local shows

How to Book a Year’s Worth of Paid Shows in Nashville in 2025

A booking agent is not the answer.  It is better to teach a man to fish & feed him for a lifetime.  Time and time again, I am approached with artists who want to know how in the heck they get shows.  How do they fill their calendar.  

Last year, I booked over 400 paid shows for musicians within the confounds of Nashville.  How did I do it?  An email.  A simple, good, clear email.  Nothing more, nothing less.  I didn’t go shmooze and network (until after the email was sent.. maybe a little in the first meeting), I didn’t go hound the manager, and I focused on providing the venue with what it specifically needed, not just gloating and bragging.  If you know how to sell it, you can get anything you want in life.  If you know how to position value in a way that benefits both parties tenfold, then you will be able to do anything you want.

If you’re looking to book out Nashville shows this next year; 2025 can be your year.  But first, you have to break down a few key points for your own music career.

You really have 6 paThs.

You want to play local shows, but you don’t want to tour. Call it A Gig Musician

You want to tour, but you don’t want to play a ton of the uber-comptitive, low paying local paid gigs.  Call it Music is Your Full Time Job

You want to be a famous star, which includes playing locally and on tour.  Call it, Famous Artist

You want to write and play writer’s rounds, but not tour. Call it, Hit Songwriter

You want to write and produce, publish, and promote your music, but playing live isn’t important to you.  Call it, Songwriter, Producer, & Sync Master

Usually, after some self work and soul searching; you’ll fall into one of these categories.  Now that you have a clear goal of the goal, you’re ready to start building the framework of a successful music career (to you!). Your version of success is all that matters.

Let’s break down the 4 ways you can get the shows you want, depending on your goals

 A Gig Musician

Goal: Play some cover gigs and maybe a few smaller gigs where you can sing your own songs, but mainly just play to make some side cash.  

Usually these folks have to have other day jobs, unless they are in the Broadway Trap.  Some people love Broadway, but it can be a daunting and taxing career if you are trying to make a living.  If you came to Nashville to play gigs here and there, there is a way to play (almost for fun) for tips and side money.  Some people really don’t care about being famous musicians, they just love performing and don’t mind doing gigs.  If this is you and you’re looking for 2-3 paid gigs a week, you need to do this:

  1. Prepare a really good pitch email with a concise introduction to who you are, what you bring to the table, drop some connections, names, or previous venues you’ve worked with, a link to a few clips of live videos (that start off mid song, because booking agents ain’t got time for more than that), a good headshot attached, and an EPK if you have some great stats.  

  2. You then need to reach out to the booking agents/GMs/managers of every venue in town (yes, all of them) and then send the same email with a different headline subject line tag, every month, for a year… or until they respond.  If they do respond, that’s better than nothing.  If they say no, ask when a good time would be to reconnect and put it in your calendar.  How to find the emails? This is the part that will set you a part from others.  You need to visit the website, call the front desk, walk in and ask, or ask local friends who have played those gigs.

  3. Don’t be afraid to offer a venue that doesn’t have a music program a trial day.  Have your own P.A. system just in case (ask ahead of time).  Make it easy and seamless on the venue.  Show up on time.  

  4. Try to get something regular.  It’s easier to keep gigs, develop longstanding relationships with managers and booking agents, and rely on the gig long term if you can score a weekly spot.

What you need?

 

Music is Your Full Time Job

Goal : You want to make a living fully doing music.  

If you don’t want to play broadway, you will not likely find a plentiful and sustainable career doing music solely in Nashville.  It’s too choppy and the water is deep, full of competition.  Other smaller towns? They are starving for good live music, especially from “Nashville Musicians.”  You’ll have better luck charging $1,000+ when you’re on the road.  If you can be crafty and frugal on the road, you’ll have better luck.  This doesn’t mean you can’t play local shows, but those typically run more like $150-250 plus tips.  You’d have to gig A LOT to pay your rent, save for a car or house, wedding, etc. that way.  It also doesn’t do a ton for your artist career to stay in the corner of a restaurant in Nashville.  You will actually gain more loyal friends if you’re on the road.  

If you want to book shows on the road, there are four hyper-effective ways to get good shows:

  1. Tour with someone else.  You’re splitting the cost of the vehicle and leveraging their “booking time.” You guys can pitch each other’s music and performance as a whole, splitting the load.  This may mean splitting a hotel room and maybe the pay, but you are cutting down the cost of travel and will have an easier time getting shows.

  2. Look at other similar artists’ travel paths and copy them.  Find those tour routes and mirror them.  Reach out to the same venues or ones in the same area who might be interested in your music too.  

  3. Reach out to trade or collaborate with hotels that may comp your stay in exchange for a show.  

  4. Look at people that are smaller, but in bigger festivals and offer to open for them on the road.  Start to develop relationships with artists who have a ton of momentum and can swing you up with them.

What you need?

  • 3 demo live videos of you singing and playing posted on YouTube. - Book Your Session Here

  • 1 Great Headshot - Book Your Session Here

  • A Great Pitch Email - Book a Coaching Call Here

  • A day job (unless you’re doing broadway)

  • At least 2 songs on Apple Music / Spotify - maybe a cover and an original

  • An EPK (but it isn’t necessarily essential depending on how small or big you are as an artist)

Famous Artist

If you’re wanting to take it all the way to the top, the first thing you need to do is get a really good measure of WHETHER OR NOT you have what it takes TALENT WISE to get to the top.  It is a very, very competitive environment, and although you don’t need Lainey Wilson’s tight backside to hit the stage in bell bottoms, you need to have some star qualities to make it big.  

You need:

  • An infectious, driven personality (or a querky one that will draw the rejects + outcasts)

  • The can-do attitude that will put in the time and effort to book, tour, create content and reels, an affinity for writing good songs, and some financial backing so you can do things the right way.

  • A good set of people who believe in you

  • A strategy

  • A full Album or EP that is up or you are releasing, PRONTO

If you are unsure of whether or not you can make it as a famous artist, you need to start asking people you trust, that will be honest with you.  Drive can take you really far, but at the end of the day, you need to be able to sing live.  If you don’t have the voice, you should get out.  If you just want to be a songwriter, you don’t need the voice.  If you want to sing in a stadium and you are off key in a smaller venue, you are NOT going to make it.  Sometimes, taking the time to get a reality check, could be what you need.  AND it will be hard to find someone to be honest with you and crush your dreams… but some need to hear it so they don’t waste their time trying to be Megan Moroney or Morgan Wallen and pursue a career they’d actually be good at.  The amount of mediocre that I see on stage is baffling.  Are your feelings hurt by that comment?  I’m just speaking the truth.  There are people who have the “it” factor out there and if you are not a talented musician (somewhat objectively) then you will be trampled at some point.  The only exceptions to this are: 1. people who already have a ton of money and can buy slots and fame points (like Heidi Montag or Kim Kardashian putting out a song - but notice how even they aren’t charting) 2. absolute dumb luck, like, lottery luck or 3. being in the team or band of someone else who does have the “it” factor and becomes a major star where you simply rode the coat-tails.

Before you invest your life in becoming a huge star, do a litmus test.  Ask around and say, “do you think I have what it takes to be a big star?” “am I the most talented and driven person you’ve seen in your writer’s round?” or ask yourself “why am I doing this? to be famous? to give the world amazing art?” and REALLY know if you have something special before jumping in.  Notice how you can do the first two (full time musician and gig musician) without being amazing.  You cannot BE FAMOUS if you aren’t remarkable though.

Hit Songwriter

Goal: Write the best songs, get a pub deal, and publish a hit.

If this sounds like you, you need to focus on two things; networking and writing good songs with musicians who are better than you (so you get better).  It’s actually quite simple.  You need to live in Nashville, show up on time, set up a calendar, and make genuine friendships with a group of people you can rise with.  Offer value to those in your community and build an all-star network of people who are talking you up when you aren’t there.  Play writer’s rounds, reach out to bigger writers, try to get in the room with artists, and build an amazing set of songs to pitch.

Songwriter, Producer, & Sync Master

Goal: Stay in the studio, away from performing, but have big songs.

Not everyone likes to perform, but it doesn’t mean you can’t make good music.  It may be harder to promote if you aren’t playing, but you can still make quite a dent online.  In the end though, streams don’t pay bills (even for bigger artists), but shows, brand deals, large followings and views online, and sponsors are going to be the way an artist really cashes in… so if you just love making the music, you might make more money from pitching those songs to sync or just making them as great demos to pitch to other artists who want to go blow them up.  You can still get millions of streams producing covers!  You just, won’t likely become a big star unless you are out there in person somehow.

Hope this helps!

See some of the songs written at our last writer’s retreat!

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