After doing these gigs for 21 years, I’d have to say that finding a “hook” is your very best bet for getting this kind of work.
For me, that hook is history and culture. When I market my three-piece string band to these venues, I play up the fact that we do quirky, forgotten old American music – authentic stuff collected from cowboys and mountain people and canallers and lake sailors and old field recordings. There’s a storyline there much greater than us and how well we can play or sing.
(We also do original material and whatever else we want to, really, but that’s not as easy to “sell” to these venues, so we surprise them with that material once we’re there.)
Your Hook Doesn’t Need to be Complicated
Blues band? How about calling it “America’s music” and telling a few stories about how the blues came to be, and the migration of the music from country to city. Bam!
Singer songwriter? How about a song cycle about your favorite topic, or based on stories from your region, or anything else you’re passionate about.
Themed shows check all the boxes for these non-profits: they engage, they entertain, and they inform the community, and because of that, they’re valuable.
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