Smuggle in those crowds with Bosham’s jazz giants!

Last year, the Jazz Smugglers performed a unique Sussex festival feat, performing at a string of arts festivals in the county from Chichester to Selsey, from Petworth to Arundel and with Brighton along the way amongst a wealth of dates.

Now band leader John Winkler has collated the fruits of their acquired wisdom to produce a downloadable booklet on how to market your event.

“Some of these techniques of event promotion are very old – theatre and gig managements since the Middle Ages have followed these principles. Since then we have just become more sophisticated,” John said.

“Most event promoters and venues have established successful routines for bringing in the crowds to a gig. All successful events have one outstanding individual who enthuses everyone else. Our advice is to spot this individual, give them all the backing they need, say yes to what they want to do, and hang on to them before they are stolen by rivals. Don’t crunch them into submission with committees.”

John tackles aspects including the broad approach, pricing, getting others to sell your event tickets for you and the pub/the local shop/café.

He also advises on booking performers who can help your ticket sales, selling tickets and door-to-door drops and using vouchers for repeat business and free online ticket sales agencies.

“The biggest puller of all is to have many display signs on the roads. Put them up for two weeks, make them very simple, eye-catching, and take them down the day after the event. Very simple design, placard typeface, very. One sign on the village board is OK, but not enough. Try every display board you can find – doctors/pubs/shops.”

Other advice comes under headings including last minute, tie in your event with a big national event and building your event mailing lists.

“Your most responsive market will always be the people who have come to your events before. With their permission you need to maintain a mailing list of them, an email list, a Facebook list and a mobile phone list.”

Other advice includes letters, email lists, Facebook, sponsorship, reaching opinion formers, broadcast media and public relations.

More details on http://www.jazzenthusiasts.com/.