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Emily Burns
Without a doubt, rule number two in my DIY musician book is: Communication is the key to success. And obviously on the other end of that would be: Miscommunication will be your key, to failure. This is another rule that may seem very obvious to some and goes without saying but there are times when miscommunication can occur and you don't realize that the "ball was dropped" until it's too late. Sometimes all it takes is one incident for a club owner, or promoter, or any person you work with to be completely soured on you/your band because of miscommunication. Now granted, this is a little ridiculous and people really should be more accepting of miscommunication as a part of life, many people still like to point a finger and find someone to blame (usually, you/the artist).
A little over a month ago, my band, Escaping Pavement, played a show on a Saturday night that started early and ended before ten o'clock at night. While driving home, we received a call from a club owner in a different part of the state asking why our band was not there, at his club, setting up yet. Baffled and stunned, we kindly tried to remind the owner, that we had cancelled this date months ago and had re-scheduled for the following weekend. He replied angrily, fine, and hung up the phone. The following weekend when we went to the venue to do our scheduled date there, we sought out the owner and tried to apologize for the confusion. He said he recalled the phone conversation where we cancelled that specific date and admitted that he neglected to take us off his calendar for that night-yet he still proceeded to give us the cold shoulder and act as though it was our fault. Needless to say, we probably won't be playing there anymore. And it's because of something, that wasn't even our fault and we tried to apologize for. This is why communication is the key to success and even more so, it's the key to building successful business relationships. Yes, this may have been a fluke accident but I have learned from this that going above and beyond normal communications that you may have with someone you're doing business with can never hurt. Nobody will ever get angry because you called them a month in advance to confirm a date you already had booked but they most certainly will get angry when you don't show up for a date THEY think they booked you for. Bottom line, an extra phone call/email/text, etc saying, "hey! let's be sure we're all on the same page, shall we?" never hurt anyone.....Go the extra mile! It's worth it!
Till next time-
E
