How Do I Get Started Perfoming for Night Clubs?

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Musical or talent acts can make a good start performing for nightclubs. Nightclubs are where many acts make their first showings and where they are often discovered. The trick is to get started at nightclubs, which is often the hardest part of performing. Getting started requires a few strategies and a lot of willingness to work hard.

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Set Up A Press Pack

Before you can perform at nightclubs, you need to turn yourself into an act that is worthy of having a chance to perform. In order to present yourself as this type of group, you need a professional press pack. A press pack includes a sheet of paper that tells about you or your act, an 8- by 10-inch usable photo of you or your group, and a recording of your music or your act. These things are designed to help the venue with their promotions once they book you, and to give venues an idea of who you are so that they know whether or not they would like to book you in the first place. A recording should be of professional quality, created in a studio or in a home studio withe professional equipment, and it should be as professionally packaged as possible. Make many copies of this press pack, so that you will always have one available.

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Contact Venues

Once you have a press pack, you then need to start contacting venues and booking shows. Call night clubs in your area and surrounding areas and ask to speak to their booking manager. Give them some information about yourself, and ask them if you can send a press pack or if they are currently booking acts like you. Sometimes you will have to call multiple venues before one will give you a shot. Once you have played at a few night clubs, you will be able to tell new nightclubs where you have played, and this will give you more credence to play at different clubs and venues.

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Follow Through and Repeat

Each time you play a night club, be sure to thank the manager, booking agent and bar staff as you are there and as you leave. The following day, call the nightclub or the booking agent and tell them that you were very happy to have played there and would like to play there again someday. Sometimes you will be contacted by them in the future, and sometimes you will need to call them again to set up shows.

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Self Promotion

Self promotion is important for a night club performer. You will be responsible for your own success. Self promotion means calling venues to talk about yourself, printing out posters for a gig and hanging them up, and buying radio and newspaper advertisements to promote what you are doing. All bands or acts that make it big start by promoting themselves. This might take several hours each day, but it is important to remember that no one else is going to do it for you. The goal of self promotion is to continue to perform gigs at night clubs until you are noticed and recognized, and perhaps until you are picked up by an agency that will begin to promote you.

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The Internet is also a very important and useful tool for self promotion. Many acts create MySpace profiles or use Facebook to accumulate fans and update them on when they will be performing.

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