Daryll Hurs:
And I kind of have this thing, I really like the word best. To me, you want to be the best. You want to get the best results. So when you release it, we'll release it on the day that will give you the best results. When should you tour? In the month that you'll get the best results. This is when people actually go out to live music the most, that's when I should be touring. And so often, they're making decisions based on what's available to them or not necessarily planning out for the best results. And I try to go for the results first and work backwards.

Michael Walker:
It's easy to get lost in today's music industry with constantly changing technology and where anyone with a computer can release their own music. I'm going to share with you why this is the best time to be an independent musician, and it's only getting better. If you have high quality music, but you just don't know the best way to promote yourself so they can reach the right people and generate a sustainable income with your music, we're going to show you the best strategies that we're using right now to reach millions of new listeners every month without spending 10 hours a day on social media. We're creating a revolution of today's music industry, and this is your invitation to join me. I'm your host, Michael Walker.

Michael Walker:
All right, excited to be here today with Daryll Hurs. Daryll is the managing direct for Downtown Music in Canada. He has a 25 plus year history in the music industry, which is almost as long as I've been alive, so that in and of itself is really impressive. He is the founder of Indie Week Canada, which is one of Canada's top indie artist conferences that really sort of sounds like an indie Canadian version of South by Southwest, which is awesome. They used to do it live in person, but now they do a ton more, and they do it virtually online, so you can access it anywhere around the world, which is amazing. He leads the Canadian operations for music companies like Songtrust, FUGA, AdRev, Foundy, and CD Baby.

Michael Walker:
And if that wasn't enough, he's also done branding and marketing work for Live Nation and artists like U2, Nickelback, Madonna, Beyonce, Jay-Z, and Dave Matthews. So bottom line, Daryll's awesome. And I'm excited to have him here today to be able to geek out and talk a little bit about time management and optimization for artists because coming from someone who has done all of that, I think it's really important to know how to manage your time and your energy and your resources and maximize them. So Daryll, that was kind of a long intro, but thanks so much for taking the time to be here today.

Daryll Hurs:
Awesome. Thank you for having me, and thanks for such a great intro.

Michael Walker:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Not everyone's going to be watching the video version of this. But I was telling Daryll beforehand, I've got a newborn baby of a couple of months, and so sleep is a little bit crazy right now. So every once in a while, I might have to just pick up the energy. Yeah.

Daryll Hurs:
Love it, love it.

Michael Walker:
All right. So Daryll, for anyone here who hasn't met you or connected with you before, maybe we can start out by you just introducing yourself and telling a little bit about your story and how you got to where you are right now.

Daryll Hurs:
Sure. As with almost everybody, started off as a musician. I've actually went to college on songwriting and performance and all that kind of stuff at Edmonton. But Edmonton isn't quite the music capital of Canada, so I moved to Toronto. And I was always the business person in the band. And so I went from being musician to then I started booking venues and promoting shows, managing artists, launched Indie Week, and then parallel to that, I'd taken a quick desktop publishing course to learn how to do graphics, which I was really just trying to do my own CD covers and posters. But I started getting hired and freelancing. And I've been literally self employed ever since.

Daryll Hurs:
And yes, one of my clients led up to Live Nation, and I've worked with them for about eight, nine years. And during that time, worked on assets for a lot of artists, but also events and launched vipnation.com and actually rebranded the company, did the whole corporate design. And so all this is parallel to each other, and then launching Indie Week, that started taking off. And during that time, we've done Indie Week in Canada, in Ireland, and UK. But now we do four online conferences a year. We do a weekly session every Tuesday. We've got a podcast that comes on every Thursday. And we've done mentorships focusing on education, and we're launching an export program as well. So yes, very, very many plates spinning at the same time.

Michael Walker:
Which is great because it really sets up the scene nicely for kind of the topic and what we wanted to focus on here, which is all about time management optimization. Really, how do you arrange your day and your year and track your progress so that you can accomplish everything that you want to accomplish as an artist? So what do you say ... Having 25 plus years in the music industry now, it's probably pretty fascinating just seeing how much it's changed in the last 25 years with the internet and its revolution and right now. But at the same time, it seems like on the surface, a lot of things change all the time. Then there's the same fundamentals and same principles that don't really change very often. So I'd be curious from your point of view, having connected with so many artists now and helped them during your conferences and for all of the coaching that you've done. What are some of the biggest challenges or mistakes that we see artists making when it comes to scheduling their own time in their calendars and being productive and saying-

Daryll Hurs:
How much time do we have? Well, there's lots and to be honest, the first part is I see a lot of artists don't have a true plan. And if so, it's not 12 months, it's only a couple months maybe, or a couple weeks even. And really, you've got to be looking 12 to 24 months out. And I can't tell you the number of times even working on the CD Baby Downtown side artists who are like, "Got a song done. Can we get it out next week?" And I'm like, "Is there any marketing to support it? Do you have somebody waiting to hear it? Because if you just recorded it and are putting it out, there's probably not going to be anyone waiting. They don't even know about it."

Daryll Hurs:
So a lot of times, I'm just feeling a lot of artists don't have a roadmap to follow. And without a plan, it's really also very easy to get distracted by what they think is an opportunity, and it takes them off of their journey. And that may waste a bit of time, and then they're still trying to get caught up on their own thing. Yeah. You got to have a roadmap. You've got to have a plan, 12 to 24 months, and stick to it. That's the reality.

Michael Walker:
That totally makes sense. Yeah, so it sounds like what you're saying is that one of the biggest mistakes is just not really having a plan or a map in the first place. If you're trying to go on a cross country trip and you don't have a map, then the odds of you getting to that destination are very, very small, versus if you actually have a map or something that's telling you how to go from point A to point B.

Daryll Hurs:
Yeah. Well, most of them don't have a plan. And it's like if I went to ... I always kind of use this an example, but Marvel Universe movies actually are pretty successful when they come out because you know it's coming. You could literally go to the Marvel Universe website and know what movies are coming out in the next four to five years. They've got just a poster of a logo and the date. Sometimes they don't even have the working title. They don't know the director. They don't have a story, but they know the date, the deadline for it to come out, period. And so they've got something to work towards, where I find artists are releasing music kind of randomly. Oh, we're done, let's put it out, not what's the best time of year to put it out.

Daryll Hurs:
What's the best day, best time to put it out? How much lead up time do you have? Are you touring to support it? Is there music coming out to support a tour or show? Maximize all your options. And I think that they're missing out on a lot in terms of converting online fans to in person fans, and in person fans to online fans, if that makes sense.

Michael Walker:
Yeah, that totally makes sense. The first thing that comes up as you're sharing that is one, how important and how valuable the planning process has been in my own life, for our band, and for our business. I know the yearly planning and the quarterly planning, if we didn't do that, then nothing would happen. We'd be like squirrels running around. So I know how important it is. And I also know how challenging it can be for a lot of people who might be listening or watching this right now who it almost feels like there's so many things to do and there's not enough time already.

Michael Walker:
And so it almost feels like the idea of zooming out, when I've already things every day that they've kind of scheduled, it feels kind of challenging try to get that view. So what would your recommendation be for anyone like that, sort of feels like, I don't even know where to start with this? I know I should be doing deep dive planning, kind of zooming out, but do you have any recommendations for a process for how frequently should they do this? And how do they kind of block this off on their calendar?

Daryll Hurs:
Yeah. Once a year plan a year, it's that simple. I try to simplify things because there is so much going on. But think of it like this. Where are you located again? I can't remember.

Michael Walker:
I'm in Orlando, Florida.

Daryll Hurs:
Right. So there is a hockey team in Florida, for instance, in the NHL. Right? Hockey-

Michael Walker:
Yeah. The Tampa Bay Lightning. I think they won the last year.

Daryll Hurs:
Yeah. And is it Florida Panthers as well? So here's the thing, I talked hockey because in Canada, hockey's our thing. And if you think of it in Toronto, the Toronto Maple Leafs play where? The same place every time, so it's easy to promote because it's the same place. Right? They also have an off season, so this is when they are not playing. So if I went to a friend and said, "Hey, let's going to a Leafs came in July," they'd be like, "What? There is no Leafs game in July. There's no hockey every year." So I try to relate it to sports because they do the same every year, period. Off season, training camp, tryouts, pre season, season, playoffs, Stanley Cup Finals, off season. Every year it's the same.

Daryll Hurs:
Now when you have a routine like that, you can actually get better. So if you think of it, X number of teams and they're all trying to be number one and be the champion, just like music, you're trying to get to the top. Most of them won't get there, and they try again next year. Off season, they strategize, maybe make some trades, fire the coach, do whatever it takes. And then they go for it again throughout the year. But they can start going, "Where were we last year at this time? Are we up 10%? Are we up 20%? Or are we down?" If you have no routine type plan, you can't tell. Am I doing better or am I doing worse? And I think a lot of musicians don't know that, so constantly have this sort of mental health of I'm not doing enough. And am I here or not? I don't know. And that can distract from actually executing the plan.

Daryll Hurs:
So by having the same type of routine every year, same type of schedule, and you can break it down into this is when I write songs, this is when I record songs, this is when I promote or book everything. This is when I tour. And you do this cycle, same time, you actually get better at it just like sports. Right? So they're getting better at it, and they get better at preparing for playoffs. They get better at strategizing how to win in the playoffs, and by being there, they get experience for next year. And I think where music business for most artists, it's just built on random. And where am I? And should I be doing more? And I talked about the distracters. If you've got a plan, this is when I play shows, this is when I don't play shows, often you'll get an offer. Hey, could you play this show? And the artist goes, "Sure." Now they've just been completely taken off their business plan.

Daryll Hurs:
They're playing a show that isn't in the plan. It's random. Who really benefits is the person asking them to play the show, not the artist themselves usually. And so it's a way to also start deflecting things and going, "Nope, that's not part of my plan and it will distract me from my success in building on what I'm planning." And I think that's really important to identify as well. So in a nutshell, think of sports. They've got a season. They're all going for the championship, and then they just regroup and try it again next.

Michael Walker:
Super smart. Yeah. So it sounds like what you're saying is that it's really important to build a routine, so kind of figure out. What is the time you're going to block off every year to be able to do your yearly planning and zoom out, kind of look at those things? And maybe for anyone who's maybe listening or watching this right now, they're like, "Oh, crap. I don't have a yearly plan. I don't know what I'm doing this year." Do they block off a week and just do it? Or what would your thoughts be there?

Daryll Hurs:
Yeah. Well, for us, I'm basing in Canada, which would be very similar in the states. States is a little different, but when's the best time to tour? When's the best time to promote? That's when you do it. And I kind of have this thing, I really like the word best. To me, you want to be the best. You want to get the best results. So when you release it, we'll release it on the day that will give you the best results. When should you tour? In the month that you'll get the best results. And often, people aren't considering it that way. They're just like, "When can I?" And when am I available? And when's this going to happen? It's not like, "Hm, you know what, during this month, this is when people actually go out to live music the most. That's when I should be touring." And so often, they're making decisions based on what's available to them or not necessarily planning out for the best results. And I try to go for the results first and work backwards.

Daryll Hurs:
So just to give you a prime example, you mentioned South By before, March every year, period. It doesn't go to November. It's in March every year. So that festival has a plan on how that works to make sure it can happen in March every year successfully. Now if an artist was going to go to South By, March every year, they should plan. So are they touring to get there? Do they need to get a grand and funding to get there? Do they need to get sponsors to get there? Should they release music before they get there or after they get there? That's kind of an anchor point in the year if an artist is planning to go there.

Daryll Hurs:
Now so many times I've talked to artists and they're like, "Oh, we weren't sure." Well, okay. And then should we release, and I don't know. And they've already missed a deadline for a funding grant application, or they haven't booked shows ahead of time. And so that's stuff that could be planned months in advance and get the best results. Right? So it's something again, 12 months ahead. And I could kind of give you a quick snapshot of what I think is a good blueprint, which might help everybody.

Michael Walker:
For sure.

Daryll Hurs:
So typically if you're not really well known artist, summer, not a great time to tour. Right? In Toronto for instance, any summer date, Pearl Jam might be playing down the street. There's a food truck festival that's on the street free. There's an open air concert free. Most people go to the cottage, the lake, patios, not a dark bar to see an indie band. So that's the best time to write and record. So June, July, write, record, August, finish recordings. September, October, November, schools are in, which means a lot of students with loans and money and go out, that's the time to tour, September, October, November. December, you finish mix mastering and polishing the recording you did in August because you might've played those songs and polished them live. Might make adjustments.

Daryll Hurs:
January is when you figure out your whole year in terms of when to do shows, when to release, take photos for your promo, create all your promo assets. February, you start releasing the single. March, maybe April, March, April, May that's the best time to tour. And then you just start the whole process of creation again. If you release in the spring, you've got the spring tour season, March, April, May. And then you've got the fall season, so you've got two tours to promote what was released in the spring. And what you're hoping is get momentum off the first tour, reviews, socials, more fans. So you come back in the fall with more momentum. And so this is just simply a way that you just keep going.

Daryll Hurs:
And it allows you to start going, "I write songs during these months." And I know you get inspiration throughout the year. But if you at least have that sort of framework, this is what I'm going to write and record, it allows you to focus on marketing the rest of the year. And I think everybody's trying to go, "I've got to write. I've got to record. I've got to produce. I've got to release. I've got to do socials. I've got to ... " And it ends up being too much throughout the entire year, so it's a way to compartmentalize each of those components. And for the artists I've worked with, it's been very successful.

Michael Walker:
Super valuable. Yeah, I think just being able to kind of have that in place for a lot of people, you can literally rewind and listen to that to have all the components that you really need to think about and map over the year. So thanks for sharing that, that's awesome, even if it's just taking that as a model and looking at doing some inward looking and seeing. Wow, how can I kind of map out our plans based on that?

Daryll Hurs:
Right. And if I could add to it though, be there's timelines that are external. When are grant deadlines? When are the awards? And for instance here, we have the JUNOs in Canada. If you release at a certain time, you're actually not eligible for the JUNOs. So what's the eligibility period for you to release? And then conferences and festivals that you want to attend, you kind of need that all in a calendar, and that also influences your planning. So yeah, it's so important to have that, and you keep track of everything. And then when you're sort of ending the year, you look at what happened. And then you go, "What worked? Let's repeat that." It's easier when you start repeating. And then the things that don't work, that's where you make the modifications.

Daryll Hurs:
You'll start going, "Wow, you know what, out of all our shows, 60% worked, 40% didn't. Let's modify those." And so you're repeating the 60%, so you're actually starting the year with a higher level of success because you know it works. And then you're getting rid of what doesn't work and you're modifying it. And slowly after two to four years, it's just repeat and it's actually getting better and better and better every year.

Michael Walker:
All right. Let's take a quick break from the podcast so I can tell you about a free special offer that we're doing right now exclusively for our podcast listeners. So if you get a ton of value from the show, but you want to take your music career to the next level, connect with the community of driven musicians, and connect with the music mentors directly that we have on this podcast, or if you just want to know the best way to market your music and grow an audience right now, then this can be perfect for you.

Michael Walker:
So right now we're offering a free two week trial to our music mentor coaching program. And if you sign up in the show notes below, you're going to get access to our entire music mentor content vault for free. The vault's organized into four different content pillars, the first being the music, then the artist, the fans, and last but not least, the business. When you sign up, you unlock our best in depth masterclasses from a network of world class musicians and industry experts on the most cutting edge strategies right now for growing your music business. On top of that, you'll get access to our weekly live masterminds, where our highest level modern musician coaches teach you exactly what they're doing to make an income and an impact with their music.

Michael Walker:
Then once a month, we're going to have our music mentor spotlight series, and that's where we're going to bring on some of the world's biggest and best artist coaches and successful musicians to teach you what's working right now. And one of the most amazing parts is that you can get your questions answered live by these top level music mentors. So a lot of the people that you hear right here on the podcast are there live interacting with you personally, so imagine being able to connect with them directly. On top of all that, you'll get access to our private music mentor community. And this is definitely one of my favorite parts of music mentor, and maybe the most valuable, is that you're going to have this community where you can network with other artists, and link up and collaborate, ask questions, get support, and it's everything related to your music career.

Michael Walker:
So if you're curious and you want to take advantage of the free trial, then go click on the link in the show notes right now. You can sign up for free. From there, you can check out all of the amazing content, connect with the community, and sign up for the live masterclasses that happen every week. This is a gift for listening to our podcast, supporting the show. So don't miss out. Go sign up for free now, and let's get back to our interview.

Michael Walker:
That's so good. Yeah. That kind of reminds me of the calibration, it's almost a calibration where you're reviewing and you're seeing what works, what didn't work, and using that to kind of re-aim. It does seem like that's where there's such a huge leverage point, is in the cycles and the routines that you're talking about. It's like when you kind of revisit, and then you can recalibrate, and you can see what worked, what didn't work, and keep doing what works and stop doing what doesn't work.

Daryll Hurs:
If I could just add to that because this is how quick it happens. With one artist I was working with, January, we'd just pick up the phone. And best, I say best, we would work at the best venue in Toronto for them, so it's only one venue they played. And when you build that relationship, oh, that band, they sell out every time. Our bar sales are great. They say yes to everything. And so one phone call, I would literally be, "I want February 24th, April 6th, June 4th, October, December." And in one phone call, I had the entire year booked.

Michael Walker:
Wow.

Daryll Hurs:
So then you get time back. Right? Now I'm not scrambling to book throughout the year and stuff. Now we've got all our anchor dates for one city. Right? And we knew that they were going to be successful. So now we looked at: What's our next market? Montreal. So we did research, found a band that sells out every show in Montreal, and we called them. Do you want sold out shows in Toronto? We'll do a swap. We have all these dates booked. Can you book a date around them? So now we've got somebody else working Montreal and they take care of all the work of booking the shows. And we know they're going to be sold out because we're doing a trade, and we've got the stats saying these will be sold out. And so now we enter a new market, large crowds. And in two phone calls, four calls, we were able to get basically an entire year booked in two cities and not a lot of work.

Daryll Hurs:
Then you go, "Where do we fill in the gaps?" Are we going to go on tour? And that starts getting easier because you've got more time to concentrate on the stuff that's going to be harder to work with. So that's a big part of the time management side of it.

Michael Walker:
That's super smart. So it sounds like what you're saying is that a big part of that planning process is making sure that you map out those quote, unquote anchor dates and kind of figure out. What are those big, most important kind of rocks that you can set in place? And even if you need to adapt or kind of work around some things, like you mentioned with Marvel, two or three years ahead of time, they might not know all the full details of exactly what's going to happen, but they've got that anchor date set in place. And that's something that's going to be a signpost that's going to guide them as they approach that.

Daryll Hurs:
Absolutely. And one big thing that I find artists really miss out in promotions is not having their next show booked. So for instance, here we are, we've got the band on stage. It's a packed house. And they aren't able to go, "Oh, our next show is," and they give the date to the people who are already there, who've already proven they come to the show, who love the band, will come back. There's a lot of times, "When are you playing?" Oh, we don't know yet. That crowd leaves the room and it's going to be real hard to reach each and every single one of them. So you want to be able to promote to your room when your next show is. You don't say it before that, but you tell them while they're in the room. And you know what, you never know, they might be posting it to social and doing some of the marketing for you. So that's a huge opportunity that's missed. I see it all the time.

Michael Walker:
I mean, that's definitely a write downer, for anyone who's playing live shows, is being able to ... What it reminds me of is I used to be the ... I used to tour full-time and I was gone most of the year. And when I started my family and had three kids, I just got to do for a lifestyle change. So now I'm more of the coach, like a hockey player who becomes a coach. But for me, I attend conferences now that are about being able to coach and help other artists and built a business. And one thing that the one I just attended did was exactly what you're talking about, where they had a conferences, and at the end, they literally had a sign up form. And they went around and it was so smart, they were able to fill up more than half the spots for the next year's events just right away because they had the foresight to actually book the dates and just ask people who are already there. Hey, we can give you a special opportunity if you get your ticket now for next year. That's super smart.

Daryll Hurs:
You've got to learn how to convert the people that are already engaging with you, so that they keep coming back. And trying to get that trajectory of growth of an audience, that's how you get your base audience. And then you're like, "How do we elevate that? How do we double that number?" Because otherwise, you're just sort of shooting in the dark. One artist I worked with, they were very smart. They would have screens on the sides of the stage, video clips throughout the show, and then near the end, they would be like, "That phone number on that screen, text it, and we'll send you free music." Right?

Daryll Hurs:
What that meant is, oh, actually, next time we're having a show, we're going to text you. And so they had about 80% of the people, their phone numbers. They actually had all their phone numbers. And anytime tickets were on sale, or presale, or new music, a text message went directly to that person's phone. And they're opting in because they're the ones texting first. So that was huge.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. Gosh, that's such a valuable nugget right there just as an idea because all those people who are at the show, those are the best quality fans, the people that actually care and they come out. They're proven that they are because they're at the show. It kind of ties in with one thing that ... I'm not sure if when you talked with our partner, manager, Ari, if you talked about this idea or not. But I needed to pull in the reins because I could totally geek out and ramble on too much about this. But we're getting ready to launch music NFT platform in about a month and a half. And one of the ideas for the types of music NFTs, and this could be on any platform, doesn't necessarily have to be on the one that we're building. But to do a show type of NFT, maybe that's a replay of each live show. You might have only 100 collectibles that are available. You could kind of limit it.

Michael Walker:
And you could do one for every single show that you play, and maybe do something similar where onstage, you take a selfie, a picture of the whole crowd. And you say, "Hey, we're actually going to put this into the music NFT. How many of you guys would be interested in getting one of these? There's only X amount available." And they're like, "We want it." You're like, "Awesome. You've got to be ready. Pull out your phone right now. This is going to be a race to the finish." So there's only 100 of these available. There's 500 people here. And you could almost do a race and have them text the number, and the first 100 people get the collectible. Then kind of a similar thing, you still have the ability to communicate, and when you're playing a show nearby.

Michael Walker:
That's what I love about it too with the strategy you just shared is that when you get the phone numbers of everyone that's in the crowd, you also know what show they came out to and locations, so when you're going to play a show at that specific city, you can reach out to them as opposed to just blindly posting on social media somewhere, so it's just brilliant. And I'm going to cut myself off there with the music NFT stuff because I could totally geek out.

Daryll Hurs:
Well, like I said, they were just so brilliant in how they executed that. And I could sort of share that at South, but I don't work with that artist. I haven't worked with that artist for a number of years. They actually got some higher level management. But basically, a new incarnation of that artist, they opened for Dolly Parton, who Dolly released NFTs at that show. I've got a Dolly Parton NFT. So yeah, anywhere you can do the live engagement and with all this digital activity, there's data that's taking place. They might know me specifically at times, but they know X number of people in this area engaged with. Let's go do a show there because we know enough people are engaging. So as long as you can also track your data and have access to it and certain metrics that will tell you when to book shows, where to book shows, what sizes of capacity rooms you should book shows, so that you can always sell out.

Daryll Hurs:
And I'm such a huge advocate of don't play a show unless you can sell it out. And sell out just means capacity crowd because you could do a lot of guest lists. But no matter what, don't play a show unless you can fill the room yourself. And I would go out on a limb, and some people will disagree with me on it, but never open for anybody else. That's a waste of time usually.

Michael Walker:
That is a pretty ... I mean, I don't know if controversial is the right word, but that's ... I think it's a fair point in terms of people who attend the show very rarely care that much, or really pay attention to the opening band. With our band, one of our biggest opportunities was opening for a band called All Time Low. And this was when we were starting out from scratch and they had millions of fans. And so that was a huge opportunity for us, but really only because ... I mean, one of the biggest reasons that was really valuable was because we were going out and meeting every single fan in line before the show and introducing ourselves and connecting with them personally, so they actually cared about the opening band. But if it wasn't for that, I have seen a ton of artists who've done opening shows, and it hasn't been worth their time, or effort, or buy on opportunity because they didn't really have the connection, or people didn't really know who they were or care that much about them.

Daryll Hurs:
Well, the way I look at it is you could start with a room that holds only 50 people, but if it's full, that's 50 really happy people. And they'll probably tell somebody. If you play a room that holds 500 people and only 150 people are in, they're not excited and they're probably not going to tell anybody. And so to fast track growth, and this has literally worked for almost every band I've worked with, never play a show that's not sold out. But also, if you're the one that has the name at the top, and it's capacity crowd all the time, you very quickly get to be known as, that's the band that always has sold out shows. And people are like, "How do you get a manager?" They'll find you if you're the one with sold out shows. How do you get a booking agent? They'll find you if you're the one with sold out shows. Right?

Michael Walker:
Yeah. That's true.

Daryll Hurs:
And so again, part of that fast track is if you start having these capacity crowds, then you start leveraging for guarantees from the bar, because often it's a door deal at the start with indie artists. But that's how you can start moving towards that guarantee. And then as well, you get to be able to start negotiating sponsorships for your shows. So I would get a beer sponsors, liquor sponsor for these shows. And then now it's a totally different look. Now we're the band that always is at capacity crowd. We've got X brands on top giving us stuff. Now it's an event. Oh, you're the best band in the city, in the market, or one of the top. Now we're on the promoters' hit list. And so that's where we can start working with things. And you can do it in three to six months. So again, I've worked with trajectory. I don't want five year plan. I'd rather have 12 month plan, 24 month plan to kind of go from here to here.

Daryll Hurs:
So by doing that, one band literally that I worked with, they moved here. They didn't know one person. Their first show was capacity at 200. And after three shows, a booking agent approached them and was able to do two North American tours really quickly. So that's what I mean as far as the trajectory goes. You need to be able to start taking credit for things in your market because if you're the opening act, you never get the credit. And that's one of the biggest things that holds you back because if anything, you're bringing people so the headliner band gets better credit off of your people. And their people probably aren't watching your artist. They're probably not sticking around or showing up early.

Daryll Hurs:
And if opening for other artists was such a great business plan, then all artists are successful because they're all doing it. And when I've had some pushback from an artist like, "Oh, no, no," I'm like, "Cool. Okay. Well, tell me who opened for Bon Jovi last year then." So do you know the answer yourself?

Michael Walker:
I couldn't even tell you where and when Bon Jovi toured. But if I looked it up, I probably would ... I mean, I'm not sure.

Daryll Hurs:
But this is my point, is nobody knows. I'd be like, "Cool. If you don't know that one, who opened for, I don't know Foo Fighters last tour?" And people often can't give me an answer. Who opened for Elton John? And they have to look it up, yes. And that's cheating.

Michael Walker:
I'm just curious who would open for Elton John. I think that totally makes sense. It's just a different ball game of opening versus headliner. I mean, for good reason, the reason the headliner is the headliner is because they're probably drawing the majority of the crowd. And opening band generally isn't going to.

Daryll Hurs:
Also, the fact is then usually for that type of show, you're doing a buy on, so you're out of pocket right away. We had an artist that did a buy on in the UK. It was pretty substantial, and they figured they played to quarter million people in 13 dates or so. And they were like, "We'll make it back in merch." Nope, did not.

Michael Walker:
Yikes.

Daryll Hurs:
Right? So there you are paying to be there, then you're paying all the travel fees and all the costs of getting all your crew and everything everywhere. And yeah, often you won't see the return. From my point of view is, yes, that can work, but it's a longer build, whereas if you just focus on your own, it's actually faster trajectory in 12 to 24 months. And so you kind of get here to here much faster, as opposed to being the opener, very low percentage of conversion of their fans to your fans. The expense of it, meaning to get that fan, is higher cost, as opposed to it's your own show. So yeah, and that's where time and money and effort can be ... Your time and your money can be placed better elsewhere to get better results for yourself.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. That makes sense. I can definitely appreciate that, is that just from my personal experience, having had that opportunity to open for All Time Low, I know it was a total game changer for us. But I also think that you bring up a really valid point that's also worth considering the opportunity cost. If you have to do a buy on tour or you're not ... For us too, I do think part of the reason that particularly it worked in our case was because we hustled our butts off and met every single person in line for the shows. We literally made more money meeting people before the shows selling CDs than we did at the merch table by far.

Daryll Hurs:
Well, there you go. You did what wasn't the norm. Most bands don't do what you guys did, sounds like.

Michael Walker:
Yeah, yeah.

Daryll Hurs:
And there was one thing I was going to say. A band needs to think about who really did not open and showed a fast trajectory is Imagine Dragons. So if you look up their history, they didn't open for anybody.

Michael Walker:
Wow.

Daryll Hurs:
And it was kind of like, "Whoa. Where did these guys come from?" And it went from here to here really quickly. So I was at South By, where they played. And then they were on Jay Leno literally a week later. In Toronto, they came, they played at I believe it was Phoenix, or Opera House, about 800 people. Then they came and they played at Sound Academy, which is more like 2000, 5000 people. And then they played the ACC, which is more like 16,000 to 20,000 people.

Michael Walker:
That's pretty awesome.

Daryll Hurs:
Yeah. So that's the thing is I'm talking about trajectory, fast, get to a higher level real quick. Having that plan, here's my 12 months, we get better each year, really focus on our career and getting rid of all the distracters, you actually get better results a lot faster.

Michael Walker:
That totally makes sense, yeah. And one point that I want to reiterate that you made, because I know it kind of clicked for me at a certain point, but it's not necessarily everyone knows this, is that the difference between playing a 200 cap room that's sold out versus playing 1000 cap room to 600 people. On the surface you'd be like, "Yeah, it's way better to play at a 600 cap room," better than a 1000 cap room with 600 people, there's 600 people there. But there's a huge difference just in the overall vibe of the show. And it just feels way less impressive, feels way less impressive to play a 600 person show to a 1000 cap room than a totally sold out to the brim 300 cap room. So I think that point that you made of the trajectory and really aiming to sell out every single show, and actually even making capacity room a little bit smaller that you could sell the tickets for just for that extra effect of, this is going to sell out. Right? There's a psychology to that, that I think is really important.

Daryll Hurs:
Oh, yeah. Well, one artist I worked with, they would play at a place called The Horseshoe Tavern, which holds 450 people. They themselves would bring 150 other bands that might be 50 to 75 more people. Half full, not impressive to their fans, I can always get in, I can show up late. There's no anything. So I literally took them from there when I started working with them, and we played a room that held 45 people max. And it was also January, February, it was cold. And it was in the back room, and it's the only time I've had a bar owner come to me and say, because I was holding the line a little bit of play that game a little, well, it's 10:05. I knows doors are supposed to open at 10:00.

Daryll Hurs:
But the owner came and said, "Can you open the doors? Because your line is interfering with our bar sales," which I've never heard but it was packed and ramped. And we basically let people in and we sold out as fast as we could let people in. And there was still people that couldn't come in. And they're like, "Could we come in if people leave?" Maybe. Absolutely. And so we had people that stayed for over two hours until the band played, standing against the wall waiting. And some of them stayed having their pint of beer, they could only hear. They couldn't see it. But it created demand where everybody's like, "When's their next show? I've got to get tickets." And we booked a room that holds 150 people, so that's their people. We have two openers. Two openers brought about 25, 50 people each. So we sold that out within one hour and had a lineup, and people couldn't get in.

Daryll Hurs:
And then so was February, March, and then we did our CD release April at that same room that held 150. And we sold that out in an hour. And everybody who got a ticket got a CD. And people were buying two to four CDs because other people couldn't come in, so they were buying CDs for them, so they basically made 2500 bucks in that. So we went from a not important show kind of atmosphere at a larger room, to we sold out and prepped it so that CD release party was going to be very successful.

Michael Walker:
Yeah, that's super smart. And maybe we can talk a little bit more about the psychology of why you think that's important to have the demand. It's interesting too because it applies to I mean any market dynamic. Right? With my wife, she's into Posh Peanut, which is this baby clothing brand. It's so funny, they do these drops where they have a limited number of these drops, and they do them regularly, and they sell out instantly. All the moms are like, "I missed it. Can you attend it for me and buy this for me?" And the secondary market where they're trading their Posh Peanut baby clothing with each other. And for musicians, I think the live show element, you could have that demand. And it's really interesting with music NFTs now, I think that's one thing to consider in terms of the strategy is always creating the right amount so that there is real demand, and there's real scarcity, and it's going to sell out. What's your take on that? And why do you think that's why it works?

Daryll Hurs:
The one thing is the music business has always been kind of, if I can just be blunt, a shit show. And there's always been us versus them, artist versus industry, and all this. What it comes down to is it's a percentage business. That's how the model is based on. Booking agents get a percentage. Managers get a percentage. Record labels get a percentage. Publishing is a percentage. And so that percentage is only worth something if demand is built. And when demand is built, that means you can actually increase the rates. So you could actually sell fewer things, but at a much higher price, and make much more money. So that's what all these kind of tactics are, is about trying to build demand so that, yes, we know we're going to sell. We've got the stats to prove we're going to sell, so that helps get confidence in the percentage model if you're going to be an agent, a manager, and so on. So you're also trying to prove that, so that industry takes an interest in you.

Daryll Hurs:
Often, people are like, "Can we get signed? How do I get a manager?" That's a big part. But when it comes to fans, it's about fan engagement. And they've got to be excited. They have to be like, "Wow, that was amazing," because you want them to come back and spend their money again. And that's your bread and butter is your fans. So if they can come anytime, walk in 15 minutes late, there's no line up, there's tons of room, there's no excitement. When you're in a packed room and everyone's taking photos, sharing videos, photos together, they get to meet the band, they want the autographs, they take photos, that's exciting. And they want to come back. So then you start thinking, "What's the value of that fan?" And I've actually got this calculator spreadsheet that I've worked out where okay, an artist wants to make $100,000 a year. How many fans does it take to make that? How many things do you have to sell to them? And what price points can you sell to them to make $100,000?

Daryll Hurs:
And numbers don't lie and you work it out. It's much easier if you get that one person that's going to come to say, three shows, and spend $20 at each show and possibly an upsell somewhere. Then you start going, "Oh, I actually don't need as many people as I thought to get to that $100,000." Right? And I think when people don't think of the economics and break it down, it's so random throughout the entire year, that they can't actually make a projection to be able to actually get there at that point.

Daryll Hurs:
And so a lot of times, I've worked with artists where we've broken down numbers, that becomes part of that whole 12 month plan and we know where we'll be when we get to the end of it. And if we're not, we know where to ... It all ties in together.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. That totally makes sense. It's super smart too. I think just in economics in general, it's like supply and demand. That's all it is. But one thing I want to kind of add here because I think probably for a lot of the people who are listening to this right now, as a musician, their first reason they became a musician wasn't because they thought, "How can I make as much money as possible? I know, I'm going to be a musician."

Daryll Hurs:
Exactly. Exactly. Me too. I'm included. I'm included. I wanted to play guitar.

Michael Walker:
I want to speak to the person in the room who might sort of be feeling uncomfortable with even the conversation we're having about making more money and the value of a fan. And I want to kind of point out this other angle to this, which I think is really important, which is that you're doing a disservice to your fans if you don't think about this. What's more valuable for your fans, having the experience where like you mentioned, they're in an empty room, and it's not very exciting, they can lounge in? Is that going to be more valuable to them? Or is it going to be way more valuable for them to have this amazing exciting experience in a room that's packed and be able to have that excitement, that energy? Right? And I think that one thing that can kind of limit artists a lot is worrying that by focusing on making more money or focusing on the economics and kind of figuring out how to increase the value, that they're somehow deceiving or manipulating, that they don't want to come across as greedy.

Michael Walker:
But I just want to point out that I know that you think this way already. But everything we're talking about right here about increasing the value of fans, this is really a win-win for everyone. This is creating a better, more valuable experience for the fans themselves too, and all the different offers and things you can have, the upsells. These are all ways for you to provide the best possible experience for your fans. And you're doing yourself and your fans a disservice if you don't think about this stuff and think about: How can I provide more value? Because all the money that comes in, you can put it in your music, invest it, you can reach more people. So I just wanted to point that out quick.

Daryll Hurs:
Yeah. Well, it's an important thing to understand from a fan's point of view, they want to support the artist. They want to have that shirt. They want these collectibles. This is the whole premise of music over years, is I want to buy their CD back in the day, or their album, or their cassette, because they wanted that music, and shirts. And people keep ticket stubs as mementos and all this kind of stuff. That's part of the fan experience. Now as an artist, you want to be able to have a career and fans want to support that. Now a couple of the tests we did is we would put everybody on guest lists. We're not taking anything at the door. Everybody's on guest lists. Capacity crowd, we actually made more money in merch sales because people wanted to support the artist. And here's an interesting thing that we'd look at the numbers.

Daryll Hurs:
If we had say, just I'll use easy numbers, a $10 ticket, we sold to 200 people, that's two grand. We had to pay the door person, some staff, pay the band. There's not much left really at end of day. When people didn't have to pay that $10, they were more willing to pay $20 at the merch table. And we actually made more money at the merch table than trying to get that $10 ticket because when you do the $10 ticket, some people might be like, "Well, I already spent $10. I don't know if I can spend $20 more on a shirt or a CD." So numbers would be lower if we had that ticket price, truthfully. So we actually made more money in having everybody on guest lists, and we had a higher percentage of people that would actually buy merch because they wanted to support the artist.

Daryll Hurs:
So that was a good telling point on, oh, they want to support, and they're willing to pay actually more money to support the artist. Then the funny part was, the merch is our money, we didn't have to share it with the other bands, where if it's a door deal, we had to share that with the other artists. So that always works every time, and the artists would always make more money.

Michael Walker:
Wow. That's really interesting. Yeah. And I think it's something that a lot of times, artists, they don't understand. Or they don't recognize their own worth, or they don't understand that people want to support them. Right? So it's really interesting that you actually did that test and were able to find that result.

Daryll Hurs:
I know. It's a hard thing to turn around, where you're right, we didn't get into this to sell stuff. We got into to play. Now I'd mentioned sports. Right? Well, when I started playing hockey as a kid, oh, play hockey, play guitar. What was the motivation? To play.

Michael Walker:
To get the girls.

Daryll Hurs:
To play. It wasn't meant to be strategy, or this, or that. Right? But then if you're in the pro league of NHL, it's a totally different game. Right? So the thing is, it does lead into if you want a career, it has to be economics. You have to make a living. You're trying to do music and not a day job, you have to get money there somehow to support you, so it's a reality. And really, fans do want to support. And if you think of it like I'm looking at tickets for an artists coming through that's a well known artist, and they're 500 bucks each. And people are buying it. That's the value that they're at. So if a musician is kind of questioning it, I would say, "Have you bought a concert ticket yourself? Have you bought a shirt yourself? And what was the motivation for that?" And put yourself in the seat of the fan.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Yeah, that's definitely a good way to look at it. Awesome. Well, hey, Daryll, it's been a lot of fun. I enjoy geeking on this kind of stuff, and some really valuable gold nuggets that you just kind of dropped in terms of the live shows, and planning overall. I think it's probably the number one leverage point is actually having consistent planning, road mapping process. So really appreciate you coming on the podcast to share some of the lessons that you've learned. And for anyone here right now who would like to connect more or learn more about the festival and everything that you guys are doing, the conference, the online conference, could you share a little bit about where people can go to learn more?

Daryll Hurs:
Sure. So basically, we run four online conferences. And you can find out about it at indieweek.com. As well, every Tuesday we have an industry discussion. It's free. People tune in from around the world. You can chat, talk, share contacts and collaborate and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, indieweek.com, and as well, they can just look up my name, Daryll Hurs, on any of the socials and connect with me there.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Cool. Like always, we'll make sure to put all those links, everything in the show notes, so you can have easy access to it. And yeah, man, this was a lot of fun. I mean, all that sounds awesome too. I would love to reciprocate and have conversations as well, if you ever want to connect more or do cross [inaudible 00:53:34].

Daryll Hurs:
Absolutely, absolutely. We should get you on one of our indie weeklies.

Michael Walker:
Sweet. Yeah, let's do it. Awesome. Well, thank you again so much. This has been a lot of fun. And I highly recommend anyone that's watching or listening to us right now, go check it out because it's important. You can shortcut and you can save so much time and energy if you just find people who've done that thing that you want to do and you learn from them, rather than making all the mistakes yourself. So highly recommend checking that out, and we'll see you guys next time.

Daryll Hurs:
Awesome. Thank you.

Michael Walker:
Hey, it's Michael here. I hope that you got a ton of value out of this episode. Make sure to check out the show notes to learn more about the guest today. And if you want to support the podcast, there are a few ways to help us grow. First, hit subscribe, that'll make sure you don't miss a new episode. Secondly, if you share it with your friends on your social media and tag us, that really helps us out. And third, best of all, you leave us an honest review, it's going to help us reach more musicians like you who want to take their music careers to the next level. The time to be a modern musician is now, and I'm looking forward to seeing you on our next episode.