After decades of success and failure in live event promotion, here’s what I’ve learned. Since I’m starting the process of promoting Null Paradox for a 2025 tour in the US, I’ll give you specific examples related to this live tour.

Time  |  6 to 12 months

Phase 1

There’s no two ways around it: it takes a minimum of six months to successfully promote a live event and sell it out. Selling out the venue should be your objective because that, in and of itself, creates buzz before, during, and after the event. You’ll be rewarded as both an artist and businessperson with a sellout audience, and it will make future tours easier to sell out.

Pro-tip: If you think you can sell 2,000 tickets at a particular venue but are unsure, especially if you’re playing the venue for the first time, find a venue that sells out at half that size. Selling out a venue is important for the previously listed reasons, and it also looks much better in photographs and videos.

Phase 2

Every week, starting four weeks before your events, remind your audience, the media, and your business partners about your event and why they should attend.  

Pro-tip: Make sure you advertise that you’ve sold out particular venues.

More about your business partners later in this article.

Research  |  Who is your audience?

Demographics and Psychographics are the keys to knowing your current and future audiences.  If you’re new, identify who you want your audience to be and determine through testing if what you offer is what they want.  I’ll cover how to find and test audiences in a future article.

Demographics

Whether you have an audience or are just getting started, divide your audience (or ideal audience) into three groups:

Group 1:  People who will go out of their way to attend your event because they love you and what you do.

These are the people to whom you give special treatment because they’ve earned it by supporting you:

• Priority ticket purchases
• Invite them to a pre-show soundcheck or question-and-answer event

And they should receive a giveaway:

• An extra song on a USB or through a QR Code
• Unique T-shirt or other merchandise
• Access to a password-protected video

Group 2:  People who love you and what you do but place you in the top 5 of what they might want to do on the day of your event.

Give them a reason to attend:

• Discount on merchandise purchases

Group 3: People who are interested in you and what you do but don’t consider you a priority. These are your audience members who will buy a last-minute ticket if one is available. Convince them to move up to Group 2 by learning more about them and how what you’re doing appeals to them.

Here is an example of general Null Paradox demographic information:

Psychographics

Once you understand the basics of your current or ideal audience, it’s time to determine their daily activities. This is the key to growing the type of audience that will attend your events.

For both paid and earned advertising, the efficient use of psychographics, in tandem with AI tools like ChatGPT, can help you generate precise keywords and key phrases, ensuring the effectiveness of your campaigns.

Here is an example of general Null Paradox psychographic information:

Website and E-mail List

Own your website and E-mail list.  In a world where any platform can kick you off instantly with almost no chance of changing their minds, your website and E-mail list are the only data you own.

Pro-tip:  Download your E-mail list once a month to your computer in case you’re kicked off of a particular service, there’s a glitch in their service, or they’re acquired by someone who isn’t helpful to you.

Your website design should be simple and easily readable on a phone.

Pro-tip:  Your website should focus on who, what, where, E-mail list signup, and how to purchase.

Reaching Your Audience

Here are the advertising channels I’ve used and plan to promote Null Paradox.  This list is updated each quarter because the success of advertising channels can change due to factors including the growth of your audience, new technology, and the acquisition of a company by another organization.

Money

Based on the total revenue you anticipate making from all proceeds of a live event (including ticket sales, merchandise sales, and proceeds from beverage and food sales if available) minus the costs you expect to incur, you’ll come up with a Net Margin—how much money you take home with you. The business name for this information is a Profit and Loss (P&L) Statement.

You should create one using a tool like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets.

One of the line items will be promotion.

Need a sample Profit & Loss Statement?  Contact me here for a free Excel spreadsheet.

Your Net Margin could be zero or negative depending on where you are as an artist.  You have several options:

1. Scale back your event costs:  If you’re planning on a whole electric show with multiple people performing and crew members helping you, consider doing a solo or duet event.
2. Accept that part of growth is making little to no money at first.
3. If your profit is less than zero, do you believe in yourself to the point that you’re willing to invest in yourself?  This likely means that you’ll need income from another source.
   

You shouldn’t reduce your promotional expense line. While the most important thing is to create and produce a memorable event, the next most important thing is promotion because, without it, no one will know that they should attend your event.

Business Partnerships

The key to a partnership is understanding what’s in it for the business owner or manager. The most likely answer is: help me generate more revenue.

Here are the ten steps to success

1. Your responsibility is to select all the businesses within a 30-minute radius of each venue and determine whether your event can help them sell more of their products.
2. Using your database (Excel or Sheets), write the business’s name, what it sells, address, name of the owner or key manager, phone, Email, and website.
3. Think like the owner and write down what aspects of your work or the event could help the business sell more products or services.
4. Create a two-line sales pitch and memorize it.
5. Cold-walk into the business, ask for the owner and manager, introduce yourself, tell them your sales pitch, and then listen and ask open-ended questions.
6. Like an actor attending auditions, many of these will be short-term failures.  You’ll receive a lot of “let me think about it” or “come back when you’re well-known.”
7. Update your database, marking people as hot leads (businesses that want to work with you today), warm leads (potential future partners), or cold leads (one of you didn’t like the other person).
8. Your “ask” in this relationship should be:  “If I help you bring in more revenue, will you actively help me promote my event by handing out these (flyers, books, note cards, etc.)?”
9. Remember to invite them to your event and sell them tickets.
10. Verify their Email and phone and ask them if you can keep in touch.

Even if you’ve received no hot leads the first time, you’ll have gained three things:

1. Experience in thinking like a business owner or manager.
2. Experience with how to sell to business owners and managers.
3. The start of a business relationship with them.

Next to word-of-mouth and Hot Email (Hot = a person who is on your Email list) promotions, this is the most effective and lowest cost and it’s one of the key methods that I’m using to promote the upcoming Null Paradox tour.

Resources | Entertainment Surveys

Every other year since 2016, I’ve conducted an Entertainment Survey. In short, pricing and the quality of a venue can play a significant role in decision-making, depending on age and gender.

2016 Entertainment Survey | Women

2016 Entertainment Survey | Men

2018 Entertainment Survey | Women

2018 Entertainment Survey | Men

If you have questions or comments, you’re invited to contact me or join me on X (Twitter).  For the details about “how-to” and weekly tips, you’re invited to join my weekly Newsletter and Resources list.