Originally Posted by
lingk
It's like everything else in life. It's who you know. With the DJ / club / rave scene, people have to see you out and about before they will book you. I probably spent close to 6 months going out to shows and passing out demos/flyers with my info on them. I have gone to 2 or 3 shows in one night to talk to promoters and DJ's before I started to get any interest / bookings. Still after that you still have to go out and talk to people. If you're good and you keep the room filled when you play, people will notice and start to contact you, rather then you bugging them.
Post of 1 or 2 very SOLID mixes on soundcloud / mixcloud and promote them like they are the 2nd coming. Posting a lot may seem like a good idea, but only if trying trying to show you can play different genre's and each mix reflects that. Having a big internet fallowing is good, but some promoters would rather book someone with 100 fb likes that are all local, then someone with 1k fb likes and 99% are out of city / state / country. They know that out of that 100 local people that you could probably get 10-20 of those people to show at a show you're playing. It's all about the numbers.
Don't expect your first few gigs to be big ones, or with good time slots where people will be there. Around here, most times the bulk of people don't show up until midnight and shows start at like 9 or 10. SO you'll be playing to a hand full of people, which can make it hard to want to rock out, but you just have to do your best.
When you do get booked, play toward what the crowed wants to hear rather then what you like. If it's s dubstep show and you play tech-house, try to meet in the middle and do a tech-elecro set, just make sure it's bass heavy and fast. Now this isn't 100% the rule. My friend get's booked for dub shows all the time, and he is a tech-house /minimal guy. He just tries to find stuff that is bass heavy and gets people moving, but still playing tech-house / minimal.
Those are my thoughts, take them for what you want. I live in a city where everyone is a dj, more so then other city's. So acts are easy to find, and a lot will do it for free just to get booked.
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