Finding gigs: from choosing the club to getting booked
Four steps from picking the venue to a booking email that gets answered — plus the addresses to start with.
Getting your first show in an unfamiliar city takes four steps and one evening of work. It fails at the same places almost every time: the wrong venue, a dead address, an email that is too long.
From the club to a confirmed night
Pick venues by programme, not by size30 minutes
A small club that regularly books your kind of music is a better address than the bigger hall that does not — your audience will not show up there anyway.
Check the venue is still activeimportant
A look at the last few events on the website or Instagram. Clubs close quietly, and nothing looks less professional than a request to a venue that has been shut for a year.
Write the booking emailone email, one paragraph
The recipient is the club's booking contact — the address is on their website, usually under Contact or Booking. Four things belong in the email: who you are, one link to listen to (one, not five), when you can play, and what you bring — an audience, your own gear, a local band as support. No attachments.
Follow up once after two weeks
Once, in the same thread. A band that follows up three times does not get booked — it gets filtered.
The email that gets answered
Bookers read these emails quickly and in passing. The one that gets a reply stays short and answers three questions: Does your music fit what the club usually books? Do you bring an audience? And are you easy to work with?
What does not get through: five links, a PDF attachment, a paragraph of band history, and the phrase "we would love to play at your venue sometime" with no concrete dates.
What is pay-to-play, and how do I spot it?
The promoter asks the band to buy tickets up front or guarantee a minimum — the risk of the night shifts to you. You can spot it by wording like "ticket allocation" or "minimum sales" in the first email. For a first show in a new city it can be a deliberate choice; as the normal way of getting booked, it is not.
Do we need a technical rider?
For small clubs a short list is enough: line-up, what gear you bring, what needs to go through the PA. One page, as a PDF — and only once the show is confirmed.
How early should we ask?
Clubs plan two to four months ahead, festivals half a year and more. Ask in September for an October date and the best you can hope for is filling in when someone cancels.
And if nobody replies?
Then the second route is often the faster one: open calls. Band contests and newcomer slots are not decided by who the booker knows, but by a submission with a deadline.
Where the addresses come from
We keep an open directory of venues: places where concerts happen regularly, with a website and a genre profile. It is not complete — it is what we have checked — but it saves the part of the research that eats the most time.
Venues in Germany
93 in the catalog right now · as of 2026-09-06
- Béi Chéz Heinz — Hannover
- From Hell — Erfurt, Thuringia
- Goldmark's — Stuttgart
- Kafe Kult — Munich
- Meisenfrei Blues Club — Bremen
- Nachtleben — Frankfurt am Main
- Polyester Klub — Oldenburg
- SO36 — Berlin (Kreuzberg)
- Strom — Munich
- treibsAND — Lübeck
A venue is missing?
Write to us — with a link. We check it and add it. The directory lives on bands correcting it: kontakt@produser.io
Open calls in Germany
62 in the catalog right now · as of 2026-09-06
- Plattsounds — Lower Saxony · closes 2026-09-15
- Rudolstadt-Festival 2027 — Rudolstadt · closes 2026-09-30
- ARD International Music Competition — Munich
- Baltic Open Air — Schleswig (Busdorf/Haddeby)
- Bochum Total (band submission) — Bochum (city centre)
- Bremer SchulRock-Festival — Bremen
The numbers come from our own directory and grow with it. The embedded lists are counted fresh on every page load.
Sources
- Produser directory: the embedded lists are counted on every page load
- Genre labels: the venues' own descriptions on their websites
Updated: 2026-09-05