What do you think about this sort of website ?
http://www.sonicbids.com
Strange concept that to pay to be listened...

Total crap.

I mean.. unless you're trying to 'make it' or whatever.

I use it, but I don't really know why anymore...

Sometimes you can save 10-15 bucks on entry fees for festivals and the like. It also has a nifty calendar tool and an EPK that will host all that you will need to give booking people.

So, it's useful and for $6.95, it's worth it, unless you know how to design your own EPK and have your own CMS on your band site. After that, it's useless unless you want to save money on entry fees, which are a rip-off no matter what you do. The only way to get into a festival (and make it matter) is to have an in, like a booking agent or a label or know people who are booking the event.

Of course, a free site like Myspace can do about the same thing for you, minus the entry fee savings.

Thank you for the opinions !

caix wrote:So, it's useful and for $6.95, it's worth it, unless you know how to design your own EPK and have your own CMS on your band site. After that, it's useless unless you want to save money on entry fees, which are a rip-off no matter what you do. The only way to get into a festival (and make it matter) is to have an in, like a booking agent or a label or know people who are booking the event.

for the record, booking agents can't get the fees waived for festivals. Even when I was booking bands that were invited to festivals, they'd still have to pay the entrance fee. granted, the bands often got paid, (we did, they did), so the fee is reimbursed, but not officially. Some labels, though, have footed the entrance fee for the bands. Leaf did, Dischord didn't. it really does depend.


as for the sonicbids stuff, I don't like it, but we couldn't have played pop montreal without it (which was really one of my favourite shows we've played), and I think sxsw or cmj are doing the sonicbids registry, too.

that said, those festivals, while fun, are complete bullshit anyway. they do no good for small bands, they're status quo for larger bands and the routing around festivals is horrible b/c of 3000 bands trying to get shows in the 10 surrounding cities the night before and the night after any given date.



It's really up to you.

kerble wrote:

caix wrote:So, it's useful and for $6.95, it's worth it, unless you know how to design your own EPK and have your own CMS on your band site. After that, it's useless unless you want to save money on entry fees, which are a rip-off no matter what you do. The only way to get into a festival (and make it matter) is to have an in, like a booking agent or a label or know people who are booking the event.

for the record, booking agents can't get the fees waived for festivals. Even when I was booking bands that were invited to festivals, they'd still have to pay the entrance fee. granted, the bands often got paid, (we did, they did), so the fee is reimbursed, but not officially. Some labels, though, have footed the entrance fee for the bands. Leaf did, Dischord didn't. it really does depend.

Oh yeah, I wasn't trying to imply that a booking agent will get your fees waived. Rather, having a booking agent would get you a better chance of getting into a festival. I've applied to so many festivals, wasted so much cash, never got into one of them. Always on the backup list, though! (barf)