondays, unless that is all the venue will give you. If you cannot give the venue a strong lineup with artists they may be familiar with (which is why you looked up the shows for each artist) They WILL most certainly not give you a weekend. Plus, most of these venue owners have a problem with hip hop, and "the kind of crowd it brings" So not having it on a Friday or Saturday night, helps you to put them at ease about it.

Let's face it, (now I'm going to go there) Hip Hop gets a bad rep from people who say they are serious about performing, but invite people who are looking for trouble, or they themselves are troublesome, ie; smoking weed in the venue, fighting, not buying drinks at the bar, bringing their own drinks to the bar, not tipping, etc...

You have to be very careful that you don't give yourself a bad name by not respecting a venue, which is the biggest reason they have reservations about booking hip hop acts in the first place.

It is this reason mainly that I created this blueprint, as a hip hop artist, you have too many tangibles that could hold you back from being successful at touring. And unless we identify these intangibles, we can't make moves. The more you understand, the better you can plan.

When you search for venues anywhere, you must use a filter like "hip hop/rap" to search for venues, the ones that show up don't quite "as-a-matter-of-fact" accept hip hop submissions, and there are some of course who want nothing to do with hip hop or rap. Metal is another one of those red-headed stepchildren that gets no respect. (Shout-out to the ginger kids)

Look for venues that are currently booked with hip hop acts and contact them.

If you're a RAPVeterans® NATIONAL Member, you will be invited to watch a live stream where I call venues on a circuit to make sure they will book hip hop acts. I don't care what it says on their profile, "any genre" don't mean a damn thing.

You need to make sure your spelling is pristine and that you should always communicate as a "representative" of the act. Don't say, "I'm a rapper, and I want to book a show", talk a bit about the date you have in mind (it should be so far away (month-s), the venue will most times have it open; Unless they are a national touring spot. Then who knows?)

Venues don't really care about your submission, they would rather meet you so whenever you find their booking email, you can send them your press-kit, wait 1 week, and then give them a call.

Be nice and professional, they might not even had a chance to look at your press-kit, and if you behave as though they slighted you, they will show you what that slight really could be...

You see, most venues usually have a SIN (Service Industry Night) and this is where venues offer drink or food specials to employees of other venues, just so you know, they talk and if you have made an impossibly irreversible impression, you can bet this is where, "you'll never work in this town again!" Can be true to the bone.

I got my first job by calling and showing up to the place EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR A WEEK, I'm not kidding you. They weren't even hiring, but I showed my earnestness and commitment to the objective; they appreciated that and hired me the next week. I loved that job.

So don't be afraid to call, the absolute worst thing they can say to you is they "don't want no nigger music here!"

That is an obvious worst thing, but even if that's what they want to say, they won't say it like that. So, "no" will be the worst (usually) that you will hear. Because of this, you need to compile a list of every venue willing to work in hip hop, that's all. Some cities have more than others, your job is to make one of those venues commit to a date.

If they'll listen, tell them your plan, which should include a roster or lineup, your touring dates, your promotional plan, etc... Most venue owners just want a professional act. If they don't have time, ask if you can send them your press-kit. You can send it blind, but if you ask, at least when they see your email, they know it was from the guy they talked to and they're more likely to check you out. Here is where you have your information. Like a business plan, but one for you to get them to agree to secure your tour date.

You might have already sent the press-kit... Send that shit again if they say yes.

They, like you and I, are tired of live music acts from all genres who plan poorly and suck. But then they blame the venue for not doing more.

INTEL: Do Your Research

USE GOOGLE. In all honesty, there is no better tool than Google. Get a gmail.com account, and make it happen. You will want to access to their calendar app. Wherever you might want to post an event, on a site and you need to register, Google has a tab 90% of the time from which to sign-in (which sometimes I've seen a date I put on Google Calendar do a lot of the promo on it's own.

Google is NOT A PUNK out here.

There are sites to get your mission completed.

Some venue sites have links on their websites that go to pages and have rows upon rows of information on promotional tools like all the college radio stations, commercial radio stations, the newspaper...

Now if they have an artistic community; you can bet they will have a number or email of someone so you can get that radio spot while you're in town.

I used to look at cable providers, you can too if you know how to cut a 30 second promo of video and get some audio over the clip, the event just reached 10,000 people before you have even stepped into town. For the price, it's not bad to have that kind of promotion.

Do you see why I've said to plan 4-6 months in advance?

On reverbnation.com there are ways to sell your music online. You can also design your t-shirts buy them at cost and recoup the funds during the tour. Find download card distributors for your online songs.

Kunaki.com is competitively priced for CD duplication, and you will appreciate the company's flexibility.

You have to install their CD making wizard, but it's virus free and you don't even have to have it mixed to wave like bandcamp.com.

The Single Biggest thing you can do is merch. Become A Member to receive all the access to everything you need to build a national tour.

Become A Member

I'm not telling you not to get it mastered. If you care, it should show. But you can upload the album from like a zip. file. It comes in handy when you can only afford 20-25 CD's. Or even one, it's crazy.

You have to be on your merchandising square. Maybe I lied, because if you have no money to fund this tour (if you're just a hip hop artist and not balling) you need to start looking for ways to make money in your spare time. If you write lyrics, there's a chance that you could make money writing articles online, or taking paid surveys. You need about $500 to $750... If you got that, then you are ready to launch the process.

You can start with this survey. You can earn money, by joining this program, but I'll also make a couple pennies when you start here.

NEGOTIATIONS: Riders & Guarantees

This one is easy.

If you're touring, and you're:

A: Away from home,

B: An unknown, and

C: Unsigned...

You needn't ask for more than 150 to 200 dollars. An even sweeter deal would be to suggest that you can take 10 percent of liquor sales. As far as contracts go, many venues will not sign one with cash in the terms unless it has been cleared with everyone in their venue. This is hard to do because they are busy, ALL OF THE TIME!

So, your initial contract should not contain a monetary guarantee. In fact it should only state that the venue will hold the date for you and not double book, if that happens, you are the rightful designee for the events of that date at that venue. THAT IS IT!!!

Look, most venues won't even sign THAT contract, but it shows you are taking care of business. If they won't sign anything, then you have a choice:

A: Don't book with them, or

B: Book it anyway and hope they don't screw you over (A good way to prevent that from happening, is to keep in contact with the venues on a weekly basis, you calling them should not be about the date, and whether they forgot you, but rather to keep them up to date on the progress of the show. Keep the conversation about your commitment instead of theirs.

Sometimes venue owners, talent buyers, and entertainment managers forget who they talked to, and what date they agreed to... You must remember these two things:

1. They are human beings, and they are busy. THAT job is very busy, and most times, it's an auxiliary duty, so it just adds to their workload in the venue. So be patient.

2. No matter how unprofessional YOU think it is that they forget, they are STILL the venue, and they hold the keys to you performing for a living. So be FUCKING PATIENT!!!

You see, talking about YOUR commitments for the date will put your act in their minds when they think about that date. So even if someone wants that date they will know off the top, it's yours. So, without asking about it, you are securing your date more and more. You might even get them excited about it after a few calls and emails. Email them, yes. But call at least ONCE a week. And NO! Not at 7pm or 10pm. Yeah, you know they'll be there at those times, but a call from you during their business hours, will net you an enemy. You want find a formidable ally in these venues when you do plan you tour, get it?

150 for you isn't bad, you can charge 1 or 2 dollars for the show or make it free (which will increase the number of the crowd), If you charge, it is only fair to cut the locals in if you can.

Other than that, the #1 GOLDEN RULE is:

If the touring act is only seeing a small guarantee, the locals should not expect pay. Especially if the touring act does all of the promotion, this usually happens.

For the sake of starting networks and relationships; If you are able to put up the touring act at your place, you should. You would want the same love shown to you, I promise. IF you do a two week tour, and you secure a 150 dollar rider at all of the venues... And you take two rest days during that time (you will need them), your gross will be 1800 dollars.

Subtract about 500-600 for gas and lodging, it could be up to $700 if no one puts you up. You still have 1200 dollars more or less, for two weeks of shows preceded by 4 months of late nights and planning. Horrible, but if it's worth it to you, it gets better. You will begin to make more with this type of rider-style touring.

But since we're hip hop acts, we can't ask for the moon in some of these regions across North America. Keep it realistic, and they will bite. They will pay you more the next time if you put together one hell of a show. It has happened to me. And I know I'm not some special isolated incident. It happens all of the time.

A less appealing method and mixed rate of success, is liquor sale percentages. You ask for 10 percent for any sales over $1000. If you promote it well, and can get the venue to make some cheap fruity shot (you want the females on location to like it) or bomb in your name, you can see alcohol sales get to the levels both of you want to see, it is a risk, they may not do it. Or nobody comes and you make a Twenty.

So manage your expectations.