What an EPK actually is, and what it is not
Electronic press kit. Two of those three words are wrong, which is most of why the thing confuses people.
It is not a kit — nobody assembles anything. And it is very rarely for press: the people who open yours are promoters, bookers, label owners and agency staff, and journalists are a distant fifth. The name is a leftover from when this was a physical envelope containing a CD, a printed biography and a photograph, posted to a magazine.
What it is: one place holding everything another person needs to do their job with you — book you, bill you, write about you, put you on a poster — without having to email you first. That is the entire idea, and every decision about yours follows from it.
Who actually opens it
- Promoters and bookers. The largest group by far. They need a photograph, a line of biography, evidence you can hold a room, and a fee conversation that can start.
- Label owners, looking at you after hearing a track and deciding whether there is an artist behind it or one good record.
- Agency staff, building a roster page or a pitch, taking whatever you have published rather than asking.
- Festival programmers, often working months ahead through a submission form, comparing dozens of you at once.
- Press. Genuinely last, and usually only once the others have said yes.
What goes in one
Short list, and it has not changed much in twenty years because the job it does has not changed.
- Name, what you do, where you are based
- Music that plays without a login or a download
- Biography at three lengths — a line, a paragraph, and the long one
- Photographs at print resolution, with the photographer credited
- Dates, upcoming and past
- A tech rider, however short
- Anything you run beyond performing — a label, a night, a radio show
- One contact address that gets answered
What it is not
Three things people build instead, all failing for the same reason: they are about you rather than about the reader’s job.
- Not a CV. Nobody is assessing your career in order. They are deciding one booking, this week.
- Not a portfolio. A designer’s portfolio argues taste; an EPK supplies facts and files.
- Not a pitch deck. If it has a slide about your journey, it is a deck, and it will be closed.
Boring to write, invisible to use
A good EPK gets no compliments. Nobody has ever replied to say the layout was nice. It simply means you get booked slightly faster, and that is the whole return on it.
Does it have to be a file?
No, and increasingly it should not be. A PDF is fixed at the moment you send it and cannot be corrected; a page updates itself everywhere you have ever sent it. Keep a one-page PDF for festival forms that demand an upload, and send the link to everyone else.
Common questions
- What does EPK stand for?
- Electronic press kit — a term inherited from the physical envelopes of printed biographies, photographs and CDs that used to be posted to magazines. The name survived the format.
- Is an EPK the same as a press kit?
- In practice yes. Anyone in electronic music using either term means the same thing: one place holding your music, biography, photographs, dates and contact details.
- Do I need an EPK if I am not signed?
- That is exactly when you need one. Signed artists have an agency doing this for them. Unsigned artists are the ones being asked for a photo and a bio by a promoter with a flyer due tomorrow.