0419-212-620

Choosing A Tribute Band

How do you go about choosing a tribute band for your venue?
First of all – why have a tribute band?
What are you trying to achieve or what problem are you trying to solve?

Solo and Duo acts typically just hold people in a room and make them stay longer and spend more – this is great.
However they do not typically PULL spending customers to your venue.
But bands do. Especially tribute bands.
But choosing a tribute band is vital – choosing the best one.

An ad that a tribute band is playing at your venue makes people think about coming to your venue on that date to have a perceived experience of a great time with that band.

So if you want to draw people to you venue a tribute band is a great idea.

Tribute bands range from part time weekend warrior musicians who do 2 sets of pub style music with NO costumes and do an average cheap job – for an average cheap fee…….
Or the other end is a highly polished costumed show, with a front person who entertains. With a light show which all comes at a higher fee of course.

Its all about what you can expect to make back, keep reading for ideas regarding ticketing or free lounge show.

Always start off with a smaller cheaper show to get a taste for what your customers like – and how many will come and just what the response is.

What kind of Band suits your venue demographic?

Older – think classic Rod Stewart, Tom Jones etc
Younger – any kind of rock band.
80’s – the best category at this time – especially pop bands as they have a wide appeal.
Fleetwood Mac, Crowded House, U2 etc
Pub vibe – Oz rock bands like INXS are always a winner.

Ticketed Tribute Band v Free Show

If you cannot segregate the audience for the show and just for regular punters that want to dine or drink then ticketing the show is too hard to do.
Ticketing works if you can have a seperate area.

A dinner show is a great idea if you have a well organised meal service.

Free lounge shows are a great way to start off to test the waters, then you can move towards bigger ticketed shows.

Too many free lounge shows will work against you ion you suddenly begin to charge.
A great idea is start with smaller cheaper tributes for free ( no charge to the audience)  then purposely make a point of difference with a DECENT bigger costumed show.

A hot tip for seated dinner shows – table service for drinks will add up to 20% to your bottom line profit – you’ll sell way more drinks if you do table service.

Author
Tim Pringle