The side doors: support slots, gig swaps, competitions

Callum has a plan. Usually Callum's plan is a mate's housemate who might run a night somewhere. This one fits in a screenshot: Civic Pride, garage three-piece from Leeds, 700 followers, who fill the back room of The Old Dispensary one Friday a quarter, and have just posted a story saying “looking for gigs outside Leeds this spring”. Priya watches the story twice. Same follower count, same crowd, two cities an hour apart, and neither band has ever played the other's town.

At tiers 1 and 2, most dates outside your town come through a side door: a band who invites you, a headliner who needs a local support, a night two bands build together. This chapter opens all three.

A support slot (thirty minutes before a band better known than you, in front of their crowd) is the most profitable date at your tier: you play to people who came for someone else, in a room that would be too big for you alone. It comes through three doors, in this order.

The promoter. Not the venue: the person who hired the room and is looking for a local support, a band from the town who'll bring people, four to ten weeks out. The signal is a headliner you'd fit with, announced in a room in your circles: you email the promoter the same day.

The headliner themselves. By DM, as long as they're a human-sized band. A band with 2,000 followers reads its messages; a band with 200,000 has someone for that.

Their booking agent. They sometimes have supports to fill across several dates, and they'd rather have a band that brings thirty people than a band that begs.

What you offer: your local crowd, as a number, the event shared on your channels, your backline, sometimes a sofa. What you accept: thirty minutes, a quick line check, petrol money or a small fee rather than a proper one; £50 to £100 is the going rate for an out-of-town support in our experience, often nothing in London. What you refuse: buying or selling tickets.

Tarmac Daughters, four-piece garage band from Leeds, are announced at Spare Room, Manchester, on 18 April. The poster says Spare Room and nothing else. Priya's first version, written at 11pm:

“Hi, we saw Tarmac Daughters are playing at yours on 18 April and we'd love to open for them! We're a three-piece garage-punk band from Sheffield with loads of energy on stage, let us know if that's possible.”

The version sent the next morning at 10am, to info@ at the room:

Subject: Support for Tarmac Daughters, 18 April: Wet Pavement (Sheffield)

Hi,

You've got Tarmac Daughters on 18 April. We're Wet Pavement, three-piece garage-punk from Sheffield, for fans of Amyl and the Sniffers and, as it happens, Tarmac Daughters. We can realistically bring 35 to 40 in Manchester, more if Dee's uni lot come over. We can lend the drum kit and the bass amp, thirty minutes, quick line check, and we'll share the event the moment you say yes.

Our live set, two minutes: [link]. If the support's already taken, no bother, and if someone else is putting the night on, tell me who to write to.

Priya, Wet Pavement, 07xxx xxx xxx

A week later, still nothing. The email is good. It's sitting on the wrong desk.

The gig swap (Tauschkonzert in Germany, échange de dates in France) is the simplest door and the least used. A band at your level, under two hours away, puts a night on at home with you as co-headliner. You do the same at yours within two months.

Each band brings its crowd on its own date, the room sees two bands who fill it, and you get a date away from home in front of a proper audience.

The rules fit in five lines, and you write them in the first message: door split down the middle, backline shared, crash space swapped (Dee's sofa for their bassist's), one poster for both nights (Callum's job), one point of contact per band.

The room talks itself into it quickly. Priya put it to Jas, who runs Thursdays at The Cutlers' Rest in Sheffield and has had them on twice.

Priya writes to Sam, who does Civic Pride's booking, by email, because the address is in their bio and a gig swap deserves better than a voice note.

Subject: Gig swap Sheffield / Leeds this spring?

Hi Sam,

We're Wet Pavement, garage-punk from Sheffield, been following you since your Dispensary show in November. We saw the “looking for gigs outside Leeds” story, and we've got a proposal: you come and play with us at The Cutlers' Rest in Sheffield on Friday 20 March, two-band bill, 80 cap, £5 on the door, split down the middle after £60 for sound, we put you up and lend the kit.

And you have us on in Leeds within the two months after, same terms. Callum does the poster for both nights if that works for you.

Our live set: [link]. Our crowd in Sheffield, honestly: forty people.

Sound good? Priya, 07xxx xxx xxx

Sam's reply, the same evening: “Yes mate. 20th works for us. For Leeds I'll ask Tom at the Boiler House, they've got a Wednesday in May, I'll let you know.” Two dates, one email, and for once Callum's plan is in the tracker.

Your turn. Pick the door nearest to you today: a headliner you'd fit with, announced in a room in your circles, or a band at your level under two hours away. Write the email, the whole thing. It goes this week.

A competition is a contest between bands with a panel and something to win: a slot, a support, a festival stage. In the UK the one bookers actually look at is Glastonbury's Emerging Talent Competition (entries in January, longlist by industry judges). BBC Introducing isn't a competition, it's an uploader: you put tracks in, your local show might play one, and a play is a line in your next email.

Festivals and funded venues in your region often run their own new-bands stage with a slot at stake. In France it's called a tremplin (the iNOUïS at the Printemps de Bourges); in Germany, local heroes or PopCamp.

Three rules. You enter only if the panel includes bookers you can name. You prepare a twenty-minute set, not your forty-minute set cut at random. And the real prize is the name of the booker on the panel, who you email the week after: “we met on Tuesday at the…”.

And then there's the other model, which exists in all three countries and which the scene has a name for: pay to play. “Selected for the semi-final”, and to confirm your place each band sells twenty tickets at £8.

You're paying £160 to play twenty minutes to the other bands' mates, and the judges are the audience. That's a box office with a stage, whatever the poster calls it. You say no, politely, and you write the name down.

Support slots and bills get handed out in rooms you're not in yet. In the UK those rooms are less a membership than a calendar. Independent Venue Week, at the end of January: grassroots venues want local bands on their bills, and they're building them in the autumn.

The Music Venue Trust's map of grassroots venues is your circle 1 and 2 target list, ready drawn. BBC Introducing's local show: upload, and the presenter's name goes in your tracker.

The Musicians' Union gives you contract advice and a card that says you take this seriously; check the current rate on the official page. Help Musicians and the PRS Foundation fund things like a tour or a recording, which is a line in a promoter's email.

Priya asked Jas about Independent Venue Week in October, with the 20 March takings as her argument. France and Germany: the doors have other names, they're in the tabs.

Three more doors, one of which you can push this week without waiting for a promoter to discover you. Your tracker has just gained lines that aren't venues: a band from Leeds, a headliner, the name of a booker on a panel. It's still missing the same column.