Fan interaction is a vital part of your performances if you want to keep people interested and coming back. Bands that find ways to involve their fans, or even make them part of the shows, nearly always triumph in terms of PR and fan evangelism.

The more ways you can get fans involved in the show, the happier the crowd will be. Here are a few of our favorites.

4 Ways To Encourage Fan Interaction At Shows

1 – Preshow Meet-and-Greet

Press the palms for awhile before the show, or drop in for a surprise visit on fans waiting for the doors to open. They’ll be thrilled, plus once you’re onstage you’ll likely see some familiar faces in the crowd.

2 – Need Extras?

If you’re putting on any kind of theatrics, consider using fans culled from the crowd as background extras. I had a friend who briefly shared the stage with Queensrÿche during one of their “Operation: Mindcrime” tour shows thanks to this… and he’s still a fan 20 years (and many lineup changes) later.

3 – Encourage Video Uploads

If half of your audience is going to watch your show through their phones anyway, why not make something of it? Create a #hastag for uploads on your favorite video site, or set up a central upload database. You get a huge stock of free material for videos, and you could think about letting fans use it to edit videos of their own.

4 – Social Media Integration

Along the same lines, think about ways to work social media into the show itself. Maybe a script could auto-update your feed with live audience pictures, or even pre-chosen supplementary materials. A singalong could also be fun–broadcast the lyrics a few minutes before. If you’ve got a screen, maybe it could post photos your fans are taking periodically.

The sky is the limit, but however you do it, incorporate more fan interaction into your live shows. The fans will love it, and you’ll get a lot more buzz.

Have you been to any shows where they had a good participation gimmick? What happened?