In the days and months surrounding the week of the South By Southwest Music Conference and Festival (SXSW) in Austin, TX, you hear a lot of negative things. A lot of that criticism comes from bands whose excitement at being asked to perform at the festival soon gives way to trepidation once they learn that they won’t be compensated for their official festival performances. Smart, road-wise bands will build a couple of days in Austin into their tour schedules, so that they are (hopefully) making money going to and then coming back from the festival. Plus, a lot of bands manage to book other ancillary shows during the festival—house parties, unofficial showcases, etc., some of which pay money. Even smarter bands will do that, and then also use the festival to solidify or form relationships with booking agents, labels, managers, lawyers, thus ensuring that even if they don’t make much (or any) money, they’ll still leave the festival with a couple of additional numbers in their Rolodex.

But, more often than not, bands make the journey with expectations that leave them dissatisfied with the whole experience. They spend a lot of money getting out there, don’t make any money while they’re there, and are too disillusioned to network (and, admittedly, it’s hard to network without feeling a little ridiculous about it). Or, those bands make the journey to Austin without any real push behind them, or buzz surrounding them, but with expectations that maybe someone will notice them. Of course, no unnoticed-as-of-yet bands get noticed at SXSW—or only very rarely. The schedule has gotten too big and bloated—very few industry types go out to venues to see bands they have heard nothing about. Sure, it may happen by accident, but the reality is that industry types have usually booked their festival schedules weeks in advance. They are sitting in on a panel at the conference center at 10am, and then going straight from there to a showcase by a band they work with at 11:30am, and then to lunch with the guy from the distributor they work with, and then to see a band their label owner friend told them they had to see, etc.

In other words, the kind of people who have the ability to significantly help a band’s career are likely too busy to see bands they don’t already know about. Which brings me back to an earlier point—bands that have the most successful SXSW experiences are the ones who have a push behind them and buzz surrounding them, but that haven’t broken through to that next level yet. A perfect band to exemplify this fact is Alabama Shakes. They’ve been blowing up lately, but—partially because their debut full-length hasn’t been released yet—they haven’t reached that extreme next level quite yet (although they are close). Because there’s so much buzz around that band, and industry push, their shows at SXSW were packed out by all the right people. Those people—who might at least internally self-identify as “tastemakers”—then blogged about the band, and told their friends about them. Alabama Shakes got a good additional push from their festival experience.

Careers in the music industry are hard to come by. These days, there are so many bands, so many options. Maybe if SXSW was how it was 20 years ago, with maybe even only 300 bands performing (instead of 1,500), then it would be easier to have those accidental encounters that launch careers. You’ve always had to have some luck to make it in the industry, but these days you need a ton of it—there’s so many bands, and so many good bands specifically, that it’s harder to get noticed, both at SXSW and generally. It’s a catch-22—in order to get the attention of booking agents and labels, you need to have a fan base and push, but it’s hard to get fan bases and push without the help of booking agents, etc., who can help bands reach wider audiences. That same catch-22 applies to bands’ experiences at SXSW: you probably won’t get noticed unless you’ve already gotten noticed, but sometimes it feels as if you can’t get noticed unless you’ve been noticed.

So how do you get noticed? I have no idea. No one knows exactly how to do it. Sure, it helps to be very good at writing songs. And very good at performing them. And hardworking. Clearly, you can’t get lucky unless you’re out there doing it. Bands should always be assessing their connections, meeting people, following up, trying to reach the right people, those so-called tastemakers. The most important entity to a young band (in my humble opinion) is the booking agent—a good booking agent (emphasis on good) can get you on the right tours, playing the right venues, so that you aren’t spinning your gears playing shitty venues in different cities to audiences that number in the single digits. Tours are good, but they should be the right tours (although, sure, you have to start somewhere).

Another important entity on a young band’s team is (ahem) a lawyer, which I am—but hey, don’t take my word for it: [this][1] is one of many recent articles making that same point (the article also stresses the importance of accountants, which I agree with). And don’t worry managers, I have love for the work you do too. And what about labels? Assuming it’s the right label with a fair contract (I know, I know), they can help distribute your record to wider audiences, which if you have a good booking agent, is very good because you’ll be making new fans in distant cities, and those fans might want to buy your record from the local record store (yeah, right—they’ll probably just buy it online). But yeah, lawyers with knowledge of the industry can help you manage all of those relationships and get the fairest deal for you. Don’t curtail your music career before it has even begun by signing bad deals.

These are just thoughts I had observing the festival this year and thinking about all the people I know who play in bands and hate on the festival. SXSW represents the music industry in general, and so when band’s hate on SXSW, they sometimes are really hating on the industry aspect of music—like the fact that they have to deal with booking agents, managers, labels, lawyers, accountants, etc. I sympathize with that disdain to a certain extent, although I am a member of the industry as well. But, that negative energy should be focused and defined, so that in the future, bands have better chances of having successful tours and album cycles, and, yes, successful SXSW experiences. At the very least, I hope bands that venture to Austin for that certain week in March will get good Mexican food. SXSW is a good time, but you have to have the right perspective going into it.

[1]: http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2012/120316artists