3 legal Bandsintown Hacks I’ve used to book hundreds of live shows

Bandsintown gives every artist a free Bandsintown for Artists account that includes tools to help them successfully book and market live shows and tours.

The Bandsintown Events Widget displays gigs on the artist’s site and across the web. Free and unfiltered direct-to-fan messaging can notify all of their Bandsintown followers about shows, merchandise, new releases, and more. Free analytics shows where those followers live and how engaged they are. The Request A Show feature lets fans tell an artist where they want them to perform, and that’s just the start.

But beyond the “official” ways to use Bandsintown.com and Bandsintown for Artists, there are several totally safe and legal hacks that I and our team at the Skyline Artists Agency use to book almost 2000 live shows every year.

HACK #1 – Find The Best Places To Play

Want to know the best venues for a particular artist to play?

Just pick 3 others artists that are a level or two above and see where they play by looking at their tour schedules on Bandsintown.com. 

Don’t just look at their current  “Upcoming” shows, but also click on the “Past” tab and keep clicking on the “Show More Events” at the bottom to see more of the shows that each band has played in the past.

Particularly if you see more than one of these artists performing at the same venue, make it a key target for a future booking.

HACK #2 – Discover Where To Play In Any City 

Passing through Phoenix, AZ (or any city or town) and need to find the best places that book live music?

1. Just below “My upcoming shows” on Bandsintown.com, type the city and state in the “Live Events In ________” search box and hit enter.

2. “Recommended For You” will appear near the top of the page. Page all the way down, click on “View All” and you’ll be taken to a list of all upcoming “Events Near (City)”. 

3. Now use this list as a venue research tool. Where are bands like you playing?

4. To learn more about a venue, click on any of its events. 

HACK #3 – Is This City Worth My Time?

How many times have you thought, “If only I can get fans of Artist X to hear my music or see my show…”.

This hack within Bandsintown for Artists helps you discover how many of those artists’ active fans live in a city. Then you can use those stats to predict how successful you might be at building an audience there.

1. Click on “Insights” in the left column of your Bandsintown for Artists dashboard.
2. Click on the “Followers” tab near the top of the page.
3. Under “Followers Location” type in the country, state, city, and radius that you want to research.
4. Then in the “Select one or more similar artists” search box, type in the name of a similar artist and you’ll see how many followers they have in that city or region.  
5. Research one artist at a time to avoid confusion.

What did you learn? 

How big your realistic potential audience is in that location. 

If there are 3000 fans of similar bands within that radius then it might be a good city for you to play in. If there is only a pool of 30 or even 300 potential fans, it might be a hard place for your band to build a fanbase.

A PRO Tip

While most Bandsintown for Artists features are free, it also has a great paid marketing platform that’s used by everyone from small indie artists to Live Nation to geo-target fans of an artist and similar artists to sell more tickets, music, and merch.

After you book a show, consider going back and paying for a targeted marketing campaign. I’ve seen them pay off for artists again and again.

Find out how in the “Campaigns” section of any Bandsintown for Artists account.

Conclusion

The Skyline Artists Agency team has used these hacks over and over again because they help us book better gigs. 

Combined with the Bandsintown for Artists toolkit they can help you do the same. 

If you’ve found your own Bandsintown Hack, we want to hear about it in the comments below.

Bruce Houghton is Founder and Editor of Hypebot and MusicThinkTank and serves as a Senior Advisor to Bandsintown which acquired both publications in 2019. He is the Founder and President of the Skyline Artists Agency and a professor for the Berklee College Of Music.