Sending a press kit to a promoter, and what happens next
The kit is rarely the problem. The email around it usually is.
Here is what that email looks like from the side that receives eleven of them a week.
The email
Short enough to read on a phone while standing up. Everything below fits in four sentences, and four sentences is the correct length.
- Subject line: who and where. "ShyMan — Miami house / techno — available Nov–Dec". Not "booking enquiry", which tells them nothing and sorts to nowhere.
- First sentence: why them. One clause proving you know what the night is. A promoter can tell a mail-merge from a real approach in about two seconds, and the merge is why most of these are never answered.
- Second: what you are. Genre, city, one credential that is checkable.
- Third: the link. One. Not five, and not an attachment.
- Fourth: what you want. A date, a support slot, a conversation. Ask plainly — an email that never states its request gets put aside for later, and later does not come.
When to send it
Club programming usually runs six to ten weeks ahead, festivals four to eight months. Writing in the same week as the night you want is not an approach, it is a lottery ticket.
And write on a weekday morning rather than Saturday. A promoter’s weekend belongs to the night that is already happening.
Who to send it to
A person, by name, wherever one is findable. The generic address on the website is triaged last and often by someone with no authority to book. Instagram messages work far better than they should, and often better than email — but keep them equally short.
What happens after you press send
Worth knowing, because it explains the silence. Your email is opened on a phone, between other things. The link is opened maybe eighty per cent of the time. The music plays for something between eight and forty seconds.
If it survives that, you are not booked. You are remembered, and filed against a night that has not been planned yet. Most yeses arrive two to five months after the email that caused them, which is why silence in week one means far less than it feels like.
Following up
Once, after two weeks, in the same thread, in one line. Then stop. A second follow-up converts almost nothing and costs the impression the first one made.
If a specific date has since passed, that is a legitimate reason to write again — it is new information rather than a repeat.
Common questions
- How do I send a press kit to a promoter?
- A short email with a subject line saying who and where you are, one sentence proving you know the night, one describing what you are, a single link, and a plain request. No attachments.
- How far in advance should I contact a promoter?
- Six to ten weeks for club nights, four to eight months for festivals. Approaching in the same week as the date is too late to be considered.
- How many times should I follow up?
- Once, about two weeks later, in the same thread and in one line. Beyond that you are costing yourself the good impression the first email made.