With a large part of the globe on lockdown and fighting the coronavirus, concerts, festivals, shows, and gigs are just not happening. Musicians in many parts of the world are forced to stay sheltered in place and only leave their house for necessities. All non-essential work is done from home, if at all.

And if you are the type of musician who earns a large portion of their income with music sales, you might be less concerned about the working situation. But if, like the majority of the musicians we at Show4me have talked to, you are making the most of your music income from live shows, the business has come to a screeching halt.

One alternative is online shows.

We’ve seen a number of those crop up in the recent weeks.

Have you attended one of these shows?

We believe an online, live-streamed show can be a great alternative to a live, in-person show when done right. Yes, just pointing a camera at your home rehearsal setup and busting out some of your best tracks is not going to cut it. Your music needs some context and flow to ensure your audience’s experience with it is as ideal as their (and your) internet connection would allow.

We’ve analyzed the live shows we’ve seen so far and thrown in some of our own expertise to create a guide to help you create an exciting show that can help further your music career, as well as deepen the connection with your fans.

Here are the three key things you need.

Sound

Sounds like a no-brainer, right?

Actually, many of the online concerts streamed to fans can’t boast high audio quality. Sometimes that’s due to poor mic quality on site or lack of sound engineering skills, but sometimes it’s due to simple errors like using the wrong medium for your type of music.

For example, some streaming services may pick up your voice over music as they are designed for conferencing. Test your preferred service with a friend and make sure the perfect sound you’ve set up in your living room translates through YouTube, Instagram, Zoom, Twitch, or other live stream service you are using.

Styling and decor

One would think that the program of a show/concert would be first determined by the music and the decorations will then be selected to reflect that.

But since you are doing a show in lockdown, with limited resources, by using your music and message as your starting point you are likely to run into the problem of putting your ideas into life — you might simply not have the right space, decorations, equipment, or skills to reflect the visual side of the idea behind your dream show.

That means some compromises will have to be made.

One of them is starting with what you’ve got, production-wise.

Do you have anyone to help you design your stage, even if virtually?

What props have you got on hand or can order online?

What promotional materials can you whip up to support your show — do you have the right photos or can create drawn posters? Do you have a designer, illustrator or photographer to help you out?

When you’ve made stock of all your resources, you can calculate what type of promo campaign and stage design you will be capable of putting together. That’s when you can decide on the message and topic of your show. The message that fits what you actually got in your house to visually support it.

Program, playlist, show idea

With our slightly (or completely) backward way of planning a show, now you’ve got to the point of actually putting all the pieces together and coming up with an entertaining program for your event.

Start by selecting the idea that complements your resources and music most. Develop your playlist — you can even involve your fans in that allowing them to vote on the songs before or DURING the show.

You can also take improv requests from the audience, e.g. hip-hop artists and rapper like to create rhymes on the spot out of the topics or start lines offered by the audience.

Game-like elements in your show can add a fun interactive element that would be hard to pull off at a crowded live show, so think if that fits your music and performance and leverage the format to your advantage.

You can also take questions from the audience about your songs or make them guess what the next tune is.

Pro tip: We’ve got some more ideas in our blog post.

Final thoughts

Use our guide above to create a live show that your fans and their friends will love and want to share, as well as attend the next time. This will help you continue communicating with fans and supporters throughout the quarantine and gain new fans among the music community both in your area and across the globe.

If your shows are great, you’ll increase your following, sell more albums/EPs/singles (which you can also do on Show4me, and we’ve dropped fees for now to help you earn more), and create a music portfolio you’ll be able to present to labels, sponsors, and potential partners.

By the way, here on Show4me we’ve just introduced ticketed online shows — yes, fans can buy their ticket to your show and watch it in your Artist club on Show4me. You don’t invest a dime in using the tool and you get tickets sold and fans enjoying your live-streamed show.

Interested? Learn all about it here and launch your show ticket presale campaign today!