FEM73 How Performing at Local Open Mic Nights Can Make You Money with Bree Noble

Open mic nights can be controversial among musicians, after all, why would you want to play for free? In reality though, open mic nights can help you in many ways to grow your business. I thought it would be helpful to go over these things because on Thursday, February 16th, I’m hosting my Musician’s Profit Path Masterclass where we will go through the 5 Stages of Musician Career Growth. We will talk a lot about open mic nights in Stage 1.

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7 reasons why open mic nights can be the catalyst that drives your business from small gig to opening act.

Improve your confidence. Learn how you react when you get in front of an audience of people you don’t know. It will be terrifying at first but you’ll improve the more you do it. Remember, performing at open mic nights does not make you an amateur!
It will give you practice playing in front of people. It’s completely different from playing in front of your phone or a camera. This is a great way to prepare and be ready for paying performances.
It will help you understand how to craft a set. A lot goes into performances, such as what songs to put together, how the audience is reacting and how you transition between songs. You can use this time to practice adding in covers or new songs.
Test what you are going to say. Instead of the generic “I wrote this next song…blah blah blah,” you can test different stories and see how the response is. You can also test things like an audience sing-along, or calling on someone from the audience to join you on stage to sing-along.Open mic nights are the best place to test these because people aren’t expecting perfection.
Learn how to build rapport with your audience. How you engage with them, where you move on the stage during performing. and making your set interactive are just some of the ways you can build this relationship. People want to be part of your set, they are not just there to listen.
Networking. Meeting other local artists is a great way to find people to share gigs with, co-write songs with, and so much more. Get your name out there!
Building your fanbase. Show up prepared and have a way for people to sign up for your newsletter or follow you on social media. Do you have a text opt in? Share that during your set. Flyers or postcards are great to pass out at a table after your set. If the open mic is really well attended, you could run a contest. Just make sure it’s ok with the owners or people who are in charge of the event.

Although this is mainly for people in the foundation stage of their business. this strategy can be used by musicians in all stages of their career. Attending open mic nights is always a great way to test new things. If you have recorded a lot but haven’t had a lot of live experience, you can rely on open mic nights to help with improving your confidence and it will give you valuable experience.

To learn more about the 5 Stages of Musician Career Growth, sign up for the Musician’s Profit Path Masterclass happening Thursday, February 16th. This workshop will help you figure out what stage you are in, what you need to do to move to the next stage and what you should NOT be doing so you are not wasting your time and money in that particular stage. I’ll see you there!

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First Name Email Address We use this field to detect spam bots. If you fill this in, you will be marked as a spammer. I'd like to receive the free email course. Subscribe Powered by ConvertKit /* Layout */ .ck_form { /* divider image */ background: #fff...