A Burning Passion: The Multifaceted Production Life And Views Of LaGrand

Once the budget is determined then you can formulate the marketing plan. It should be built around who the audience and fans are for the artist line-up performing. You can’t use the same exact plan for every event because each artist or group has a different following, and they may frequent different places both online and offline.

Gather that kind of information from the artist so you can target them. Bring artists you know that are popular themselves or by genre in your area so you have an easier road to success. Start your marketing at least a month before your event so you can advertise enough for people to actually take notice of your ads. It takes humans a number of times seeing something before it even registers on their daily radar. One or two ads or radio spots will not do you any good.

If possible, hire a marketing firm and have them devise and carry out social media campaigns. Once again: formulate a budget, secure your contracts four to six months ahead of time, give yourself a minimum of a month before the event to run your campaigns, hire a proven marketing company, and focus on social media as your primary platform.

Be sure to study the performances of the artists. Look up their live videos and see exactly what it is they do and expect. Listen to how their mix sounds, how their lighting looks and if they have video within their set. Make notes about “who” does “what” on their popular songs so you can be fluid in the performance, instead of flying blind.

Show interest by being able to provide them with what they need before they ask for it. You can learn some of these things from their social media pages and videos online. Service and attention to detail always makes room for you and builds an excellent reputation.

EM: Do most churches need to hire outside engineers for these events?

LG: A professional artist deserves professional house and monitor engineers. To the public, bands are only as good as their last performance, which affects the amount of merch sales they will do that day. If you’re planning to bring in a professional artist, then make sure to budget a minimum of $500 to $700 per day for the house and monitor engineers.

You cannot and should not rely on your volunteer staff to run and execute larger shows on a professional level. Have them there to shadow, assist, learn and even video record the whole thing from setup to teardown. They will learn a lot and can use the video to learn and revisit what they experienced. Each church should actually strive to have one industry-proven professional on their team or at their disposal for events like these.

As a personal example: my church, Set The Captives Free in Baltimore, couldn’t afford to hire me full-time. Instead, I volunteered every fifth Sunday as a way to tithe my talent back to the church on those Sundays and whenever artists were brought in. Artists like Marvin Sapp and others would hire me for these events and I often provided them a discount on my normal rate.

For many community events, such as our annual Back To School Jam with “Feed The Children,” I would secure a donated sound system from one of my clients and volunteer my time to oversee the live production. The only cost to the church was paying for the other sound crew assisting me and the delivery of the equipment. This also was a great way for my clients to receive an annual charity write-off for their business.

Let me say this clearly: don’t hinder an artist’s ministry by trying to save a few bucks. Hire professionals for larger special events. You’ll come out so much better in the end doing things the professional way.