Your essential tool to play the festival stages in 2014
Blog by Louise Dodgson under Artist Managers, Creative & Branding, Finance, Law & Music Business, Live, Media, Music Publishing, Music Training & Careers, Record Labels, Recording & Production, Selling & Distributing Your Music
In our series of blogs detailing how The Unsigned Guide directory can propel your music to bigger and better things, this month we delve into a few more of the sections covered in our mammoth online directory and share how best you can use the info we provide to your advantage.
In these chilly climates your mind may not have turned to the topic of music festivals quite yet, but rest assured this is the time of year you need to start taking action if you want to bag some slots on the festival circuit this coming summer.
The Unsigned Guide online directory contains contact details for over 160 UK music festivals which have stages and slots for unsigned and emerging bands and artists. You’ll find info on everything from the major players such as Glastonbury, Latitude, Bestival, Leeds/Reading to smaller, independent festivals such as Dot To Dot and Kendal Calling, plus plenty of regional festivals that you may not have come across before who welcome unsigned acts.
Our listings will tell you when the festival is held, what opportunities there are for bands & artists and how you can apply to play; whether that be submitting a performer application form online, entering a competition and making your way through the heats to bag a slot, or simply getting in touch with the booking contact to submit your music and footage of your live performances.
Best of all, our Festival listings can be searched by deadline application month, so you can always keep abreast of the festivals and events that are currently on the lookout and make sure you don’t miss an important application deadline again.
If you want to play in front of new audiences, then a slot at a festival is the perfect way to do this so get stuck into the Festival section of our directory and with any luck the bookings will be flooding in before you know it. Also be sure to keep an eye over the coming weeks for our blog full of tips about how to make your festival slot count!
And now onto some other areas of the music industry covered in our directory that you may want to tap into. Our Regional Music Websites section has many listings covering cities, towns and regions across the UK; each focused on the best new music in their area.
Obviously, it is always worth keeping in touch with music websites focusing on the city/town you’re based in for potential features. However, it is also a great resource to tap into if you’re casting your net further afield and embarking on some gigs in other areas. You can send gig and event listings to many of these sites and they are also often willing to offer coverage to out of town bands who will be playing in the area soon. It’s a great way to start a buzz about your music in a city you haven’t visited before.
Some regional music websites have busy forums where you can initiate contact with bands and artists of a similar style from other cities to set up gig swaps, be put in touch with the best contacts in their area for your style of music, or even get the lowdown on who is good to work with and who to avoid. Communication is key and building firm relationships with musicians in other areas can be key to putting your music on the map there, through a little insider promotion to their local fans or simply by finding a sofa to crash on for the night. If you’re willing to offer the same favours back to out of town bands that visit your city, then you’ll forge some lasting friendships that could benefit music careers all round.
So onto our final area of The Unsigned Guide directory that we want to familiarise you with – Tour Services. This section of our directory contains contacts for all manner of services you may need if you’re thinking of embarking on a tour of the UK, or beyond.
Whether you’re looking for a tour manager to help you out on the road, create itineraries and get you safely from A to B, or you want to hire a suitable van and go it alone, you will find plenty of contacts from all over the UK who are accustomed to working with bands and artists.
Our Tour Services section also covers professional crew members, sound engineers, technicians and tour bus drivers so planning your tour will be a doddle once you start searching through The Unsigned Guide for what you need. You can also find details of coach and minibus hire firms if you’re trying to organise transport for your friends, family and fans to come and watch you gig further afield and make a trip of it!
We list more than 200 companies and individuals that can help you take your music on tour so if that’s on your agenda, start making plans using The Unsigned Guide now.
The Unsigned Guide directory contains over 8,700 UK music industry contact listings covering 50 areas of the music business. Take a look here to see everything our online directory features.
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the unsigned guide, music contact directory, music business, music industry, unsigned bands, unsigned artists, independent artists, emerging talent,
