This is the reason why you don’t get an answer.

We got a mail to our festival the other day. First with the totally wrong name on the festival. Sure, that can happen in all your cut and paste. Then the letter continues by asking questions that obvious is on our homepage, things like which dates the festival is, what kind of genre do we prefer, how much do we pay for each band. I mean why should I go through the process answering questions like this for a band that we probably are not interested in booking?

So, I just write back a link where all the info around our application process is. And told them that our real name is this.

To be honest, I think we are pretty good to answer these emails. We actually get thousands of just mails from bands/bookers/pr people just sending out from different mailing lists not knowing where and to whom they are sending. It’s part of the game, and that is why I guess 99% are just deleting the emails and don’t answer them. We try at least to give you the right info even though we know it’s just another mass mail out.

Then now two days later the artist goes on to our Facebook page writing nasty things just because we answered back with some info.  This is the reason why so many have stopped writing back. Now we must deal with an artist that is not even in the closest chance to be booked being annoying in our official channels. Yes, it’s much easier to just delete the mails.

This is also, the reason why you never give feedback to anyone sending in a song. Most people probably would be thankful and nice but this small group of idiots that would start to mess up things or start to answer back that you are wrong. You have really no time to give feedback in the first place. Now you are in a position that you should defend your opinions.

So, when you are annoyed that you never get any answers. Here are some tip-offs. Try to be personal. We all hate those mass emails, yes, they are easy and convenient to send out. But you rarely get answers on them.  Okay, it will be quite massive to be personal, but it’s the only way to get a response. I have an e-mail list of over 300 supervisors around the world. Yes, it would be darn easy to just make a send out with a generic email. But I spend two days sending the info as the generic email but add two personal sentences at the top.

But how will I be personal with all these 300 have I meet them all? Many I have met but even if I meet them it’s very few I know that well. Instead, I also spend time going to their homepages or social media and check for updates. You pick up that they just moved or a reason success placement almost anything and you do a nice comment on that. Like: I saw that you just moved office, how is the new place?

You will directly stand out. It’s hard to ignore when a thing like that comes in. Then you also have to get that when they answer back: Thanks, the new place is really great. That it’s not an opening to have a long chat around the music that you sent in. You know they have seen it. So after the answer just put it down until they contact you. Though in many cases I get back other things like, The new office is great, listened to your music do you have more songs with this artist? Then, of course, you are in to send some more.

Yes, this is painstaking to do. At the same time, you also get info. Maybe your contact has left the company and has a new position. Voila, you get in the new person in the first company and hunt after your old contact with the new company that now has a better position. You can also find out other things Like if a festival has changed style, it has a new theme. Information that is good to know.

I wish it could be less time consuming, but some a-holes have made it into what it’s easier to just delete emails.