Getting your music sponsored

So you want to go on tour, but you don’t have the cash or the resources to put on the stellar performance you know you are capable of? Well consider getting sponsored, so someone else can foot the bill while you concentrate on what’s most important – the music.

Go corporate

Approach local companies and present yourself and your band as a good representation of  local talent and establish with the firm that you can represent them creatively through your music. Let’s say your newest album’s name is “Black Electricity” and you have a song under the same title on the album, a good idea would be to make a proposal towards the local electrical company which states that your new single can be used as a great marketing tool for their company and can also be a great representation of their support for local music/talent. Large companies are always seeking out ways to connect with the local market and they often do so through their support of local development which often times includes the sponsorship of local music.

Governmental sponsorship

Is your music genre native to your country? Do you play any instruments in your band that originated from your country?. Then you may have an extra edge in getting sponsored by your government. Like corporations, governmental agencies like to show their support for local development, however,unlike corporations, most governments see local development as a priority and therefore, reserve special funding for such projects, which more often than not includes governmental sponsorship of local music. If you or your band fit the criteria above, you may have more of a chance of being sponsored for tours to various competitions as a representative of your country’s musical talent regionally or even worldwide!

Use Your Networks

Did you run track in high school? Do you do tattoo art at a local tattoo shop on the side? or maybe you work part-time at a local restaurant? You may be asking, well what does that have to do with your music? Well, the answer is….. everything! People usually like to look out for the people on their team so if you approach the people you know and interact with on a daily basis for sponsorship, they are more likely to give it to you rather than a stranger you have never met before. So you may say, well that was back in high school, why would they care? Well, think about how great the press would be for your high school track team, if “one of their very own” was selling out shows locally, regionally or even internationally, if you proposition your networks to sponsor you on the basis of how much good press it will bring to their track team, their tattoo shop or their restaurant, they will more likely than not help you financially with your musical endeavors.

END NOTE: Always remember, no matter who you are approaching for sponsorship, you should always ask yourself beforehand….if I were them, what is the benefit of sponsoring me? Always take a business minded approach when seeking out sponsorship, meaning, always keep in mind that their main goal is more profit, so any idea you are pitching to a company you are seeking sponsorship from should be centered around this fact. Also, keep your mind open, just because you are a musician/singer etc. doesn’t mean you should only seek sponsorship from a music related business/company, as the first example explains, you can approach even the local electricity company if you wanted, you simply have the job of explaining why they need you.