3/23/2014

Music Festivals For Local Bands

By Michael Fitzgerald


Music festivals take place in major cities all across the country, everywhere from Chicago, IL to Austin, TX. They also can take place is off-the-map locations, like deserts in the Southwest or forests in the East and Midwest. The amount of music festivals on both a local and national level has grown exponentially over the past five years alone. But no matter the size of the festival, they always seem to be attract massive audiences, which creates an amazing opportunity for lesser known bands and musicians. Many record labels and A&R representatives take special note of these events and the bands that perform well on them, for local bands lucky enough to earn a timeslot on them.

When a local group gets to perform with a bunch of other bands and musicians in front of tons of potential fans - like they would on a music festival - they also have the chance to meet and make friends with other bands, brand new fans, and music industry personnel on a scale far greater than they would ever get to on a regular local show. These Music Festivals are also be a great chance for groups to sell band merchandise - the more merchandise (especially T-shirts) a band can sell at a music festival, the better the odds are that the attendees will take interest in the group. For local bands, a T-shirt is infinitely more effective that a billboard, a radio ad, or even a TV commercial. A fan of a local band wearing a band T-shirt has the potential to be a walking, talking billboard advocating the band. This can really create a buzz for the group, especially some place like a music festival.

As local music fests grow in popularity and more companies continue to hold these events, we will see more groups getting discovered from Music Festivals all across the country. There are a ton of success stories that start at music festivals. In 2011 at The Cleveland Music Festival - presented by Gorilla Music - Jeff Blue, the A&R representative who discovered Linkin Park, found guitarist Lance Dowdle performing in a local group, DNA. Jeff helped Lance get signed to Atlantic records, and he now plays guitar for the band, Emphatic.

For local bands, playing on a show where a scout or label representative is attending is an amazing opportunity to get discovered sooner rather than later. Today, Jeff Blue himself is once again in search of undiscovered talent, this time by collaborating with Gorilla Music for The Jeff Blue Contest Tour in cities all across the United States. On this city-by-city tour, bands will compete for a chance to write and record with Jeff himself in his studio in Los Angeles.

Gorilla Music Festivals, like The Cleveland Music Festival, have always been amazing opportunities for local or unknown bands to get noticed in their city. Unlike most other music festivals across the country, Gorilla Music's festivals feature National headliners but are ultimately designed to showcase the local talent as much as possible. This is opposed to many other house-hold name music festivals which book 90% national or regional bands and leave very little chance for local bands to get much notice. Gorilla Music holds multiple Music Festivals every single year, the next being The Dallas Music Festival, which will take place May 30th to June 1st and will be held at venues in and around the Deep Ellum area.




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