Re: loop-friendly venues

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

I've been thinking about what "looper friendly venue" might mean but
not found out that I know about any such. So far the concerts I do
locally here in Sweden have not been the fruit of my dedicated
marketing research. It's rather the other way around, as I have a
financing problem with playing for the lowest payment. Those few
events that has hired my services have rather been looking for
something else than "looping". Maybe for "experimental music", "sound
art" or simply "weird jazz" - and luckily I have been doing quite a
lousy job explaining what I'm trying to do - so different people tend
to see me as a different kind of player and luckily it has happened
now and then that this fragmented picture of me has temporarily been
resonating with someones ideas about something.

 But here's another idea I have actually been using and that worked:

Whenever you plan to look for a gig in a city, or a region, first go
to a public library and collect all the local daily papers for the
region. Scan through "art and entertainment advertisements" pages and
write down a list of all venues, institutions or organizations of the
area that arrange events where your act would fit in (remember you may
"fit in" as the odd card as well - I once had a blast doing live
looping impro at a singer-song-writer's evening beer club... yeah,
yeah, funny but it sort of worked). Ok, next stage is to Google the
list of players and find out who is in charge of planning the program
at the venues. You may use the phone to call and ask who to speak to
for presenting live show offers. Now - Before you start making phone
calls - change your hat! TAke on the hat of "your manager", "your
publisher" or whatever person that should be able to help you doing
this and talk about about the artist (you) as one fair part in a
business negotiation. Maybe you are in the lucky position of really
having a person in that role... well, when we did this trick we played
all the roles by ourselves and managed to offer venues "a special
deal" that was not so expensive as the local top commercial artists
but still priced well enough for making it possible from our
perspective.

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se
www.perboysen.com