Today I would like to show you a simple process you can use to replace your income, so that you can spend the majority of the time working on your music career.
This does not take a lot of effort so you can do it on the side and build up a nice income whilst still at work.
What we are going to be doing is creating a tribute act to a popular musical artist and then hustling for gigs. I know that some if you would rather die than play covers for a living, so if this concept does not interest you feel free to skip this lesson.
But this is so much easier than trying to get gigs for your own music, because bar owners seem to have more faith in riding on the back of an already popular act to pull in a crowd of customers ready to spend a lot of cash.
You don’t need to play a great deal of tribute shows each month to pay the rent, which means you can use the rest of the time to work on your own material and any income you make from that will be a bonus!
If you’re skeptical about this then take a look at the David Bowie act below. He goes out for around approximatly £500 ($821) a show!
To set up your Tribute act you will need:
- Backing tracks
- Spotlight
- Small PA System
- Promotional Posters
- Costume
Let’s look at this in more detail…
Step 1 – Work out how much money you need…
This is the first stage in any day job escape attempt because you need to know how many shows you need to play per month to pay the bills. This will be different for everyone but my advice is that you try and keep this figure as low as possible and cut away all the fat.
I’ve found that it’s quite easy to get £200 ($328) per show with this process in the UK, so 6 bookings a month might make a good dent in your outgoings.
Step 2 – Pick your act…
This takes a little bit of common sense!
You want to pick an artist that you like because you are going to be learning lots of their songs, but you also want to pick somebody who is going to be popular and easy to market to the venues that you will be approaching.
This page will help you…it lists some of the most popular musicians of all time and there is a good chance that any of the top 100 will be a good choice.
To maximize profits we are going to be doing this as a one man (or woman) show, so you should look for a solo artist rather than, say, The Beatles.
For ease and speed my advice is that you just learn the lyrics and leave everything else to the backing tracks.
Step 3 – Get bookings…
Now you may think that we have skipped about 100 steps here but I recommend you try and get bookings before you do anything else. This will test the market and see if you are really going to be able to make a living from the act you have chosen to cover.
You can use google maps to find every local bar in your area.
Example: This is a search for bars in New York.
You need to make a simple demo that you can send around to let people hear what you can do.
To show you how easy this is I just spent 10 minutes recording myself as Johnny Cash using a karaoke video that I found on YouTube.
Get ready to laugh at me 
Book four initial shows a month in advance so you have time to get your act together.
That way you will have a guaranteed income which will make developing your act worthwhile.
Make a plan to call 20 bars per day and by the end of the month you will have called 600 people.
If you can just get 1% of those people to book you then you have 6 paying gigs.
It’s a good idea to act as your own booking agent so you might say something like…
“Hello Mr Bar Manager
This is Chris calling from UK music talent and I wanted to talk to you about our latest signing who does an amazing tribute to Johnny Cash.
He’s a one man show so you will not have to worry about a music license, and we will provide you with custom-made posters and even a few marketing tips to make your event go off with a bang.”
The manager or owner will always have the final say on bookings so don’t waste your time telling the whole story to the weekend staff.
When writing your telephone script you need to think about what the bar manager is trying to achieve and tailor your message to match what they want most. (Which is usually to fill up the bar with people and sell shit loads of alcohol.)
Step 4 – Negotiate…
If you’re successful they’ll want to know how much it is going to cost them. Rather than having a set price upfront I would say something like…
“We’re open to offers”
…then shut the hell up and let them reply.
This gives you the power in your negotiation because they might surprise you and offer more than you think.
As I said before UK bars are willing to pay around £200 for an evening of entertainment which is about $328 I think.
If they offer somewhere around $150 say, “Well the minimum is usually $500 but as it’s the first show at your venue we would be willing to settle for $300?”
If they’re stubborn and won’t pay more than $150, you might as well take it. To be honest it’s easy money for only a few hours of work and you might be able to increase your price for future events once you have established a relationship with the venue.
Step 5 – Get really good!
Now that you have some work coming in you need to refine your act. The idea of 4 paying gigs will be good motivation for you. To make this a viable business you need to get repeat bookings and referrals, and for that you need to impress people.
Prepare enough songs for one 60 minute set and two 45 minute sets – this is standard and will give the venue a couple of options.
A great way to get your music together is just to use good karaoke tracks. If you have trouble learning the lyrics you can use this firefox addon to download karaoke videos from YouTube and then just use them on your smart phone position in-front of you as you play.
Obviously the first thing is to learn all your songs but then you need to work on your act as well!
I recommend you watch documentaries about the artist and also read any books you can find about them. Work hard on emulating their mannerisms and style.
It does not matter so much if you don’t sound exactly like the person if you put on a great show and throw in a few funny lines if possible.
Step 6 – Send posters..
To help the venue promote your show you want to get some simple posters printed up with a blank space at the bottom so that you can customize each one for each venue.
Black and white will be cheapest and they’ll do the job. Include a nice attention-grabbing headline and a picture of yourself in character.
The more people that come to your show the more chance that the venue will ask you back which is exactly what we want. For this reason once you have sent the posters you should call up the venue and make sure that they have put them up.
Also have the venue manager ask his staff to tell customers about the gig.
Step 7 – Get paid…
This is the most important step of all, and you want to make sure that you get paid BEFORE the show.
You simply need to call up the venue manager and explain that you have had a bad experience in the past and need to get paid up front if possible. Send a simple paypal link.
They have been plugging the gig for the past month and will be looking forward to it, so most people won’t have a problem with this as long as you ask nicely.
It’s totally up to you but I would refuse to play unless a payment has been made….this may sound harsh but if the venue manager is honest they won’t really care when they pay you because your fee is guaranteed NOT based on how many people come through the doors as with normal gigs.
Step 8 – On the night…
While you are at the bar you might as well hustle. Sell CDs, live DVDs, promote yourself for other parties and sign people up to your mailing list.
You are there to work so squeeze out every penny you can. Being proactive on the night will often increase your income a lot.
Step 9 – Repeat bookings and other opportunities…
A couple of days after the show you want to put on your music agent’s hat once more and call up the venue manager to ask for a regular booking.
The best scenario with this is to get a set of regular monthly shows so you have a little bit of security knowing that the money will be coming in.
Final thoughts.
I’ve used this process myself in the past and it just works! There are a lot of moving parts but hopefully this has given you the general idea.
If you like performing this is a cool way to make money.
You’ve probably got questions so feel free to leave me a comment below and I’ll do my best to help you out.
Talk soon,
Watch the video podcast version…
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