Research, research and research your market.

Once your band has its music ready to go you're ready to work towards getting your first gig. However, first of all you need to know what you're up against.

It's time to do some researching...

It's an exciting feeling knowing that you and your band are ready to start performing.

As a band you have written songs and rehearsed them to a standard that you are happy with. Now you are at the stage where things get a little bit more serious.

In chasing your first gig you are going to be dealing with other businesses and this is where your knowledge of how to conduct yourself in a professional manner and your skills in selling your band come into play.

Researching the live music scene in your area and getting to know the people who are running it is very, very, very important (I can't stress this enough).

Networking with venues, agents, bookers and anyone else of importance for that matter is cruicial for your indie music bands success on the live circuit.

In your researching you want to find out these things:

1. What are all of the venues operating in my local live music scene?
2. Which of those venue are appropriate for my band to be playing at this time?
3. Of those appropriate venues who are the people to contact?
4. What are the music magazines/papers in my area?
5. Of those music magazines/papers who are the people to contact?
6. What are the community/non-commercial radio stations in my area?
7. Of those community/non-commercial radio stations who are the people to contact?
8. What bands playing in my local scene at the moment sound similar to us?

Once you have this information at your fingertips you then have a really good idea how big your local scene is and how many possible gigging opportunities are waiting to be taken.

From the above list you will know:

• Where, and to whom, to send your bands promotions package (Venues)
  
• Where, and to whom, to send your press releases for your upcoming gigs (Music Media)
  
• Where, and to whom, to send your CD demo (Radio)
• What bands that you would consider doing a gig with (Other Bands)