Guidelines for opening acts from a headliner’s perspective

Written by Kyle Kraft of Krafty Entertainment

Krafty Entertainment is a music business development coaching company dedicated to providing guidance to musicians (and their teams) on how best to nurture supporters and profit from doing so. Krafty Entertainment’s founder Kyle Kraft has over 20 years experience in assisting both developing and established artists in substantially growing their net income from their music. Interested in working with us? Let’s talk!

Please follow these guidelines when opening for us, and you will stand the best possible chance of us being interested in having you play with us again in the future. If you don't follow ALL of these guidelines, we will most likely not be too willing to have you open for us again. Know that if this situation was reversed and we were opening for you that we would be following the same guidelines ourselves, so it is our hope that you understand how reasonable all these requests are.

Be professional at all times with EVERYONE you deal with. Since you are playing at the show we're headlining, you are representing us to a certain degree; don't make us look bad. Treat everyone with respect, and keep the drinking and other indulgences to a minimum. We’re working here, and rock star behaviour from opening acts is not appreciated.

Communicate thoroughly about everything with everyone involved, and as far in advance as is possible. If there is anything you are unsure of, please discuss it with us as soon as is possible. 

Be early; NOT on time, and definitely not late - don't waste anyone's time making them wait for you. This means be early arriving and ready to set up, be early standing by ready to go on stage, and do not play longer than you are supposed to unless you are asked to do so by us or the venue. If there is even the slightest chance of you not being early for any of these things, make sure you let everyone involved know as soon as you think there is a chance that may be the case.

Be self sufficient in your performance; insure you have all the equipment you need to run your own set. Don't expect us, the promoter, or the venue to provide you with anything you haven't confirmed will already there, in working condition, and okay for you to use. This means if you need a certain piece of equipment to play your beats (even a CD player), a cord to patch into the sound system, or anything else along those lines that you make sure that stuff is going to be there or bring it yourself (better to bring stuff like that anyway to be on the safe side, because its not uncommon for venue equipment to disappear or stop working the day before you need to use it). Do not look to us, the promoter, venue staff, or anyone else involved in making this show happen to play your beats or otherwise be involved in your set unless you have already discussed this with them prior to agreeing to do this show.

Do not ask for hospitality. Understand that your compensation for doing this show is primarily the opportunity to build your fan base and to develop your relationship with the talent buyer, and that it is not appropriate to ask the venue or promoter for free drinks, food, or other hospitality that wasn’t agreed upon at the time of your booking. Even if the venue offers you free drinks or food, please check to insure that those aren’t coming out of what was allocated for us and that the cost of those will not be deducted as an expense from the money we'd be getting paid at the end of the night. Do not help yourself to our rider unless you are specifically invited to do so by one of us.

Promote the show. Even though you are not the headliner, you still benefit from the turnout being as strong as possible; and if its not, you also look bad, especially to the talent buyers you are probably going to be trying to get headlining bookings from yourself in the future. At the very least, make sure the dates are posted on your social media, website, etc and that you let your emailing mailing list know about the shows. If a show is in your hometown, you should really be distributing as many promotional materials (flyers, posters, etc) for the show as is possible too.

Help us out in any way possible. See if we need help setting up equipment, selling merch, distributing promotional materials, shooting video or photos, etc.

Be reliable. If you commit to doing the show, do not pull out without a REALLY good reason. If you ask to open for a show and then your availability changes, make sure you let everyone you asked know even if they haven't confirmed your involvement or even responded. It takes time to get everyone involved in a show on the same page, and having people spend that time on your behalf only to find out you are no longer available once they get everyone's approval is a good way to not have them make the effort in the future.

In general make your involvement in this show take as little time and effort for everyone else involved as is possible and you will do well. By following these guidelines you will be helping make the show as successful as possible and keeping our relationship as strong as possible for the future. We look forward to working with you to make a great show happen, and to the possibility of more shows together in the future!

Thank you

This information was compiled by Kyle Kraft of Krafty Entertainment. Whether you are an artist who is in the early stages of building your career and have next to no money to invest into it looking for the best paths to generating income, are an artist that has established a following and are interested in getting assistance with securing tens of thousands of dollars in funding to further your career, or are an artist or collective with an extensive fan base that would like assistance with increasing the efficiency of your business development, we can help you.

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