This afternoon as I was doing my daily 10.000 step practice in the woods one friend called me and asked about the possibility to play an organ recital at my church.
I said I have to check the concert calendar and in the case of having an opening, I would need his photo, biography, program, and a few thoughts about the program for writing an article about this event. He asked me if I have a promotional system in place and how many people might come to this recital. I said it depends on whether a person has a list of people who want to hear from him, a fan base who would miss him, if he would be gone. Otherwise, it's really expensive to do some advertising on TV, radio, print or online. You need to have a big budget for this. But most organists don't have a budget, right? YOU don't have a budget for promotional expenses, do you? We cannot compete with the big brands who fight for the attention of the same audience that might come to our recitals, other classical music events, theater performances or art exhibitions. No, we can't spend thousands of dollars on ads. But we can do this: Show up online every day and share your work. If your work is good and you do this long enough, you'll have fans in many countries. Wherever you go on tour, they will follow you. Some of them. In fact, you can select venues based on where those fans live in the world, right? Without your fans, you will be asking this question from the organizers: "Do you have a promotional system in place for your organ recitals?" And hoping they'll do the work FOR YOU. I'm sorry but unless you're already famous in the organ world, hoping that others will do the work for you is NOT a good strategy anymore.
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