Week In Review - 27 June 2014!

It's Foodies Festival time again and I am finalizing the performers for the Bristol event that is quickly approaching on 11, 12 & 13th of July. Despite cancellations and schedule juggling, the list of performers and the developing running order are quite impressive. I've managed to book several new acts for this location including Kick In The Crochet (yes, that's really their name), Bashema, and Elles Bailey! Some favourites from Brighton & Clapham will be returning, and I can't wait to introduce Bristol to Half Crown, Jipsy Magic & RemedySounds.

Mayfield @ IOW Festival

I promised some photos from my band Mayfield's performance at The Isle of Wight Festival. Here's one from backstage. I'm still waiting on more pics to come. We are now gearing up for our next show at The Cellar in Southampton. The event is being hosted by the Soul 45 DJs and we'll be sharing the stage with the legendary Craig Charles. If you will be in the Southampton area on Friday, 26 September, please come to the show. We'll be performing selections from our current CD, Tempo of Your Soul, and we are working on new songs as well, two of which we debuted on The Hipshaker Stage at the IOW Fest. Another new song is in the works, and we hope to have it ready by the 26th! Click here for ticket info.

This has been a busy week of organizing some private & repeat bookings for some of my acts. I also received some lovely feedback from the private birthday party I performed by Diana Ross Tribute at last week. 

"Gloria's [Supremely, Diana Ross] performance and preparation contacts beforehand were brilliant. We all enjoyed her amazing performance at Tony’s birthday party on Saturday, especially in the heat when she had to wear a Diana wig! The feedback from our guests was amazing, and they wanted to know where I had met her. I think if it hadn’t been such a hot day, more of us would have been up on the floor. I certainly was, as were some of our family, including some of our granddaughters, with whom Gloria very graciously shared the limelight! How can you not dance when she sings?

It helped to make Tony's birthday, unforgettable and he loves Diana even more now."

Joyce Seaman
June 21, 2014, Botley Community Centre, Hedge End

Joyce also gave me and the agency a 5-star rating on our client feedback form. 

I guess that's it for this edition ... have a fabulous weekend!

Week In Review - 17 January 2014

This has been a not-so-typical work week because I spent the entire week working in the office.  This has allowed me to catch up on paperwork and my accounts. 

Supremely, Diana Ross

A big project for this week was putting together a short promotional video and setting up a website for my tribute show, Supremely Diana Ross.  Take a look at the site and let me know what you think!  Also, I booked Supremely, Diana Ross at the Piranha Bar for 5 April, which promises to be a fantastic evening of music. The first set will be me doing a fun party set followed by a guest appearance by Miss Ross!  

On Thursday, 16 January my band Mayfield had our first rehearsal of the year as we prep for our first gig of the year on 1 February at The Legion in Swanage. We hadn't performed or rehearsed since 16 November last year, but it was like no time had passed because we were all on top form!  We even started work on two new songs, one of which we hope to debut in Swanage!

On Sunday, 19 January Chloe Dixon will be making her debut appearance at The Jolly Sailor. If you will be in the Portsmouth/Southsea area on Sunday, please stop by and experience the dynamic vocals of this incredibly talented young singer.

Chloe Dixon

The first emails have gone out as I begin the task of booking performers for seven Foodies Festival events. I am looking for solo performers, duos & bands who perform cover & original soul, jazz, blues, folk, pop or reggae music. Email me at gloria@gloriamillermusic.com if you are interested in performing and I will send you all the details of participation.

That's it for now ... have a fabulous weekend!!

Elevator Pitch

Here's my elevator pitch:

Hi, my name is Gloria my company is Gloria Miller Entertainment and we believe that any event can benefit from a bit of glitz and glamour, and we provide this for corporate & private events, venues and festivals. We represent solo performers up to 10-piece bands covering all genres of music from the 30’s through today. We also offer interactive entertainment that is perfect for corporate training and team building. Gloria Miller Entertainment, have we got an ACT for you!

Share your pitch with me by including it in the comments section or uploading your YouTube video. Would love to compare notes.

Also, here's a great website to help you put your pitch together:

http://www.15secondpitch.com/

Contact Information - Vol. 3

Alright, I’ve been to your website, I’ve clicked on your ‘Kick-ass’ song because you don’t have it set to autoplay, and your kick-ass song has wowed me and I now want to contact you …

I cannot tell you the frustration of wanting to contact an act once they’ve got me pumped about their music, and then having to search for their phone number or email address. Yes, it’s great to have the typical ‘contact’ page on your website, but I encourage you to have your phone number and email address prominently featured on every page of your website, and on all your social media pages. Don’t make the person who is ready to work with you have to hunt for your contact details.

Even if you have a form set up on your ‘contact’ page for people to email you through your website, please include your email address too.  I personally never email acts through their website. I’m put off by it and I just move on to the next one. My husband asked me why I do this, and it’s because I use the emails I send as part of my follow-up system and I can’t do that when I’ve had to send an email through a website.

If you use a FB page to promote your music, make sure your phone number, email address and a link to your website is included in the ‘Short Description’ which is that box underneath your photo. Don’t make us have to click on ‘about’ to find your contact details! 

Same goes for Twitter! You need to have all your contact details on your profile, because this is the page people will land on if you have peaked their interest with one of your clever tweets. Again, make it easy for whoever wants to contact you to be able to contact you.

So, after I wrote this I went to my own web pages and realized I wasn’t exactly practicing what I was preaching. So to not be a hypocrite, I have followed my own advice and made it much easier for people to find my contact details. 

Take a look at my pages:

Website:  www.gmmbookingagency.com

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/Gmmbookings

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/GmmBookingAgency

I do hope this information is helpful!  Until next time, happy music making!!

Your Kick A** Song! - Vol. 2

In Volume 1 of this blog, Autoplay, we discussed that autoplay is baaaaaddddd!  I also touched a little bit on making sure that the tracks you choose to represent you on your webpages be your absolute best tracks ... in other words, your 'Kick Ass Tracks!'

Generally, you have about 8 to 15 seconds to impress someone at the initial point of contact.  Go to the main webpage that you use to represent you and really listen to what's happening in the first 8 to 15 seconds of your first track.  Has that time all been taken up with the intro?  Is there a better part of this song that you can edit your track to fade into that has the 'wow' factor?  Is the first song on your site your best song and are you showcasing the best part of your best song?  This applies to originals and covers.

I have been booking entertainment for 5 festivals this year and started the booking process sometime in February.  From that time 'til now, I have received a few 100 artist submissions expressing interest in performing at these events.  It has been this process that has fueled my starting this blog.  About 40% of these submissions never got heard because the first track on the webpage they linked me to was 15+ seconds of intro.  If I haven't heard what you sound like by 15 seconds, I'm no longer interested. 

Your first track on your webpage needs to be your Kick Ass song, and this song needs to represent everything about you and your sound in 15 seconds or less.  If you sing like an angel, or belt like Beyonce or if you're quirky like GaGa, anyone listening should now this by 15 seconds in.  If you have managed to wow the person you are trying to wow in 15 seconds, they will want to know more about you and listen to other tracks, watch video, etc. (this same rule applies to video demos ... you have 15 seconds max to impress).

If you would like help in this area, link me to your 'Kick Ass' song in the comments and I will have a listen and tell you my thoughts. I am here to help!

Happy music making!!

Next blog ... Your 15-Second Elevator Pitch!

Autoplay - Vol. 1

Scenario:

Artist has set up a lovely webpage and has setup their kicka** song to start playing automatically when anyone visits their webpage.

Artist has sent a link to this webpage with their kicka** song setup on autoplay to a very busy Agent who is looking through hundreds of submissions from Artists trying to fill a booking request.

Busy Agent has a few minutes while waiting to go into a meeting and decides to click on said link of Artist with the kicka** song setup on autoplay, and much to the Agents embarrassment, this kicka** song is now playing in the middle of the lobby of an important client, and the Agent can't figure out how to get the kicka** song to stop playing.

I can give you several more scenarios that all lead to this conclusion ... Autoplay ... Noooooooooo!!

GMM Booking Agency is small, but I get almost 100 inquiries a month from artists contacting me to consider them for the agency, or artists responding to my ads looking for bands.  I can only conclude from this that larger agencies are receiving thousands of inquiries a month.  Whenever I have a spare moment or two, I go through my ever-growing list of potential acts and have a nosy around their webpages, etc. When I am ready to listen (which sometimes involves me having to put headphones on) then I find the music link and play a track.  The webpages that autoplay when they load, I instantly close to stop the kicka** song from playing; then I move on to the next artist on my list.  The chance for that artist to be heard by me is lost.

Before becoming an agent, I had songs on autoplay on my webpage.  Now, I don't.  Give yourself a chance to really be heard by not forcing a song on a potential client or agent. Let us control when we hear you once we're on your page.

Next blog ... 'Kicka** Song!'  Tune in next week ...