BandTools Blog

There are few things more frustrating than putting real work into a gig and then playing to a half-empty room.

You rehearsed. You made the poster. You posted about it on Instagram. You invited people on Facebook. Maybe you even made a little video or paid to boost a post. Then the night comes around and somehow, despite all that effort, not enough people show up.

It’s easy to take that personally. It feels like the music isn’t connecting, or people don’t care, or you’re just shouting into the void.

Sometimes the problem is simpler than that.

Most gig promotion fails because artists treat it like an announcement, not a campaign.

Posting once is not promotion

A lot of musicians announce a gig like this:

“Excited to be playing [venue] on [date]. Tickets available now.”

Then they post the poster, maybe add a ticket link, and hope for the best.

That’s not wrong. You should absolutely announce the gig. But one post is not enough. The average person is busy, distracted, and being shown thousands of things a day. Even someone who likes your music might miss the post completely, forget about it, or think “that sounds good” and then never come back to buy the ticket.

This is especially true on social media. Your post only reaches a fraction of your followers in the first place. Of the people who see it, only some will stop. Of the people who stop, only some will click. Of the people who click, only some will actually buy.

That means a single post has to survive a ridiculous number of drop-offs before it turns into someone standing in the room.



You need repetition. Not spam. Not desperation. Just enough consistent reminders that people who might genuinely want to come actually get the chance to notice, decide, and act.

Start earlier than feels necessary

A common mistake is waiting until the week of the gig before promoting it properly.

By then, lots of people already have plans. They’re working late. They’ve agreed to go to something else. They’re tired. They forgot to book a babysitter. They spent their money. Whatever it is, the decision has effectively already been made.

If you want more people at your gig, you need to give them time to make it part of their life.

For most local shows, I’d think in three phases:

1. The announcement
2. The reminder period
3. The final push

The announcement is when tickets go on sale or when the gig is confirmed. This is where you tell people the basic facts: where, when, who else is playing, why it matters.

The reminder period is everything between the announcement and the final week. This is where most artists go quiet, which is a mistake. You don’t need to post “buy tickets” every day, but you do need to keep the gig present.

The final push is the last few days, when people who were vaguely interested need a reason to actually commit.

A gig announced six weeks out and mentioned naturally five or six times will usually do better than a gig posted about frantically for three days.

Give people reasons, not just information

The least interesting thing about your gig is the date.

That doesn’t mean the date is unimportant. Obviously people need to know when it is. But a date, venue name, and ticket link are not usually enough to make someone care.

You need to answer the question the audience is quietly asking:

“Why should I come to this?”

Not in a pushy way. Just clearly.

Maybe it’s your first hometown show in months. Maybe you’re playing new songs. Maybe it’s a small venue and it will feel intimate. Maybe the other bands on the bill are brilliant. Maybe it’s the last show before you disappear into the studio. Maybe you’ve been working towards this one for ages.

Say that.

Instead of only posting:

“We’re playing The Hope & Ruin on Friday 12th July. Tickets below.”

Try something more like:

“We haven’t played Brighton since last autumn, and this is the first time we’ll be trying out two new songs from the next record. The Hope & Ruin is exactly the right size for this kind of show: loud, close, and a bit chaotic. If you’ve been meaning to come and see us, this is the one.”

That gives people something to feel. And people buy tickets because they feel something, not because they have successfully processed calendar information.



Don’t rely on the poster

Gig posters are useful, but they’re usually terrible social media content.

They often contain too much text, tiny venue details, multiple logos, and four band names in fonts that looked great on a wall but are unreadable on a phone. People scroll past them because they look like adverts, and most people have trained themselves to ignore adverts.

Use the poster, but don’t make it do all the work.

Post a short video from rehearsal. Share a clip from the last time you played that venue. Record a quick voice memo about why you’re looking forward to the show. Introduce the other artists on the bill. Tell the story behind one of the songs you’ll be playing.

The poster gives the information. The rest gives people a reason to care.

Make the ticket link impossible to miss

This sounds obvious, but it’s astonishing how often it goes wrong.

Someone sees a post about a gig, decides they might come, then has to hunt for the ticket link. It’s not in the caption. It’s not in the bio. The Linktree has twelve links and the gig is fifth. The venue page is confusing. The ticket page has the wrong image. At some point they give up.

Every extra step loses people.

For the period you’re promoting a gig, make the ticket link obvious. Put it in your bio. Put it at the top of your link page. Mention where it is in the post. Include it in your newsletter. Add it to your website. Make sure the venue has the right link too.

Nobody should have to work to give you money.

Use the people already coming

One of the easiest ways to get more people to a gig is to help the people who are already coming bring someone else.

Most people don’t go to gigs alone. They go because a friend asked them. That means the most useful person in your audience might not be the person who sees your post. It might be the person they invite.

So make that easy.

Give people a simple line they can forward:

“Come to this with me on Friday?”

That sounds almost stupidly basic, but it’s often how gig attendance actually happens. One person makes the plan and another person agrees.

You can lean into that directly:

“If you know someone who’d like this, bring them. This one will be better with friends in the room.”

Or:

“Already got a ticket? Send the link to the person you’d normally drag to gigs.”

You’re not just promoting to individuals. You’re trying to create little groups of two, three, or four people who decide together that this is their night out.

Talk to your warmest audience first

Not everyone is equally likely to come to your gig.

A stranger who saw one reel is cold. Someone who follows you is warmer. Someone who bought your last EP is warmer still. Someone who came to the last gig and said hello afterwards is about as warm as it gets.

Most artists spend too much time trying to persuade strangers and not enough time reaching the people who already care.

Start with the warmest people:

These are the people most likely to come, and most likely to bring someone.

That doesn’t mean ignoring everyone else. It just means recognising that selling tickets is usually about activating the people closest to you, not begging the whole Internet to care.

Send a proper gig email

A gig announcement is one of the easiest and most useful things to send to an email list.

It doesn’t need to be clever. It just needs to be human and clear.

Something like:

That’s enough.

The useful thing about email is that you can be more direct than you might feel comfortable being on social media. You’re writing to people who asked to hear from you. You don’t need to perform for the algorithm or make it look casual. You can just say: we’re playing, it matters to us, here’s the link.

Ask people to buy in advance

Advance ticket sales matter.

They help the venue. They help the promoter. They help you understand whether the room is going to be full or awkward. They also create momentum. A gig with healthy advance sales feels different before it even starts.

So say it plainly.

Not in a guilt-trippy way. Just honestly.

“If you’re planning to come, buying in advance really helps.”

That sentence is completely reasonable. Most fans don’t know how much advance sales matter unless you tell them. They may assume buying on the door is basically the same. From their point of view, it often is. From yours, it isn’t.

You don’t need to pretend there’s a fake scarcity if there isn’t. Don’t say “nearly sold out” unless it is. Don’t manufacture urgency. Just explain the reality.

People who care about your music usually want to help. Give them a clear way to do it.

Make the gig feel like an event

Not every gig can be a once-in-a-lifetime occasion. Some are Tuesday night support slots. That’s fine.

But if you want people to leave the house, there needs to be some sense that this night is worth choosing over staying in.

That can come from small things:

The point is not to invent a gimmick. The point is to identify what is already interesting about the gig and make that visible.

People are more likely to come when the night feels specific. “We’re playing another gig” is easy to ignore. “We’re playing our first show since finishing the EP” is more compelling.

Work with the other artists, not around them

If there are three or four artists on the bill, you shouldn’t all be promoting separately as if you’re playing different events.

Share each other’s posts. Mention why you’re pleased to be on the bill together. Make a simple playlist with one track from each act. Record a short joint video if you know each other. At the very least, make sure everyone has the right ticket link and the same basic details.

A good bill is more than the sum of its parts. Someone might come for the opener and leave as a fan of the headliner. Someone might come for you and discover the band before you. That’s how scenes grow.

It also makes the promotion feel less lonely. Instead of four artists each shouting “come to my gig”, the whole night starts to look like something people might want to be part of.

Follow up afterwards

Getting more people to your next gig starts at the end of this one.

Thank people for coming. Post a photo from the night. Send a short email to say it meant a lot. Share the next date if you have one. Ask people to sign up if they want to hear about future shows.

The worst thing you can do is let all that energy disappear the moment the gig ends.

Someone who came once is far more likely to come again than a stranger is to come for the first time. But only if you have a way to reach them.

This is where a mailing list becomes genuinely powerful. Not as an abstract marketing channel, but as a memory. A record of the people who cared enough to show up, so you can invite them again next time.



The simple version

If you want more people at your gigs, don’t just announce them.

Give people time. Give them reasons. Give them reminders. Make the ticket link obvious. Talk to the people most likely to care. Ask for advance sales. Help people bring friends. Follow up afterwards.

None of this is magic. It’s not a growth hack. It’s just treating gig promotion as part of the work, rather than something you do once the poster is ready.

The artists who fill rooms reliably are not always the ones with the biggest audiences. They’re often the ones who are best at turning existing interest into actual attendance.

That’s the real job.

Not getting everyone to care.

Getting the people who already care to show up.

John