Fans.
The entertainment business is much like other business and yet, at the same time, is not. All singers and musicians are in the entertainment business, just as Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and Caruso were and Fleming, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones are. One thing all successful entertainers have, besides their ability to communicate with music, is their ability to capture a fan. A fan is fanatic.
So let’s talk, in this two part blog about fans, what they are, how to feed and care for them, and how to lose them.
Part 1
So a fan is someone who is enraptured with your performance. So enraptured that they care less about a particular music piece and more about the way you communicate. They are so enraptured they will drive for hours to listen to you. They will take planes, trains, and automobiles to see you. Even if you don’t have a CD or a record. There were fans before recording technology arrived.
No fans equal the sound of one hand clapping. Silence. No repeat engagements. No work. If you are singer out of work it is because you have no fans. Fans are the wind beneath your wings. No wind, no flight.
Fans must be loved, cared for, and catered to. They must be and want desperately to be owned; some groupies have and do pay enormous sums to travel with their musical heroes.
As you feed and sooth your fans they will travel large distances, stay at hotels to hear you sing or perform. They care less what you perform and more about how you perform it and how that performance enraptures you.
But beware: professors and teachers of music have few if any fans. The musical academics seem to view fans as a necessary evil, and a group to be educated. They have traded fans for a steady but meager paycheck. These same academics inculcate in their students the same attitude: the music is far more important than fickle fans.
Ask yourself: how many fans do I have? How many CDs have I sold? A real fan will buy your CD for up to $25 and $35. If you have no CDs in our era you are failing your few fans and all potential as an entertainer.
CDs are the food of fans. Feed them and you will keep them. Ignore the CD and you will disappear.
Build Your Base
