Most performers want a website that gets them bookings. The idea of a fan site is great for people / companies that pay their bills with ticket sales. I mean, that’s the actual source of income.
I’ll talk more about fan sites later.
When we’re trying to get booked for things, a public appearance calendar can show up as a lot of red flags.
- outdated events listings – looks like we’re not able to maintain our business
- events that might conflict with the booker
- ethically / politically
- timewise (like “we want to book you in idaho on june 3, but you’re in atlanta that week”)
- industry overlap ( you’re performing for the other book shop in town! )
- looking too exposed – if a rock club wants to book us, they may not want us performing the week before in the same city. It’s easier to sell tickets to a hungry following
- gaps in calendar make us look unpopular
- events that are off our brand : eg we’re labeled as luxury yet hitting up “Wacky Family Fest of Gorgia, TX”
The fantasies of the ticket calendar
- makes us look successful
- our fans are going to check our site regularly, then eagerly buy tickets
- people are going to randomly find our site and buy a ticket
One gig or 20 tickets?
Realistically, are we gonna sell 20 tickets per show from our site? Maybe 3? probably zero? Then, we want to do whatever we can to get the gig. Keep our sites deliberate, to the point. Looking up-to-date (which means avoiding anything that’s perishable) and directly showing value, clarity, and call to action. Here’s more about how we don’t want our sites to be updatable