We’re Rachel Hurley and Frank Keith IV, co-owners of the Sweetheart Pub. We’re music industry veterans with over 30 years of combined experience in the music business, having worked in licensing, talent buying/booking, label management, tour management, and more. Once a week, we’ll publish a new edition of this newsletter, where we’ll share some philosophy and actionable advice on all facets of the music industry.
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What we’re thinking about this week...
The Basement East is Back in Business
Almost exactly a year ago, I had plans to head to Nashville to see a client’s album release show when Nashville, TN was hit by a devastating tornado that ripped the roof off of one of its best live music venues, The Basement East. It was a truly bizarre beginning to the year. I spent the day after texting and calling clients, making sure everyone was okay. Obviously, there were going to be some show cancellations, but many lost their homes, and others their jobs due to the damage…and this was all before COVID became a global pandemic.
Within a few weeks the bottom had completely dropped out of the local music scene, but this was the first big event that wreaked havoc on 2020. As the news about the vaccines have gotten better in 2021, so has the news about live music. Obviously, many venue owners decided to close their doors until they knew they could provide a safe location for live music again. In the past month, I’ve noticed that musicians are starting to book some shows, mainly outside, but a few larger venues have started hosting concerts again.
Last weekend, The Basement East did just that — kicking off their re-opening with a 3-day event from Thursday until Saturday. After receiving my first dose of the vaccination and reading about The BEast’s security measures, I decided to head back to Music City for the first time in over a year to catch up with some friends and clients. DJs played music on Thursday and Friday, and they had a few bands play early Saturday evening. The shows were well-attended, but not packed as many people are still erring on the side of caution. Everyone mostly sat with the people they came with at socially-distanced tables, we wore our masks when we were not seated and kept a lot of the “hellos” and chummy exchanges limited to waves across the room.
It’s only a first step to getting back to normal, but it felt good to support the venue and the employees who have spent the last year rebuilding. There’s no clever or impressive ending to this story, I just wanted to share that slowly, things are moving in the right direction, and that is something to look forward to.
— Rachel
…and to piggyback on this with some more positive energy, here’s a brief update on the live music / touring landscape from this week’s Music Rookie podcast guest Phil Egenthal:
Everything is coming back online more and more daily
Fall will be 75% return to normal touring, barring giant outbreak or COVID reversal
Summer outdoors looking good…Red Rock was 1000 cap shows thru June last week. This week its 2500 cap shows thru June. They hope to be 50% (4500 cap) by July and full cap (9000) by Sept / Oct.
— Frank
The Latest
Introducing Sundae: A Remote, Real-Time Workspace For Music Teams
Music Benefactors: The Music Industry’s Go-To Funding Source
THREAD:
S*** You Can Do Today
The return of the social media self-audit … how’s your INSTAGRAM game looking these days?
Here are several things to consider from top to bottom:
First thing’s first...submit for verification (settings > account > request verification). There is no magic bullet here, but you can’t score if you don’t shoot.
Set up a “link in bio” smart link that you can customize (linktree, smarturl, linkin.bio - these all work well). What to include in this tree?
WEBSITE should be first link listed
MAILING LIST signup link
TOUR link (most of us aren’t touring right now, but don’t overlook this when that changes)
PRESS highlights (you can pull pre-existing stories)
SHOP/MERCH link
Don’t overdo it on links here — you only have someone’s attention for so long. There is no point in redirecting to other social platforms; they found you on Instagram after all.
Best practices for Instagram:
How often should you post? Rule of thumb is at least once per day for feed posts, no more than three per day. Stories you can blow up :)
Utilize both stories AND highlights — create compelling cover photos for highlights
Post different content on your feed vs stories (your stories should “fill the screen” so to speak)
Mix it up between personal and promotional content. 50/50 is a good starting point, but remember that personal posts / conversation-starters are likely to bring much higher engagement. And remember- personal content should be exclusive to the platform; Facebook/Twitter feeds should be unique from this.
Post short-clip video content regularly; not just still images
If you are posting still images, utilize carousel (multiple images per post) as much as possible. The “swipe right to see more” call-to-action gets WAY more engagement that a single image. Make people curious as they scroll their feed.
Utilize IGTV as much as possible. Music videos work here, DIY live sessions, etc
TikTok of the Week
Rachel’s Best Music Tip of 2021
Just for Fun
Who came up with the term “Friend with Benefits”?
Music Rookie Podcast
Free Advice
Have a follow-up question for one of our guests? Got a tip? Did we (*gasp*) get something wrong? Our line is always open -- hit us up and if we use your question or response in a future newsletter, we’ll give you credit and link your socials.
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