You’ve spent countless hours planning a 20 date spring and summer tour. You’ve toiled over finding the venues, emailing back and forth to confirm the date, the time, the backline. The van is booked, rehearsals are sounding great, and your tour is finally about to come to fruition. It’s so exciting!

But if you if you live in Philly and you’re touring to cities in Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, or even as far as California, you might not have a fan base in those regions yet. So how do you avoid playing to an empty house?

You have to find potential fans in those regions and let them know about you and your show. Where do you start? Who is willing to help you figure out something like this? Who has as much stake in your show as you do?

The talent booker at the venue, that’s who. That person wants people to show up just as badly as you do. They want a packed house, they want people spending money on tickets and drinks at the bar. That person is also much more tapped into the local media market than you are, and can provide you with very valuable information about local media outlets to contact.

So you ask the venue booker if they have a list of local media outlets that you can reach out to. Venues in most cities have an in-house list that they’re willing to share with names and contact info for newspapers, radio stations, blogs and tv outlets that might be willing to cover your show.

So, several weeks in advance of your shows, reach out to every single booker you’ve worked with to ask them to send you their media list. Then, be sure to send all of those places information about your show and give them a reason why they should cover you (what makes you special and newsworthy?). Follow up with these contacts as it gets closer to the show to see if they can confirm coverage.

Get the attention of potential fans in new regions! Get folks out to your show by contacting reporters in the areas that you’ll be touring. And, be sure to thank the venue booker for the insight!

What do you think? How do you get fans to your shows in new regions?

The SongCast Crew