How to find venues that book bands

The best place to start is your own city. Go to gigs, watch other bands and note the venues. You'll learn which venues book your genre, what nights they run live music and what the room is like.

Talk to other bands. Musicians are usually happy to share which venues treat bands well and which to avoid. The music community is small—reputation matters.

Search for "live music venues [your city]" and "live music [your suburb]". Look at venue websites and social media pages to see what kind of bands they book and how often.

Check gig guides on local music publications and community radio websites. These list venues that are actively booking.

Look at Facebook events for gigs in your area. You'll see which venues are running shows and what genres they're booking.

Not every venue books live music. Focus on: pubs and hotels with a live music room, dedicated live music venues, clubs and nightclubs, RSLs and community clubs, wineries and breweries, and private event spaces.

Match the venue to your act. A covers band fits a pub or RSL. An originals band fits a dedicated live music venue. A duo fits a small bar or restaurant.

Before you email a venue, spend five minutes researching. Check their website, their social media and their gig calendar. Find out what nights they book, what genres they feature and whether they've booked bands similar to yours.

This research makes your pitch email much stronger. You can say "we saw you run original rock on Friday nights and we'd be a good fit" instead of a generic "we'd love to play at your venue."

Manually searching for venues is slow. The Band Planned's Get Gigs feature uses your band's location, genre and act type to automatically find venues, events and booking resources in your area. It returns a list with contact details, capacity and event dates so you can start outreach immediately.

This saves hours of manual research and finds venues you might not have discovered on your own.

As you find venues, save them to a list with their name, address, contact details and notes. Don't rely on memory or a scattered spreadsheet.

Track each lead's status: to contact, contacted, responded, booked. Set follow-up dates so you don't forget to chase the ones that didn't reply. The Band Planned does this automatically—leads move through states and surface for follow-up at the right time.