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A Guide To Successful Concert Promotion

 The following information should be used as a guide in developing an effective idea check-list for a Southern Gospel Concert.  This information is structured for an area-wide promotion in a City Auditorium, High School, Church, etc.  The material and ideas provided within this booklet will cover a wide range of information for Southern Gospel concert promotions.  The amount of this information to be used by a promoter will vary as a result of a various geographical areas, metropolitan or rural settings, size of venue and the number of tickets a promoter wishes to sell.  This pamphlet is part of an ongoing effort on the part of the Southern Gospel Music Guild to help improve and expand the overall quality, outreach and effectiveness of Southern Gospel Music.

FOUR MAIN FACETS OF EFFECTIVE CONCERT PROMOTIONS:

 1. RESEARCH:  Concert promotion should be an ongoing educational process on the part of the promoter.  First, research the history of other concert promotions in your area.  Ask questions; gather information; meet people and learn more about your market.  After gathering this information, book the artists you feel will be most affective in your area, based upon the information you have obtained.

 2. QUANTITY:  This refers to having sufficient advertising to let all potential attendants know about the concert.  Many avenues must be pursued to make sure no stone is left unturned.  However, spend your advertising dollars wisely to gain the widest, most affective advertising coverage per dollar spent.

 3. FREQUENCY/DISTRIBUTION: This refers to effective timing and frequency of advertising. People often plan their "free time" weeks and months in advance. Therefore, it is essential to publicize your event in time for potential attendees to plan their activities and fit this into their schedule. In order to insure that the public will find out about your event, you should also plan for sufficient repetition of your advertising. Repetition in the right locations and time slots is essential, and the "buzz" on a concert should actually begin about eight weeks prior to the event to insure effective. If the event is a homecoming or festival, the promotion should actually begin months in advance.

 4. IMAGE: Try to create the atmosphere of, "This is not just another concert!"  People should be drawn into the excitement and uniqueness of a Southern Gospel Concert, as well as the excitement and uniqueness of your particular event.  The extent to which you are able to create this image will play a large role in determining the success of your promotion.

 PERSONAL INVITATION:

 The most effective invitation is face to face or, more accurately, friend to friend. The importance of word of mouth advertising can not be minimized. It is important to get your staff and the people you are around enthused so they will tell others about the concert.

 •  Try innovative means of obtaining word of mouth advertising, such as telling your staff, church group and your close circle of friends about the concert and encouraging them to tell at least two people about the concert, and then those people can call at least two people and so on.

 •  It is important to develop one-on-one relationships with "Media People." (Radio, TV, Newspaper, etc.) It is up to you, as the promoter, to sell these people on Southern Gospel Music. Get them excited about the concert, and you will get them interested in helping your promotion.

 •  The importance of developing relationships with area pastors and ministers of music can in no way be overstated. They can be invaluable in announcing your event in their church bulletins and church services, which is some of the most valuable free advertising you could ever get. They can also assist in being outlets for ticket sales. It is important for you to gain the confidence and respect of the pastors and ministers of music, for then they will actively support your efforts.

 TELEVISION:

 •  As far as the maximum amount of people reached, television is probably the most effective media of advertisement, but it is also expensive. If you can afford it, reserve time far in advance. Search for the most effective yet most economical time slots.  Remember, 10 to 30 second spots are sufficient.

 •  Daytime talk shows can be approached about the possibility of a short segment featuring your Gospel concert. If you could get one of your artists to do a feature spot, station management would be much more receptive about scheduling the spot.

 •  When using television, make sure you supply whatever footage you need to supply on 3/4 inch tape.  The difference in quality of 3/4 inch and other sizes is quite appreciable.

 RADIO:

 •  Free time is sometimes available on radio stations as Public Service Announcements and community billboards or calendars.  Send a press release and cover letter (a letter from yourself announcing the concert and your sponsorship) to all the stations in your area, and use a follow-up call to the News Director and/or Public Service Director to see if they are running your free announcement.  When sending your press release, remember that stations receive a deluge of press releases hoping for PSA spots; so whatever you can do to make your press release look more professional and stand out from the others will improve your chances of getting air time.

 •  Solicit a news story or possible feature story to run several days prior to the concert on the artists you have scheduled to perform at your event. Obtain a press kit from each group and take it to the News Director; then try to set up a phone interview with a group member through the artist's booking agency or the artist's office. Remember, radio interviews are most effective when done during the week of the concert.

 •  Radio advertising should be done first with your area's Southern Gospel station and any Country stations that play Southern Gospel Music.

 •  You should research your area to find your area's drive-times and other times when listenership is high. As with all your advertising, get the most saturation for your dollar. Also, carefully evaluate the effectiveness of the station in reaching your potential audience.  When operating on limited budgets, great care should be taken to pick and choose the most cost-effective way of reaching the most people. This is especially true when you can not afford advertising on all the different media that may be available.

•  Begin radio ads two to three weeks prior to your event, of course, give priority to Southern Gospel stations that play the artists that you are promoting.  Advertising spots should be placed during drive times when the greatest concentration of music is aired.

 •  Provide all Southern Gospel and Country stations that program Southern Gospel Music with the groups' latest CD releases and promo kits.  Then have members of your staff or friends call the request line, regularly requesting the songs.  This will more than likely generate airplay, which is great promotion.

 •  Personally invite important station personnel to the concert. Speak to the Program Director first and offer some complimentary tickets to the air staff.  Incentives such as giving a portion of each ticket sold by the station to the station can also be affective in increasing station involvement.

 •  Have the most popular Gospel DJ in the area introduced to the audience. These DJ's are often receptive to emceeing the concert. This usually adds promotion to the concert and will cause that DJ to promote the concert that much more.

•  Give-away promotions are very successful.  In exchange for each give-away item, the concert should be mentioned at least three times (30 seconds prior to the give-away and twice during the actual give-away.) Restrict the ticket giveaways to no more than two tickets at a time and each give-away no less than 30 minutes apart. Make sure the station keeps a list of all the winners for your mailing list. On the key stations, a paid advertising schedule, along with giveaways can be a powerful combo, and in many cases, the station will "pay" you for these give-away items by giving you discounts on your spots.  Cassettes, CDs and posters also make good giveaways.

 •  "Welcome Station" promotions should be done with the key station in your market. This means that a particular station will give you twice or three times as much exposure for a set fee in exchange for their call letters being listed on all tickets, posters, flyers, etc., as well as agreeing to let their most popular DJ emcee the event. Innovative barter schemes can be worked out with stations in this way.

 •  Promoters should request the artists provide a list of churches they have worked for in the concert area. Churches will be much more helpful promoting artists they have worked with in the past.

 •  Send letters to pastors and music ministers in the concert area, informing them of the concert.  This should be done five to six weeks before the concert.  It might be advisable to create a separate mailing of just pastors and ministers of music so that personalized letters can be sent to them.

 •  MAKE SURE your event does not conflict with any large church functions in the area, such as district camp meetings.

 •  You should also take into careful consideration the possible appeals your artists have to certain denominations and the possible lack of appeal they have to others. This will be critical in gaining the support of area churches.

 •  Starting four weeks before the concert, contact the ministers of music by phone, asking if they would be interested in supporting the concert in the form of church announcements from the pulpit, announcements at choir rehearsals and Bible studies.  Also ask them to include information in newsletters and church bulletins.

 •  Try to meet one-on-one with ministers of music in your area, providing them with bios, cassettes, CD's, complimentary tickets and flyers.  If they seem very interested, you may wish to leave some tickets with them if you are confident they can sell them and keep good records.  You also might want to suggest church group discounts to the church if they can commit to a certain number of people to attend.

 •  Attend pastoral meetings in the concert area, asking for the pastors' support.

 •  Do not overlook churches when choosing a venue. Many churches are now open to having their facilities used for paid Gospel concerts.  Nice churches often offer great auditoriums, as well as sufficient parking.

 RETAIL TIE-INS:

 •  There is a possibility that some businesses are interested in tie-ins or trade outs for promotion.  An example of this is having a Quick-Stop store's logo on all tickets, flyers and posters in exchange for them pushing the concert on their regular radio spots, newspaper ads and in-store displays.  The stores could also offer discount coupons for the concert tickets. The coupons could then be redeemed at the area ticket outlets. On the back of the tickets, you could print a coupon worth one free soft drink at the area Quick-Stop stores for a few weeks following the concert.

 •  When selecting stores for your tie-ins, try to choose those that are well known and have several locations within the area. Also try to choose those stores whose proprietors are fans of Gospel Music.

 CHRISTIAN BOOKSTORES:

 •  Besides being the obvious choice for ticket outlets, Christian bookstores can help create interest in Gospel concerts. Make sure the stores have flyers about the concert to put in the store. You might want to give them an incentive, such as $1.00 for every ticket sold.

 •  Usually, record companies have some type of promotional displays for bookstores.  If the bookstores have access to these materials and if they display the materials in a proper visual area of the store, it will also increase interest about the artists' upcoming concert. At the very least, make sure the store has the latest products of your artists.

 •  Some Christian bookstores have bulletin boards listing upcoming concerts in the area.  Make sure they list your concert, even if you have to give them a few complimentary tickets in order to do so.  Also, ask if you can leave some flyers with them to be placed near the check out counter.

 Airplay cannot be overemphasized.  Please request all of the stations that you work with to substantially increase their airplay of the groups' material the month before the concert.  They will normally do this, especially for advertising, giveaways and station involvement.  They will also be more receptive to doing this if the groups you booked are major artists.

 NEWSPAPERS:

 •  Newspapers are one of the best advertisements available. Editors usually welcome news releases and feature stories on coming events.  Use this media to your best advantage by contacting metropolitan newspapers and community papers.  Send your press release three weeks prior to your concert.  Again, make your press release as sharp as you can. Often, promoters are unfamiliar with proper press release structure, but you can believe the newspaper editors are familiar with the proper structure.  If you do not know the proper structure, seek out public relations and business communications texts in your local library for the proper structure.  It will be well worth your time to do so because improperly structured press releases usually find the circular file.

 •  Contact both the church and entertainment editors of all the papers and check on the possibilities of including the concert, not only in the Upcoming Events section of their columns, but also an interview/feature/CD review and placement of a photograph....especially on the cover of the Entertainment section or Sunday Entertainment Supplement.

 •  Send out 8X10 black and white photos of each artist with each press release.  Photos are popular with editors and readers. Newspaper cover stories and magazines usually require colored slides, which are available through the artists or their record companies.

 •  By all means, do not overlook the trade papers when deciding on your print advertising.  The trades can be affective in advertising your event to the people who would be interested in attending.

 DIRECT MAIL:

 •  Direct mail, if done properly, can get better results per dollar than any other type of advertising.  A mailing list should include key individuals involved in local church groups and other organizations. If a promoter does not have a mailing list of their own, they can sometimes obtain one through churches or from the groups themselves.  Many artists operate their own mailing lists now.  If they are unwilling to part with their list, suggest they do the mailing and you cover all the costs.  However, any serious promoter should invest in the equipment needed to operate his own mailing list.

 •  Every person a promoter comes in contact with that is interested in Southern Gospel Music should be added to the promoter's mailing list.  The best way to increase or begin a mailing list is to ask the people at your concerts if they are interested in finding out about upcoming concerts in their area.  If so, ask them to fill out an information card so their name can be added to the mailing list.  However, make sure you do this either before the concert, during other announcements or at intermission.  While doing this, it could be an excellent opportunity to find out people's opinions about your promotions and about other artists they would like to see in their area by including on the card brief survey questions.

 •  When doing the actual mailing, experts have determined that the more the correspondence is personalized, the better the response.  Many software packages include mail-merge capabilities.  You should make full use of these capabilities when preparing your piece to be mailed.

 CHURCHES:

 •  One the most promising areas for promoting Southern Gospel Music is through the churches.  Ministers of Music are often supportive of Gospel concerts in their area.  Therefore, it is very important they are provided with as much information about the concerts as possible.

 INNOVATIONS TO BETTER CONCERTS:

 •  After applying the fundamentals, be creative about enhancing the overall quality of your promotional effort and of the concert itself.  Imagine yourself in the audience and think of the things you want and expect, as well as the things you do not like and absolutely will not tolerate.

 •  Starting and ending times are something that must be considered.  In most evening concert situations, the accepted starting time is either 7:OOPM, 7:30PM or 8:OOPM.  Anything earlier or later often inconveniences people.  Also make sure the concert ends at a descent hour.  Concerts that last past 11 :OOPM could be considered too long.

 •  Do everything possible to eliminate turnoffs, such as loud sound systems uncomfortable room temperatures, inadequate parking or venues that are not in safe areas of town.

 •  Some Southern Gospel artists have an insatiable desire to take an extremely long time setting sound, tuning instruments, and basically just goofing around on stage before a concert.  It is sad, but some of our artists have this very unprofessional tendency, but you, as the promoter, have every right to not allow it.  It is advisable to tell your artists that when the doors open, the stage IS TO BE CLEARED.  Be emphatic and be serious about it when you tell them. Having the stage cleared when the people start coming in gives a very professional feel to your concert.  Please remember, the piano and tuning of the piano is the responsibility of the promoter, unless the artists carries their own keyboard.  Someone should also be available to move the piano to best meet the needs of the artists, and the piano should be tuned after it is moved.  This responsibility is the promoter's.

 •  Choose the most comfortable venue you can afford. Often promoters go to the high school auditoriums or gymnasiums and overlook fine-arts auditoriums and area churches. It is good to have nice, clean auditoriums for Christian entertainment.

 •  It is often profitable to try to tie-in civic organizations with your concerts.  A great deal of top quality promotion can be done for you by these organizations if you involve them.  However, be very much aware of the organizations you tie-in and know the leaders well before you enter into a joint effort with them.

 •  Always be aware of how often your artist has worked and will work in your area before you book.  Over saturation of an artist will hurt you, the artist and other promotion efforts in your area.  Also be aware of other events or promotions that might be happening concurrently with your concert.  An otherwise successful promotion can be killed by graduations or other community events.  DO YOUR HOMEWORK!

 •  If your promotion consists of more than one artist, make sure your packaging is complimentary.  Artists that have greatly different styles will sometimes not do as well as artists who have similar styles.  Notice the word used is similar and not exact.  You want variety, but you do not want a multiple format.  Multiple format concerts have been about as successful as multiple format radio programming.  Also, do not book too much talent. It will hurt your bottom line due to the added expense and is often a turn-off for people due to the perception that it will last all night.

 •  Make sure you have a quality emcee for your concert.  As mentioned before, the most popular DJ from the most popular Southern Gospel station would be an excellent choice.

 SUGGESTIONS IN ACQUIRING PERSONAL LIABILITY INSURANCE:

 •  Promoters are sometimes faced with the burden of paying high liability insurance premiums on buildings they rent for concerts. There have been cases when a promoter had to pay as much as a $1000.00 a night in order to have the adequate amount of liability coverage to rent an auditorium. Some auditorium owners do not require a promoter to buy liability insurance since they already carry adequate coverage.  However, if promoters must buy coverage, there are certain steps to take to hold the cost down:

 1.  Ask the building owners who writes their liability insurance and try to have your insurance written through the same company.

 2.  If a promoter is set up as a small company or corporation, he can buy a general liability policy for one year and let the insurance company issue certificates to building owners each time he has a promotion.  If a promoter has several concerts a year, he should save money by purchasing this type of policy.

 3.  Always check with several insurance companies to see who has the best price for the amount of coverage needed.  There may be considerable differences in rates. Be sure to check with the city, county or state officials where you are promoting and ask what the liability limits are.  These figures may sometimes be lower than what the building owner has quoted.

 The live performance is probably the most affective asset an artist has in acquiring new fans and new supporters. These acquisitions are the very life-blood of an artists' ministry. You as the promoter, therefore, have the responsibility to see that these artists gain these supporters that will support their ministry and this industry as a whole.

HELPFUL INFORMATION:

 Ticket Printers:

Weldon, Williams & Lick
Ft Smith, AR
(501) 783-4113

 Quilt Tick International
Houston, TX
(7I3) 669-1900

 Sar Cap
Huntington Station, NY
(305) 977-6347

 Posters:

Rainbow Posters
Tribune Show Print
PO Box 188
(219) 474-6061

 The Southern Gospel Music Guild is a dedicated group of professionals commited to furthering the cause of Southern Gospel Music world-wide.