Promo Guide For Venues
A modern, practical playbook for filling rooms and building real audiences
— without the old-school venue vs artist blame game.
Getting Bums On Seats
After 15 years working with artists at every level of the industry, I’ve seen the same frustrations play out again and again: venues feeling like artists didn’t promote enough, and artists feeling like venues didn’t do their part. Meanwhile, the marketing landscape has changed dramatically.
This guide cuts through the noise and shows you the simple, modern strategies that actually help sell tickets, reduce admin, and build a healthier partnership between venues and artists.
What's Included
• Facebook event strategies that trigger organic notifications and keep fans engaged
• Retargeting ad techniques that convert “interested” clicks into ticket buyers
• Simple social media engagement habits that increase reach without increasing ad spend
• Word-of-mouth strategies that help audiences bring the next audience
• Creating seat flyers to turn tonight’s crowd into your next show’s crowd
• Building and nurturing local PR relationships with journalists, radio hosts and community media
• Inviting media to shows to develop long-term support for your venue or series
Audience growth tools
• Ticketing strategies that capture customer data and build long-term audiences
• Using ticketing platforms to grow your mailing list automatically
• Mailing list strategies that turn one-time ticket buyers into repeat audiences
• Simple email marketing habits that keep your shows top of mind
• Building a local fan database that you can promote to again and again
Systems for smoother artist–venue collaboration
• Creating clear marketing expectations before a show is booked
• Collecting all the promo assets you need from artists upfront
• Reducing the admin and back-and-forth that slows down promotion
• Sharing local media and PR contacts with artists so they can plug into the community
• Building a collaborative culture where everyone works together to get bums on seats
Course curriculum
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1Getting Bums On Seats