How to Book Wedding Gigs for Your Cover Band

$4200! That’s the average amount a cover band got paid to book wedding gigs in 2018.

The average a band makes for booking bar gigs on any given night, anywhere in the country? $400! Not just in 2018, but for a hell of a long time. That’s so messed up! If you’re in a 5-piece cover band, your cut would have been $840 for the wedding gig or $80 for the bar gig. If you’d prefer the bar gig to the wedding gig you can go ahead and leave this website. It’s not for you. But if you want to learn how to book weddings gigs then I invite you to keep reading.

I’ve been booking wedding gigs for the past 18 years. I’ve booked a TON of them. Over 700 of these high paying wedding and private party gigs. When I first started booking my cover band, I had no idea how to do it. But I learned how. So can you. Today, I prefer weddings to bars any day of the week. Who wouldn’t prefer that kind of money, especially when wedding gigs are 10x as much fun as bar gigs.

I’m going to assume you’re here because you want to learn how to do book wedding gigs and corporate parties. So let’s go over the basics!

Build your website!
Your website is THE most important tool you have to market your band. If you don’t have one, you’re not a real band. At least not in the eyes of people looking for a band. Think about it: when you search for a company and all they have is a Facebook page, do you think they’re legit? I don’t.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking your Facebook page is your website. It isn’t. If you want to book weddings, your top priority should be building a great website. Fortunately, that’s pretty easy these days! If you don’t have a band website, check out WIX. It’s free and simple. But having a good website is just the start. Now you have to make sure people can find you.

Get on the First page of Google
When a couple sits down to find a band for their wedding, do you know what they do first? The same thing you do when searching for anything: go to Google! They enter a search phrase like “Wedding bands in Tucson”. Or “bands for hire near me” or any number of combinations of similar words. Then they hit the “I’m feeling lucky” button and read the results.

If you’re not on that page, they won’t find you. If they can’t find your band, they can’t hire you! It really is THAT simple. You could be the best band in your town, but if you’re not on the first page of Google, you don’t exist.

Remember the “Where’s Waldo” game? Trying to find that little guy often proved impossible! Many people would give up before they found him. You don’t want it to be that hard to find your band! If clients can’t find on the first page of Google, they’ll hire the bands they DO find there! Getting on the first page of Google must be your priority IF you want book wedding gigs, private parties and corporate events.

Learn how to Convert Leads into Gigs
Once you have a website and get on the first page of Google, you’re going to get traffic. Not everyone will be a good fit for your band, but many will be. You have to learn how to sell your band to these people and convert them into paying customers.
Yes, I used the “S” word.

“Sales”

This a HUGE part of booking your band. After all, you’re asking potential clients to spend money with you. My experience with musicians is that many don’t understand this piece of the puzzle. Their great at music, but not business.

My biggest piece of advice is this: read a few books on marketing and sales. You don’t need to become a marketing guru but you must understand the basics of sales. The bands getting paid $4200 to perform at weddings understand basic sales and marketing. If you want to get out of bars and learn how to book weddings, you will too!

There it is in a nutshell. If you want to book better cover band gigs you need to focus on these three areas. If you build a good website, get it onto the 1st page of Google and learn how to convert leads into gigs, you’ll be on your way.

There’s a lot of information about how to do all that on this website. If you want to learn more, the first thing you should do is watch my free video called “3 Proven Tips to Booking Better Gigs and Earning What You’re Worth!”.

You can book wedding gigs! Be patient with yourself as you learn how to do it. It’ll take time, but I promise you this: You can do this! If you get stuck, let me know how I can help out!