New Opportunities for Bands and Musicians in the Tyler Area

Patriot Commons is near the University of Texas campus, and is currently growing by leaps and bounds. With about 3500 new residents each year, Tyler is a fast growing city, and the opening of Patriot Commons earlier this year is now paying off with new bars and restaurants.

Republic Icehouse is one of the newest additions, and they are currently seeking bands. They also plan on having an Open Mic night.

UC Sports Bar, which also features live music, recently opened at Patriot Commons. Restaurants round out the attractions with a Steak n Shake, Scooter’s Coffee and Yogurt, and Boba-Loompia. Fedex and UPS are also setting up locations here, so with all of this going on, I expect a lot of traffic and firmly believe Patriot Commons will be a huge boon to Tyler, and to Tyler musicians and bands.

International Music Festival - Austin - Sept 6-7

Great idea. Bad promo.

I always get excited to find what appears to be a new festival with promise to add more flavor to Texas' festival scene, and the name of this one really caught my attention.

This is the fourth year for this festival. I've written about badly promoted festivals before, but this one really gets me because I would think the presenter, the Texas Music Museum, would do better. Visiting the Museum's website gives a bit of info, with a large graphic that says click DETAILS, so I do.

This click leads me to a one page PDF with the address, price (free but donations accepted), and a few small blurry pics of the bands (I think that's the bands - too blurry to tell).

I know web developers are expensive, and I'm not fond of events whose only online presence is a Facebook page, but come on. A Facebook page is at least better than a PDF, and anyone can do it.

Some of you may question why I'm so critical of festivals that do crappy online promotions. Well, here's why : the bands. These bands are usually playing for nothing, or nearly nothing, which really means they're paying to play. At the very least, they're paying with their time, and gas to get to and from the gig. Some may be travelling far enough to require hotel rooms. Some may be giving up better paying gigs hoping to get good exposure at the festival, or maybe they just booked the festival in advance then had to turn down paying gigs because they were booked. These bands deserve better advertising. Put up a website, or at least a web page or Facebook page, and tell us about the bands. Link to their websites.