MEMBERSHIP

Hi there. 

Hope you’re having a creative day! 

And… we sure hope your phone and email are not ruling your life or crushing your creative spirit. 

To that end… we’re developing this page to explain our approach to email and digital communication.  

In 2019 we started noticing more and more people we messaged with apologizing for not replying in a super fast but vague timeline.  Sometimes their apparent goal seemed to be even a few hours.  Sometimes a few days but over a weekend for example.  The classic Friday afternoon email not answered til Tuesday right?  That should be normal. 

This was causing undo stress and also unnecessary apologies from artists, partners, agents, etc.  We believe this is being fueled by some large companies in various industries pushing employees and customer service folks to respond to emails at an unreasonable pace thereby increasing overall stress and lowering health. Maybe for everyone involved even.  Not cool right?  

(Now, we understand in some industries a 12-24 hour response time may be valid for important timely emails.  However that’s rarely the case for most communications, even personal texts or messages on other platforms.)

So here we are collecting some industry info and resources to hopefully help with the topic of emails specifically.

First up,

Turnaround time: We have a lot of incoming requests so we balance our emails with event work and a healthy lifestyle.  Sometimes this even means that thing called a “weekend” or “holiday” 🙂

If you noticed a rating in the email footer about a Seasonal Email volume, the purpose is to give you an idea of how fast we may be able to reply.

If you haven’t heard back from us in that time, feel free to send a quick follow up but if you’re inquiring about booking a new event and don’t have a history with us please do add some additional info. Usually we cannot respond to all outside booking inquiries. We do our best to prioritize up & coming artists who may not get support from other industry venues… while balancing the big ticket shows as well which help pay staff and improve our operations.

—— DRAFT SECTION, March 2019 ——

Email tips: Looking over this info and reading a couple articles may result in much faster, more effective, and even fun emailing experiences!

Email hasn’t changed much in the past 10 years, most of it is still pretty chaotic with subject lines flying around, various email clients, gmail filters, different response time expectations, different social norms per industry, etc.

A few articles we found but feel free to google for more! We haven’t vetted these and don’t necessarily agree with all their points (ie. humor can be just fine in the music/arts industry especially!)

https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/dos-and-donts-business-email-etiquette/

Generally with shows or bookings you WILL want to reply-all to keep the various team members and bands in the loop. Use your best judgement on when to split out the email for something direct.   Watch this on iphone especially!

We agree — “Avoid using “Reply-to-All” unless everyone needs to know.

When the C-Suite (CEO/COO) or administrative assistant sends an email to 10 staff members requesting volunteers for a community service project, reply to the admin, not to all 10 members. Why make ten others delete your email? Reply-to-All is a function for ongoing deliberations on a particular subject.”

Here’s a big one that we totally disagree with:

“Leaving someone hanging for any longer and you are not only perceived as rude [ or not a robot!] — it could cost you business in the long run. If you’ve unintentionally kept someone waiting longer than 24 hours or extenuating circumstances arose, politely explain the situation and express your apologies.”   

  [MOSTLY WRONG – THIS ONE VARIES A LOT!  Don’t let email rule your life!  24 hours is maybe appropriate for very timely topics but most inquiries are not that urgent.  We don’t recommend auto-reply either since those can be annoying if they respond to all emails.]

As you can see, we think this is a pretty absurd expectation (for most industries). Rare exceptions might be a day of show request in which case you’d want to call/text anyway. Don’t expect venues or agents to reply to emails that fast. They might be out setting up the show or dealing with customers or other artists. 2-5 business days is a good average and a friendly followup with something new to add is always encouraged.

Basically if you’re working with a small venue, nonprofit, etc. if you make a request that requires them to spend time on your request which inherently takes time away from others who may need help.

This doesn’t mean not to ask if you have a genuine need or question but please do look at the show information and google first. Often times many questions have already been answered in the Advance, Ticketing, or online elsewhere.