Playing a charity gig can be a fantastic way to do some good in your community and give you an excellent opportunity to do some band marketing. Every live musician is looking for as much exposure as possible to be able to market their band and music to as many people as they can reach. If your band gets the chance to play a charity benefit you should take a good look at the potential of reaching a large audience that you normally wouldn’t get to come to your regular shows.
Some examples of charity gigs are: natural disaster relief, medical fundraising, fundraising for children’s groups, museum, library, hospitals, church and arts organizations. Charity gigs usually come with the stipulation that the band plays free of charge. This will be a fair trade-off if the show is going to bring in large numbers of people. The residual marketing you’ll be able to do will pay off in terms of exposure and more than make up for any money that you may be out putting on a show. You definitely want to try and find out what the potential for having a large audience will be. Find out what the advertising for the event will be. A great thing about playing a charity show is that a lot of media outlets will advertise the event for free. This can generate a huge amount of exposure for the event and your band.
When you play a charity gig, make sure it’s okay to have a large amount of promotional material for your band there. Most charity organizers will let you do some marketing in exchange for playing free of charge for the event. You’ll want to have some of your fliers promoting your website and upcoming shows, CD’s, business cards and contact information. You should avoid selling anything since you don’t want it to look like you’re taking money from the charity that you’re playing for. If you do want to try selling then make sure you promote it as giving a portion of your proceeds to the charity itself.
As you can see, playing a charity gig can be a very prime marketing opportuninty. You could very well land some huge gigs playing at a charity event. At the very least you should be able to reach some new fans.
I’ve never played a charity gig so haven’t recommended this course of action to my readers or subscribers.
A couple of interesting points in this piece though. Namely about:
1. The opportunity to do some good for other people (i.e. those in need of the charity)
2. From a band marketing point of view, the potential to reach a wide audience who wouldn’t normally attend your shows.
Good idea to check out the likely audience numbers and amount of advertising for the show before committing…
Thanks for the food for thought
Gareth
Right on Gareth, I’ve played to some huge crowds at charity events and made some good industry contacts because of them as well.
Matt