How To Get Singing Gigs

Everything you need to know about how to get singing gigs locally, and how to book national or international gigs too. 

How do you get singing gigs? This is the big question that I get asked by so many singers and the short answer is…

I get my gigs through a variety of sources.

You see, it really depends on what TYPE of gig you want to get. Here’s a little article I wrote about the ‘Gig Matrix’ on CD Baby which explains the types of gigs you can get and how each type can benefit your career in different ways. It’s all about whether you want to build an audience or make money. When you’re starting out and don’t have much of an audience, the way it works is that usually, the highest paying gigs are the worst at generating you new fans (and vice versa). Have a quick look:

Each of these types of gigs require a different approach and some are a lot easier to get than others. For example, to busk you just take yourself off to a street corner and start playing. To get a festival, you need to have an audience, or a solid performance track record and some tunes released. 

So I’m just going to assume you want HIGH PAY, LOW FAN BUILDING GIGS. With that said, let’s talk about how you can bring home the bacon off the sultry tones of your voice.

How to Get Cafe/ Restaurant/ Bar Singing Gigs

Step One – Find Your Venues

How to Get Booked for Support Acts and Shows

Let’s say you want to get more of the fan building type of gigs but you don’t have an audience so you’re hesitant to book your own show at a venue. 

Here are some ways you can get onto a larger line up or some show opportunities that also pay a bit of cash.

1. Make friends with other singers

Tip #1 – Get a support act

It is common practice to have two to three bands in a line up for a show and the best way to get in front of potential fans is to do a support act for another local band with an established following. Get involved in your local music community and get to know people because friends book friends for support gigs. Simple as that.

Tip #1 – Join forces with them to create a show

I’m a jazz singer and in the jazz world it is rare to find more than one band on a bill, but I still managed to pull together a gig with not one but two other jazz singers. (It is different for pretty much every other genre where you will often find three bands per night doing one set each to make up a three hour show.)

We decided to create a gig and called it ‘Jazzdezvous’. We didn’t want to rehearse (jazz musicians are lazy) so we each booked two instrumentalists each to accompany us which made for a grand total of nine musos up on stage.

We each invited fans on our email lists to the show and people were really interested because they would get to hear three jazz singers in one night plus the novelty of nine musos up on stage each improvising with eachother’s songs attracted a bit of media attention.

We got quite a good crowd but financially we had to split the takings nine ways so it didn’t end up being a big earner. What I would do next time is just to book one band to play for all the singers and it would work a treat.

2. Network

Your local music industry association is a great info source for gigs. It’s their job to promote local music so they will have a bunch of opportunities throughout the year PLUS they will know all the people who mean anything in music to your local area so get  in there and make friends.

Our association puts on street festivals each year which is a great opportunity to score some paid time slots and play to new people.

You can expand your networking to café owners, marketing and events staff and venue booking managers who can book you for a gig. I made friends with the owner of a lovely café called the Wild Fig and they booked me for a gig every week for three years.

3. Get a Booking Agent

Booking agents get the lions share of corporate work and have established relationships with better performance venues. Corporate work is awesome because it pays really well, usually comes with a sound guy and PA (so you don’t have to set anything up) and you get a decent meal out of it. Plus they are fun and you meet a heap of new people.

Now I bet you’re thinking ‘Sounds great! Where can I get me one of those?!”

Weeeelllll, to get a foot in the door you need to have a few things organised including a link to a well recorded audio track of you singing (or even better, a YouTube video so they can see you and hear you), have a few great photos for them to use and a short bio.

Even if you have all this stuff ready, booking agents have their favourites so you have to get to know them a bit before they will trust you enough to throw you some work. Just check in with them once a month until they give you work. Once you do get that work, just make sure you do a good job because the agent will seek feedback on your performance from the client. A glowing review = more gigs.

4. DM Venues Directly

This is quite acceptable now, particularly for smaller venue. I’ve managed to score a few gigs through social media by contacting venue owners directly or musicians I want to perform with. Twitter is awesome for this. For some reason, it just seems to make everyone accessible and you can approach bands you want to gig with really easily. (Instagram is second best.)

You get 140 characters to make your pitch so use something along the lines of:

‘Hey @(add band), I’m in your area on (date) and I’d love to gig with you. Any chance?”

It seriously works really well. Just give it a try (and don’t forget to ‘like’ or ‘follow’ that band in the process. It shows you care and are open to being buddies.

How To Book National or International Singing Gigs

If you’re looking for national or international gigs, the first thing to realise is that these are going to be either support acts or shows that you put on yourself and sell tickets to. You may get lucky and score a festival booking, but getting a paid slot in a cafe is less likely. (Don’t get me wrong; it’s possible, especially if you have built up knowledge of the area you’re travelling to, but less likely).

You can basically repeat steps one through four of how to get local cafe gigs… but just do this in the area you’re looking to travel and do it for performance venues instead of cafes… BUT… some venues don’t like this approach. If that is the case here are a few ways you can break in:

1. Use A Booking Agent

How you go about getting the gig depends on where you’re heading to. Places like London for example are really organised and most gigs run through booking agents. You can still go direct to venue, especially smaller venues, but for the more prestigious venues they will only go through booking agents and won’t accept calls directly from artists. 

You will need to plan WAY ahead (ie at least 6-8 months minimum) and send the booking agents your info and dates of travel. Many will just ignore you which is why, if you have a friend who has made a connection, its a good idea to use that to try to break in, otherwise keep shopping around until you make a break.

PRO TIP: Booking agents will also have a list of great musicians on file that you can hire. So if you’re doing jazz and you just rock up to a new city with your jazz charts in hand and pull in completely new players (like I do), then asking the booking agent for a few names is a great way to start putting your band together.

 Also – very important, once you’ve asked a player and they say they are unavailable on that date, make sure to ask them for a recommendation. Most piano players will know a couple of others so get the names/ numbers and before you know it, you will have built up a nice little resource list of musos in your touring areas. 

PS: Insist on rehearsing before you perform. Most professional musicians will be fine with a 2 hour unpaid rehearsal for a paid gig. Here are a few other tips on touring you need to know.

2. Fill up space with home concerts, busking, or mic nights

Let’s say you’re heading to London for five nights. You’ve scored a gig at a decent venue for Thursday and Friday night but you still have a few nights either side to fill up.

There is no reason why you can’t do some mic nights or put the word out you’re open for a few house concerts while you’re in town. No, these aren’t as glamorous but they’re still fun to do, it gives you something to post on your social, you will meet cool new people (both fans and musicians), and you can sell your CDs/ merch and get ppl on your email list. 

It’s really a win win and means you feel like you’ve covered that city properly. Of course, we all want tours that span over several cities or countries performing at killer venues with a staff to support all our administration…. but that requires having an audience and trust me, even massive bands started off this way.