Often when I approach people about advertising in Toronto Moon I get a response like: “Oh, we’ve got a Facebook page and a website and we do all our promotions on those.” I also hear similar variants from musicians who claim to be promoting their gigs and who think they don’t need the extra buzz being a subscriber to the mag gets you.

But the reality is, amateur promotion is usually just that. I scour a lot of Facebook pages and websites to get listings for the Moon calendar and I often end up rejecting shows posted on Facebook because the organizers don’t bother to include the street address, or the start time, or give no clue as to what sort of music is being offered. The same is often true of club or band websites —when they’re even up to date.

The truth is, there’s no substitute for professional promo and those who don’t take that aspect of their business seriously betray a lack of professionalism that makes me —and no doubt others— wonder what other shortcuts they take in their operation. Do such clubs clean the kitchen and bathrooms with the same lack of serious attention to detail? Do such musicians take the same lackadaisical attitude to showing up on time?

Whether you’re a club or a player, the kind of promotion you do sends a message about who you are. Lame promo says you can’t be bothered to do things right. -Gary 17