*** The Musician Advice Section - Poster ***
Visibility around town
I can guarantee you one thing - fewer people will be at your
shows if you neglect this time honoured advertising tradition.
Design a poster that is very easy to read, has the necessary
details (Time/date, location, who's playing, what it'll cost) and is
also visually appealing, or at the very least eye-catching.
Now, this is not to say that postering is just for announcing shows
- posters can be used for SO much more. You can use them to build
hype as part of a coordinated media campaign; You can use them
to announce album availability; You can use them to simply get
your face out there. However you use them, here's some decent
advice:
- Paste - Yeah, it's messy, but it works. I think there's still
some posters kicking around London from when I went on a run 4
years ago. There are many ways to make paste, but I found it really
easy to simply add water to glue (carpenters glue in my case - white
glue is more traditional). For applying, you'll definitely need a brush.
I've tried using spray bottles for carrying the paste in, and that's
worked pretty well, although for long postering runs you'll either need
multiple bottles, or to just give in and use a bucket. This works especially
well for smoother surfaces, like boards, cement poles or anything along
those lines.
- Staple Guns - you won't always find a nice, smooth surface to
post your poster to, and may have to use a wooden pole, or something
else along those lines. In these cases, the staple-gun is the postering
weapon of choice. Make sure to at least staple all of the corners of your
poster.
- Tape - I advise against using this as it tends not to hold up
overly well.
There are generally postering services you can use in most cities, but
if you've got the time you can easily do it yourself in a day or two.
Things to remember when postering:
- Location, Location, Location. It's not just for real Estate - when
possible, place posters at about eye level, all over the town/city that you
want to target. Make certain to poster most heavily in high-metal-traffic
areas, but don't neglect any parts of the area that your target audience
might be. If there's a transit system in the area, make sure to poster
key intersections where people normally transfer or wait for transit.
Also, many independant CD stores will have an area for flyers and
posters, so don't neglect both inside and outside these locations.
After all, the people who go into these places are probably interested
in music.
- A little respect for others - Don't completely cover a postering
location in posters - leave some room for others. If possible, try not to
cover others' posters either, unless the event they're for is past. That
being said, if someone has carpet-bombed a postering location, give
the viewers some variety. ;)
- MAINTENANCE - Check up on your posters from time to time -
make sure they're still up and still visible. You may have to reposter a
few times as cities recruit people to indiscriminantly carve posters off
lamp posts and utility poles, or as other people fail to respect your
posters and plaster over them. In especially busy places, your
posters may actually only last a couple of days before they're torn
down or postered over, so do not neglect the upkeep.
I want to know what you think about this section - please e-mail your
comments, suggestions, and additions to the advice herein to:
djdaimon (at) ontariometal dot net
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