Music Funding 101
Club Sizes
Bands always want to play big clubs packed with a lot of people, and sponsors just happen to want the same thing. From that point on, however, there is less agreement. Sponsors will always want those big clubs and a lot of people, but they may not understand the process of getting them set up, booked, and promoted. Bands, on the other hand, are constantly thinking about how to get more people into bigger and bigger clubs. Bands know how hard it is to even talk to the booker at big clubs and how hard it is to get the word out to fans so they'll show up. So a band knows it won't be playing the Hollywood Bowl anytime soon; the sponsor, however, may not understand this.
The challenge lies in the band negotiating with the sponsor to get a big enough sponsorship so that the band can attract enough fans to fill a big enough club, which will make the sponsor happy. Use TalentFunding.com to its fullest in this area. It is a challenge, because most new sponsors do not yet understand that fans are pushed to go to clubs using large marketing campaigns, which, without these campaigns, you have no fans (except for the three fans that show up at the band's coffee shop performances). Even no-budget bands spend a huge part of their week putting up flyers for shows and sending out awareness emails.
The entry-level club is, indeed, the coffee shop. For bands with the proper genre of music (especially singer-songwriter,) coffee shops offer an endless number of locations to perform at in every part of the world. How about 8,000 coffee shops in the U.K, and 17,000 in the U.S., and 80,000 in Japan? Coffee shops can accomodate up to about twenty fans and can be set up and taken down in just a few minutes. You can make an entire career out of just performing at coffee shops, going from one to the next in the same day. The band will sell one or two CDs per location, which is nice, but the bad news is that the coffee shops will not be paying the band to perform.
Then there are restaurants. Over 900,000 in the U.S. alone, and over 8,000,000 worldwide! Yes, some of them are fast food, but that still leaves one or two to perform at. And performing at a restaurant (just like at coffee houses) is usually a matter of getting the manager to like you. There are so many types of restaurants, that finding one that suits the flavor of the band is not hard. In large restaurants you can perform for up to about three hundred people. The big, big advantage of restaurants is that the sponsors can bring friends and have a good time while watching the band. But even though there can be bigger audiences in restaurants than at coffee shops, the band will still only sell one or two CDs, because the audience is mostly there to eat. However, restaurants usually pay very well, especially piano and soft vocal acts. For the sponsor, though, it's harder to get the audience exposed to his name because the band usually can't put up banners, and because the audience is farther away from the band's performance area.
Next up in club size is the small nightclub, which can hold about 150 people or so. The club itself might pay the band, but there will probably be a percentage of the money taken at the door, and/or a percentage of the money taken at the bar. And the band will sell far more CDs (5 to 15, plus shirts) than they would at restaurants. The sponsor's visibility is much higher in nightclubs than at restaurants, due to the ease of putting up banners and posters and of wearing and selling/giving the shirts, and of passing out flyers, etc. Night clubs are far fewer and more difficult to talk to compared to restaurants, so the band should be prepared for harder work.
Don't forget the nightclubs on the college club circuit. If the band's music is a fit, and if the sponsor wants to reach the college crowd, the band can put together a tour of college-associated clubs. They pay well, but it requires a regional or national tour, which is not entry-level when it comes to sponsors.
The next larger option would be a small indoor or outdoor performance venue; the type that is only open for live performances: music, theater, festivals, etc. They seat from 250 to 1500 and are only for established bands. Generally those with a long tour history and fan list, and/or strong airplay are the ones which can be booked at these venues. CD sales of 25 to 150, along with 30 shirts and ten posters can be sold at these venues. There are only a few of these in most cities, and the people who book/control/own them are going to make it very difficult for a new band to talk to, thus these venues are probably best left to professional booking agents.
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