How can a club band can get corporate gigs?

[pmarc]

My 7-piece top 40 band is playing at lots of clubs. How can we get into the Corporate Market? Thanx! Website avail if you need it.

[Martin Walker]

I suspect the obvious (but not very helpful) answer is contacts!

Perhaps you need a manager/agent who is already familiar with such a circuit, as I imagine getting bookings for corporate events might be somewhat different from the club circuit.

Maybe someone else will reply to prove me wrong

[Sam Spoons]

As MW says, get the right agent. I worked as a PA guy for quite a few years before I retired and I got to see many different covers/functions bands. IME the bands playing corporate functions were usually (but not always) much more professional than those doing club gigs which was, I guess, partly because the agents acted as quality control and, as a consequence, the money was significantly better (the budget allowed them to hire me to supply and run the PA for starters ) than run of the mill gigs.

It's not enough to be just a bit better than the average pub/club band though (and I'm assuming you're at the top of that particular tree), if you want to make really good money from corporate gigs you need to take it to another level and be professional in every respect.

[James Perrett]

I'd have to agree with Sam and Martin. The corporate gigs that I've been involved in have always been booked through an agent. The standard of gigs that our band was offered really went up a few notches when we had a good agent.

[Drew Stephenson]

The other thing you'll probably need to do is review your image and stage set up.
Again you're trying to fit into that corporate world, so if you're not already all wearing suits, you'll need to be. You'll also need to make sure that this is shown on your website.

You'll also need to consider if you're going to provide your own PA.
Some corporate events will already be set up for a full AV show and will have a company on site providing that kind of stuff. Others will just be set up for a key note speaker and powerpoint and getting a full band in will be another job.

Which leads me to a couple of suggestions for how you might generate some contacts:
1) get in touch with some of the big local PA hire companies. See which agents they work with and if they have any recommendations of good, professional ones.
2) get in touch with some of the big local venues that get hired out for corporate events and speak to their booking people for the same information.

Good luck!

[Wonks]

A link to your website would be good.

Not 100% convinced about always wearing suits just because it's 'corporate' but your dress needs to be appropriate for the occasion.

When you say 'top 40' band, do you mean classic hits from a say the past 30 years or just the latest chart material? The latter would probably limit the corporate gig market for you to young companies with mainly young employees.

A friend of mine is in this functions band and they do pretty well on the corporate scene, though there will always be a mixture of corporate and wedding/birthday gigs https://www.theaudioallstars.co.uk/

How far are you prepared to travel? Though based around Bournemouth, I know they've certainly done gigs in Cornwall and Norfolk.

How availble are all the band members? The more people there are in the band, the fewer days there are when everyone can make it.

My old 12-piece soul band ended up doing a few corporate gigs through people seeing us play at pubs, beer festivals and charity dos and making enquiries. Are you getting the same people to see you all the time or do you play to new crowds quite a lot? Charity gigs are often a good way of getting contacts as you often get organisation involvement from the sort of people who have a say in organising their own company events. And they are often attended by those sort of people as well. I know you don't want to do too many gigs just for 'exposure' but picking the occasional gig to either play for free or expenses only, can have its benefits.

[BigRedX]

I haven't done corporate gigs (it's not my thing and even if it was I'm nowhere near god or versatile enough player for the kinds of bands that do), but I know people who do and this is what you need:

As others have said, first off you need an agent. I don't know where in the world you are based, but here in the UK it is almost impossible to get these kinds of gigs without a foot in the door and being with the right agent is the way to do this. The people organising these events don't have the time or knowledge to know which bands are going to be able to deliver the kind of music they want so their first port of call is to phone an agent tell them what sort of event it is and the agent will sort everything musical out for them.

Clubs are one thing but the corporate market is a whole different level of professionalism.

You will need your own PA. Occasionally you may be playing somewhere that has an excellent in-house system suitable for live music, but you may also be expected to provide all the audio amplification for the evening, so it's best to be prepared.

If you haven't already, then sort out your band image. It doesn't necessarily mean suited and booted all round, but all the musicians (and that includes the horn section if you have one) must look like they are in the same band and that you can match an image requested by the organisers of the evening.

Unless you are going to go for a particular musical style/era, make sure your repertoire is varied and up-to-date. That will probably mean adding new songs every other week or so. And make sure you can play your material without needing visible crib notes (unless you are going for that traditional big band look). Your horn section can be exempt from this as you'll probably be unable to find enough players who can play without needing "the dots".

Seriously consider going for a "silent stage" with electronic drums, no amps, and IEMs for all the band. It will make you more versatile, as the band can play at almost any volume required and it will make setting up and breaking down much easier, and with everything going straight to the PA your mix from one event to the next will be a lot simpler to sort out.

Get a dedicated sound engineer to run the PA. The sorts of live audio problems that typical bands have are simply unacceptable at this level. The band can concentrate on playing and performing and your PA engineer can fix any sound problems that might crop up.

Consider teaming up with a DJ for providing music for the event when the band are not on. Putting on a play list is not acceptable. You need someone with the skills to read the audience/dance floor and be able to mix their selections seamlessly to maintain the correct musical atmosphere. Also if you bring your own good DJ they will go with the band so you're not battling someone who will get in the way of the band with their setup and then plays all the songs in your set before you go on! It will also make the band more marketable as you are going to sort out the music for the event from start to finish.

Sort out good reliable deps for ever member of the band that can be called on at short notice in an emergency, because at this level cancelling is not an option.

That might sound like a lot of extra hassle, but that's what serious corporate events expect these days.

[MarkOne]

I can't really add anything to the above, (the bands I am involved in play in altogether shallower waters!) other than to say that as an ex-corporate-clone-droid with a big multinational telecoms company, I have been on the consumer side of this, and things I can relay:

The bands I experienced were just slick all on IEMs, no backline on show, clean tidy stages, nobody with chord sheets or lyrics on show, pretty much no chat, maybe 'we are ... lets get this party going!' or 'let's slow things down a bit now'. But otherwise play, wait for a bit of applause and then straight in with the next one before the clapping dies away.

The sound was always brilliant. Clean, punchy, NO FEEDBACK, Loud enough for a big dancing crowd, but not too loud.

The best I ever saw was back when Nokia were a thing, and they hosted a party for maybe a thousand+ people at the Mobile World Congress* in Barcelona. They had the Nokia House Band - all made up from employees (They had thousands of employees to choose from and apparently the auditions were, very tough). The company even gave them somewhere to rehearse and time off to do so. They had an amazing stage presence.

*Back when the telecoms industry was awash with money before the big telecoms bubble burst at the turn of the century, It got a bit silly. MWC was always in Cannes, very glitzy with parties on super yachts etc, and the big companies vying to get original chart-toppers to play at their events.

[pmarc]

Extraordinary information! I'll reply to all of you at once, here:


--My website, in San Diego, California(I believe UK business protocols are the same btw): www.themarcussyndicate.com

--Songs: 50 years of Top-40, 53 artists

--Networking: Big local PA hire companies, big local venues ... good ideas!

--Sound engineer / PA... we have two PA systems and know plenty of great sound guys; and yes all music goes thru the PA; we bring amps for monitors

--I also want weddings and parties

--Travel distance: limited regionally, but other is doable for the right money and minimal overnight

--Band members are always available with at least 60 days notice, and no one cancels and we have subs

--A few corporate gigs through people seeing us play at pubs, etc -- no history as we just broke into clubs, but hoping to get private events

--As I figured... corporate people don't feel comfortable hiring the band themselves (and no employee wants to be the scapegoat)

--Horn section... horns are simulated by a second keyboard player, I'm one kb player and stick to piano sounds (this will limit us to smaller clients but that's ok and in fact we can probably be competitive with a smaller footprint). which brings me to a related issue... small businesses should be connecting with small businesses (agents)... who in turn probably have smaller clients (not Fortune 500 companies)

--Crib notes: I'm the only one using an ipad for charts and no music stand is used - it's a metal arm attached to my keyboard - not conspicuous

--Teaming up with a DJ... good idea to make the gig go smoothly (I wonder if DJ's are also a good or just marginal networking option to get gigs)?

--Currently I'm winning with clubs using a professional email campaign (Mailchimp platform) and plan to extend this to target caterers, wedding consultants, wedding planners and event planners; I also
plan to drop in unannounced at caterer shops (they're the only event vendor who rents space - all others work from home... correct me if i'm wrong but I couldn't think of any more... and I'm not happy about the prospect of meeting up with dogs, ex-husbands, and nosy neighbors when dropping in at people's homes)

[James Perrett]

--Currently I'm winning with clubs using a professional email campaign (Mailchimp platform) and plan to extend this to target caterers, wedding consultants, wedding planners and event planners; I also
plan to drop in unannounced at caterer shops (they're the only event vendor who rents space - all others work from home... correct me if i'm wrong but I couldn't think of any more... and I'm not happy about the prospect of meeting up with dogs, ex-husbands, and nosy neighbors when dropping in at people's homes)

I don't know whether this happens where you are but around here we have wedding fairs where a whole range of wedding suppliers show off what they can do. This includes entertainers and DJs. Sometimes these are organised by wedding venues while other times they are organised by other promoters.

There are also other, more specialised exhibitions which target the event industry.

I'd be tempted to target wedding venues rather than caterers and see if any venues are looking for a regular band.

[pmarc]

When I lived in Boston I played sometimes 4x on a weekend at what they called a "wedding house". 10 bands going on simultaneously. We don't have any here in San Diego.

Wedding fairs yes, plenty here. But I decided to market in-direct, not directly. My pay per click efforts got thousands of site visitors with zero gigs. Maybe getting in front of wedding couples face to face would make an improvement but I won't take that chance.

My phone calls, much earlier, showed that hotels and so forth don't control wedding bands. The client brings the band with them. However, I may not have called enough venues. And targeting a thousand venues by email would be better than making 50 phone calls. But I'm telling you...trust me there's still lots of problems with this approach...ranging from bad data (very bad) to the fact that Covid is still impacting the hospitality industry.

[Music Wolf]

My experience - You need to be signed up with an agent. The client isn’t in the Entertainment Industry, they probably manufacture and sell widgets of some description and they throw a bash at some point in the year at the end of a couple of days of presentations and awards. They haven’t got time to track bands down via their individual websites, they’ll go to an agent or even outsource the whole thing to an Events Planner - this is whom you need to target.

If you are with an agency then they probably have their own format for video / details etc. I’ve no doubt that the bands have to pay for the video shoot, so be prepared to invest. The client judges with their eyes, not their ears, so make sure that you are young, good looking and have a great image.

Expect to travel and be available midweek. We played a ‘corporate’ at the end of September. It was a Thursday night and, from my years working for a big corporation, I expect that to be typical. Conference through the week, end with a party Thursday evening, travel home Friday.

Do not let the agent down – ever (you don’t get second chances). Have you got a list of Deps lined up for every member of the band in case of illness?

[pmarc]

I get all of it. But our avg age is 55. We have numerous backup players in case of emergencies. They're old, too. LOL

The big challenge is finding the agent. The big ones, apparently, aren't waiting for you.

[pmarc]

Summary to date - phone calls to backline rental stores to find agents:

6 connects
1 referral to a small, legit agent (havent talked yet)
1 on-hold as the contact is emailing a friend

subsequent google searches led me to LinkedIn where I saw on the right side... "People also viewed" and low and behold there were some more agents (I think I'll re-instate my old Linkedin account as you can probably search on agent-type key words and locate these guys pretty quick - they don't advertise... but here they are)

[Drew Stephenson]

Good shout on checking LinkedIn.