Tired of not getting paid for your live gigs?
I was too.
But through a series of events, I realized it wasn’t that people didn’t want to support my music.
One day, a fan came up to me and told me they wanted to buy a CD but didn’t see where they could buy one (because I had a stack of CDs hidden in my brother’s guitar case). That’s when I realized what the real problem was.
I figured out there were three ways I could make it easier for people to buy my music. And, I could make it downright FUN for them to support me financially.
Curious to find out what I did? Of course, you are. But before I get to that, you should grab my Success With Live Music Blueprint for free – it will fill in all the holes I leave in this article.
With that, let’s get to the first point:
Put Together a Well-Presented Merch Booth That’s Effortless to Set Up and Makes it Easy to Get Paid
There are only a few key things you need to know about setting up your merch booth. Let’s go through them point by point:
- Start small and start simple. Make it easy to set up, take down and move around if necessary. This is the most important rule for you to follow, especially in the beginning. If you’re just getting started, you probably don’t have a team yet, and I didn’t either, so keep it simple. That way, you’ll get results, get excited and stick with it. If it’s complicated or difficult, you won’t stick to it, so don’t try to do too much too soon.
- Display your merch and music in an attractive and professional way to increase perceived value. Department stores do this with mannikins so that people can visualize how good they’ll look wearing their gear. If you aren’t design and layout oriented, get help from someone who is.
- Ensure your merch booth has good lighting. This draws the eye and ensures people know where they can go to check out your offers.
- You can add more complexity and pizzazz to your merch booth as your team grows and you get used to set up, teardown and operation.
The main thing to remember is to get started, start small, get results and take it from there.
You can learn more about this step in my Success With Live Music Blueprint, so claim yours now.
Set Up a Tip Jar, Make More Money and Have More FUN
Tip jars don’t work? Ha! Follow these steps and you’ll be amazed at the results:
- Make it a safe place for people to put their money. People want to know where to put their money and that it will be safe and that you’ll get it.
- Make it fun for the audience to tip. You can incorporate the tip jar into your banter, ask them to tip when you play a song they like, or whatever.
- Don’t make the audience guess. Tell them where they can find the tip jar and what to do with it. Have fun with the process.
The first time I set up a tip jar, I made an extra 20 bucks. When I made my tip jar “fun”, that amount doubled. And, as my fan base grew, that amount just kept growing.
You can do the math in your head. You can see how this would easily add up as you begin playing for 100 to 200 people at a time.
This one simple thing will help you make more live music income and it won’t cost you a penny to implement.
So, make it easy for people that are digging your show to tip you. It feels great to get a nice tip!
Want to make sure you’re doing everything right? Download the Success With Live Music Blueprint, so you know all the ninja tricks to getting your tip jar working for you.
Get a Credit Card Reader and Remove the “I Don’t Have Cash” Excuse
Have you ever been sitting at your merch booth, had a fan come over to talk to you, drooling at the merch laid out in front of them?
But when you ask them if they’re interested in buying something, they just say, “sorry man, I don’t have any cash”?
Well, having a credit card reader at the ready is an easy way to eliminate that excuse. Again, as a musician, you should be making it easy for people to give you their money.
This can also help with my CD-donation strategy, which I talk about in more detail in my Success With Live Music Blueprint. It’s free :)
The first time I combined the card reader with the CD-donation strategy, I doubled what I brought in from donations.
And, to top it all off, card readers are free. You can use Square or PayPal along with a card reader that plugs directly into your mobile phone. It doesn’t get much easier than that!
Other Ways to Accelerate Your Live Music Revenue
There are so many other ways you can optimize and increase your revenue from live performance I’ve barely even touched on. And, they aren’t complicated tweaks either.
I’d like to invite you to check out The Live Music Revenue Accelerator. You’ll discover easy steps to get paid what you’re worth from the gigs your already playing. It’s the exact steps I used to start earning dependable income from live music, and leave my job less than one year later. You don’t need any fancy merch, pro recordings, a large fan base, gigs booked at the best venues or even experience in business and marketing to make it work.
Live music isn’t dead. It’s one of the most profitable sectors of the music industry. This article shows that the music industry generated $43 billion in 2017, and most of it came from touring.
If you’re a gigging musician, you don’t want to miss out on this. If you’re looking to reach new heights with your live show income earnings, you’re going to want to delve into The Live Music Revenue Accelerator. Click to get started.
