FOR MUSICIANS & BANDS
YouTube for Musicians: Channel Set-Up, Shorts and Live Sessions
How independent UK artists can set up a YouTube channel, apply for an Official Artist Channel, use Shorts, go live, organise playlists and build a community.
A week-by-week plan for selling tickets to your next gig, from listings and posters to email, ads, local press and content on the night.
To promote a gig, start four to six weeks out. List it on a ticketing or listings site and put up a clear poster. Announce it online and email your list. Add a small paid push in the final fortnight. Contact local press and radio early. Put the date and venue on everything, with the price and one link.
Most gigs that sell badly weren’t badly promoted. They were promoted late, in one place, with a message that never said what, where or how much. When you promote a gig, a run of small, regular reminders does more than one big announcement ever will.
The timeline below is for UK independent artists and bands, plus DJs, playing ticketed shows anywhere from a pub back room to a small theatre. Shift the timings to suit your venue. Keep the order.
| When | Focus | Key tasks |
|---|---|---|
| 4 to 6 weeks before | Set up | Ticket link, listings, poster, event page, press and radio emails |
| 3 to 4 weeks before | Announce | Social posts, email to your list, first video clip |
| 2 weeks before | Push | Reminder posts, local ad test, support acts tagged |
| Final week | Urgency | Countdown, last-chance email, venue and local group posts |
| On the night and after | Capture | Photos, video, thank-yous, next date |
Four to six weeks works for most local shows. People get enough time to plan around work and everything else going on in their lives, and you can keep the message fresh without running out of things to say. Start earlier for a bigger room, a headline slot or a ticket price people will need to think about.
Nail down the basics before you announce anything. You need the date with door and start times. You need the venue address and the ticket price too, plus one link that works. Everything else you put out gets built from those details.
Begin where people look when they want something to do. That’s the venue’s own listings and your website. Add a ticketing page and any local what’s-on sites.
Want the show on your Spotify artist profile? Know how it works first. Spotify doesn’t take concert listings directly. Your show has to be listed with one of its ticketing partners, and Spotify then imports it automatically, usually within 24 hours. Bandsintown is one partner. Others include Eventbrite and See Tickets as well as Ticketmaster and DICE. Each listing needs at least an artist name and start time, along with a venue name and an event name. Songkick events don’t get displayed. Nor do virtual events.
A poster has one job. In three seconds it has to tell a stranger whether this gig is for them and what to do next. Include:
Use a strong photo. Clip art makes you look like an amateur. Make one version for the venue wall and a square or vertical one for social media. If you want your posters to share a consistent look, our graphic design for musicians page explains what we can do.
Post about the gig more often than feels comfortable, and change up what you post. Over a few weeks, mix in:
Put the ticket link in your bio and in every post. Tell people plainly what you want them to do. Give friends and fans a good image with all the details in one place, so sharing it takes them two taps and no effort at all. For the groundwork behind all this, see our guide to marketing for musicians.
Paid promotion works best as a boost in the last two weeks, once your free posts on social have shown you which video or image people actually respond to. Keep it local and give it one clear action. Measure it by tickets sold. To go further, our advertising for musicians page covers Facebook and Instagram as well as YouTube and local search.
Put a ticket price in an ad and the advertising rules apply to you. ASA and CAP guidance says any quoted price has to include non-optional fees that buyers pay, such as a per-ticket booking fee, so people see the real cost up front. You can itemise the fee, the guidance says, but you can’t show it more prominently than the headline price. With tiered pricing, a “from” price should be the lowest price including mandatory fees. If your ticketing platform adds a fee, find out the total the buyer pays before you put any price on an ad or poster.
Email reaches people who’ve already said they want to hear from you. Send the first message when tickets go on sale. Follow with a reminder two weeks before, then a last-chance note in the final week. Put the date and link near the top and keep it short.
Write to local press and radio early, ideally at the very start of your campaign, because they plan their listings and features further ahead than most bands expect. Send a short email with the date and venue and the ticket link. Add two sentences about you, plus a good photo and a link to a track or video. Local papers and community radio, like what’s-on pages, are often happy to hear from a real local act with a real date. They work to their own deadlines, though. A strong press photo and a ready-made electronic press kit make it easy for them to say yes.
Plan your content before you arrive. Get a friend to take photos and short videos. Post a sound-check clip or a “doors open” message and tag the venue. During the set, film the crowd as well as the stage, because people love sharing pictures they’re in and every share puts your name in front of their friends.
Thank the audience afterwards and post the best photo and clip within a day or two. Announce the next date while the night’s still fresh in everyone’s mind. Good images from this show will help sell the next one, so it pays to get your live and band photography right.
We help artists plan and run advertising for musicians, from Facebook and Instagram gig ads to YouTube, Google and local search. Our team can also photograph and film your shows to feed the campaign. We agree a clear brief, scope and fee with you before any work begins.
Four to six weeks suits most local gigs. Announce once the date and venue are fixed and the ticket link works. Post regularly after that, and send a reminder email two weeks before. For a bigger room or a pricier ticket, start earlier. People need longer to plan and decide.
Lean on the people around the event. Tag the venue and the support acts and ask them to share. Email anyone who’s been to one of your shows before, and invite local groups that suit your music. A personal message to a likely fan often does more than a post to a big, cold audience.
Sell advance tickets if you can. They give you a number to track and a link to promote, which makes the show far easier to market. Door sales can still top up the night. If you use a ticketing platform, check the booking fee and make sure any price you advertise is what buyers will actually pay.
You don’t have to, but it can help fans who follow you spot shows near them. To appear, the gig has to be listed with one of Spotify’s ticketing partners, and it usually shows up within about 24 hours. Spotify also suggests asking fans to follow you so they hear about shows nearby.
Yes. Most of these steps only cost time. Listings and a poster cost nothing else. So do social posts and email, and so does a note to the press. Keep any paid promotion local and small, and switch it on for the last couple of weeks. Judge it on tickets sold before you decide whether to spend more.
How independent UK artists can set up a YouTube channel, apply for an Official Artist Channel, use Shorts, go live, organise playlists and build a community.
How function and wedding bands can get found and booked: website and video, Google Business Profile, directories, honest reviews and fast enquiry handling.
How independent UK artists can use TikTok: choosing sounds, writing hooks, posting consistently, getting your own track onto the app and learning from analytics.
Four quick questions, and we’ll show you where we’d start. Your answers come straight to us with your message, so you won’t have to explain it twice.
A 30-minute introduction call on Microsoft Teams, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. Your answers come with the booking, so we’ll be ready for you.
Prefer to talk it through? Make an appointment for a 30-minute call on Microsoft Teams, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.
A closer look at the work behind each part of your plan.
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