CONTENTS
Click on link below to jump to corresponding section:
- Reggae Festivals: 1 Month's Worth
- Caribbean Food Education: Jerk-Style Cooking- Hid From Enslavement
- Fun & Games: What's Patois for a hungry belly?
- Band Promotion: Structure Of A Successful Music Website
- Reggae Biz Marketing: Effective Marketing for Small Businesses
Friday-Sunday, June 3-5, 2005
Music That Matters
Feather River Pavilion
Marysville, California, U.S.
www.camusicthatmatters.org
Hotline: none
Saturday-Sunday, June 4-5, 2005
Shining Stars Festival
Lake Selmac
Selma, Oregon, U.S.
www.shiningstarsfestival.com
Hotline: 541-592-2236
Saturday-Sunday, June 4-5, 2005
Summer Arts & Music Festival
Benbow
Redway, California, U.S.
www.mateel.org
Hotline: 707-923-3368
Saturday-Sunday, June 5-6, 2005
33rd Annual Groove Reggae Fest
Woodbury Ski Resort
Woodbury, Connecticut, U.S.
www.woodburyskiarea.com
Hotline: 203-263-2203
Wednesday-Sunday, June 8-12, 2005
International Arts Festival
New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.
www.internationalartsfestival.com
Hotline: TBA
Saturday-Sunday, June 11-12, 2005
Harmony Festival 2005
Sonoma County Fairgrounds
Santa Rosa, California, U.S.
www.harmonyfestival.com
Hotline: 707-861-2035
Friday-Saturday, June 10-11, 2005
Jamaican Reggae Festival
Kandel, Germany
www.jamaicanreggaefestival.com
Hotline: +49(0)175 63 25 199
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Miller Lite Sunsplash
Kiener Plaza Park
St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
www.jamaicanreggaefestival.com
Hotline: 314-703-1819
Friday-Sunday, June 10-12, 2005
Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival 2005
Bonnaroo Festival Site
Manchester, Tennessee, U.S.
www.bonnaroo.com
email
Friday-Sunday, June 17-19, 2005
12th Annual Sierra Nevada World Music Festival
Angel's Camp, California, U.S.
www.snwmf.com
Hotline: 916-777-5550
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Stayner Caribbean Jerk Festival
5968 27/28 Sideroad
Stayner, Ontario, Canada
www.staynerjerkfestival.com
Hotline: 416-298-3568 or 705-428-0591
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Santa Barbara Caribbean Festival
Oak Park
Santa Barbara, California, U.S.
www.caribbean.santabarbara.com
Hotline: 805-687-4701
Saturday, June 18, 2005
San Diego Co. Fair Reggae Festival
Del Mar Co. Fairgrounds
San Diego, California, U.S.
www.sdfair.com
Hotline: 858-792-4227
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Reggae In The Desert
Clark County Amphitheater
Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.
www.reggaeinthedesert.com
Hotline: 702-455-8200
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Summer Splash 2005
Seanote in Hull Ma
Lowell, Massachusetts, U.S.
www.disndatmusic.com
Hotline: 617-436-1632
Saturday-Sunday, June 18-19, 2005
2. Weedbeat Festival
Speicher
Bei Hildesheim, Germany
Hotline: 00491714203666
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Montalvo Performing Arts Series
Villa Montalvo
Saratoga, California, U.S.
www.villamontalvo.org
Hotline: 408-961-5858
Friday, June 24, 2005
Sun-Vibrations Reggae Festival
Les Babacools, Sorgente, Runtingz, Rasfaan, MSF Soundsystem
Germany
http://www.sun-vibrations.de
Hotline: +49 (0)5923-96050
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Jefferson State Festival
Riverside Park
Grants Pass, Oregon, U.S.
www.stateofjefferson.org
Hotline: 541-908-2696
Friday-Saturday, June 24-25, 2005
Soca Caribbean Style
Reggae Lounge/Soca Village
Houston, Texas, U.S.
www.reggaewarehouse.mu
Hotline: 2819142616
Friday-Sunday, June 24-26, 2005
Adirondack Music Festival 100 Acre Jam
Riverside Park
Lyonsdale, New York, U.S.
www.adirondackmusicfestival.com
Hotline: 315-348-4100
Friday-Saturday, June 24-25, 2005
Island Festival-Kalamazoo
Arcadia Creek Festival Place
Kalamazoo, Michigan, U.S.
www.islandfestkalamazoo.com
Hotline: 269-385-1276
Friday-Saturday, June 24-25, 2005
Vermont Roots Reggae Festival
Northeast Kingdome
West Glover, Vermont, U.S.
www.vermontreggae.org
Hotline: TBA
Saturday, June 26, 2005
Reggae Summer Jam
Sailinn
Tempe, Arizona, U.S.
Hotline: 602-750-9416
Thursday-Monday, June 30-4, 2005
Festival listings are believed to be correct. Are you a reggae festival promoter? Post your festival at
Houston Caribfest
Tom Bass Park
Houston, Texas, U.S.
www.houstoncaribfest.com
Hotline: 866-227-8395
Please contact the promoter directly for more information.
www.ReggaeFestivalGuide.com/post_festival.html
Jerk-Style Cooking- Hid From Enslavement
Jerk style cooking is widely accepted to have originated in Jamaica with the "Maroons" - Jamaican slaves that escaped from the British in the seventeenth century - who needed to preserve meat for long periods of time. The Maroons seasoned their meats with spices and herbs such as dried pimento and thyme, indigenous to Jamaica, and the now-legendary Scotch Bonnet chili pepper. To cook the meat without generating tell-tale smoke to betray their location to the British, the Maroons dug a pit and filled it with hot coals, then layered over the coals with leaves, meat, and more and more leaves to cook the meat through a combination of heat and smoke. The layers of leaves effectively subdue the smoke, and the arrangement became known as a "jerk pit."
Courtesy of The Caribbean Cove.
"WANGA-GUT"
Structure Of A Successful Music Website
Ideally each page of your website should serve a specific purpose. The main purpose of the sales page for your CD is to sell the CD. If have a page with Google Adsense, the main purpose is to generate money by to get people to click on the advertisement. If its not an important part of the process, don't load up the page with unnecessary things like animations or sounds. This will only distract visitors from achieving the task laid out for them, i.e. buying your product.
Below are some ideas to include in your website and the main purpose of each.
1) Main Page
The main pages is a general landing page to funnel visitors to different areas of your site. Create a clear and easy navigation process linked to the other pages of your site. *If you use JavaScript for navigation, place text link at the bottom. This ensures that search engines will be able to spider your site properly. You could also use this page to feature your CD, music samples and other offers.
2) Order Page(s)
Create a sales letter for each item that your are selling. Tomorrow we'll go over some copywriting tips to build a successful order page.
3) Press Releases
This section is where visitors can read 3rd party articles published about you, increasing your credibility and exposure.
4) Contact Information
This is so people can get a hold of you to book shows, ask questions about products, collaborations, interviews or other opportunities (you never know). Include as much contact information as possible, like your phone, cell, mailing address, email etc.
5) Privacy Policy
Complies with privacy laws if your are collecting any of information about your customers/visitors. This also helps to build trust and people will give their information more freely. Here's a link to a privacy policy generator. http://www.the-dma.org/privacy/creating.shtml
6) Electronic Press Kit
This is where you refer the media to easily download an information package about you.
Here's some ideas on what you can include:
*Biography *Demo Songs *Pictures *Reviews/Testimonials *Sideshow Of Photos *Video or Film Footage (Windows Media or QuickTime format)
Create a biography with pictures in .pdf format and make it available for download. You can use the Writer program contained in the free Open Office Suite http://www.openoffice.org to do this. Open then program type (or paste) in your biography and insert pictures. When your done go to File > Export As PDF.
7) Lyrics
Allows fans to get more familiar with your music. Also adds content to your site which will get picked up by the search engines if it has an incoming link form your main page or somewhere else.
8) Biography
On your bio page sections fans read about you and see your pictures. A sideshow of your photos sometimes adds a nice touch.
9) Concert Listings/News
Keep your fans and site visitors updated with the latest news about your concerts/shows, interviews, appearances and other topics of interest.
10) Forum
A discussion forum is a great place for you to interact with your fans and street teams. An excellent free script to set up a forum is phpBB www.phpbb.com.
11) Blog
Blogging is a good way to syndicate your artist/band news and generate traffic for your site. Search engines love this kind of stuff. Later on in the course I'll go a bit more in dept on setting up a blog. A nice fully featured blogging script is Word Press http://www.wordpress.org
Make sure your each page of your site is cross browser functional, meaning it can be viewed properly by different web browser programs. Two of most popular ones are Internet Explorer and Firefox http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox. Sometimes a site will show up perfectly in IE but will be all out of whack when viewed in Firefox, or vise versa. Have both browsers installed and check out every page.
Article by Dan Meiyers. Click here to get Your FREE 5 Day Music Marketing Course [Email Dan].
Chef Judith O'Loughlin is pleased to announce the opening of her new restaurant - "The Caribbean Cove" - at 2556 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94704. Open for lunch and dinner from Tuesday through Sunday, the restaurant will serve up Judith's fare of exotic and authentic Caribbean dishes. Long-time fans of Judith and newcomers alike are invited to come and celebrate!
The Caribbean Cove is a woman-of-color owned independent restaurant and catering business serving the San Francisco Bay area. The Caribbean Cove serves up authentic Caribbean cuisine for a wide range of special occasions including hosted events, corporate parties, wedding receptions, them parties, backstage cooking for music events and more. For a menu and information on services, visit www.thecaribbeancove.com.
By Amber McNaught
Effective marketing for the small business begins with market research
If you don't know who your customers are, how on earth are you going to reach them? The most effective small business marketing strategies are the most highly targeted ones: the ones which are based on a clear understanding of who their target audience is. What's your target age group and income bracket? What publications do they read? What do they do for fun? For it to be truly successful, your marketing should try to address an issue your target market deal with, fulfill a need or answer a problem. To be able to do that, you need to know who they are.
Before you start marketing your small business, identify its strengths and weaknesses.
Nothing will damage your small business quicker that disappointed customers. Don't oversell your products or services: if you know you can't deliver what your clients are looking for, refer them to someone who can, rather than taking on the project and doing it badly. People love to complain: don't give them the opportunity to. At the same time, don't undersell yourself either: you want to win new customers, after all!
Kick off your small business marketing with a survey
One of the best ways to get to know your customers is to have them fill in a survey. Mail it to them (with a reply paid envelope) with their invoice, hand it out along with their purchases, email it direct, or even put it on your website. However you decide to conduct your survey, think carefully about the types of questions you need to ask. Try not to make it too long, or people won't bother to complete it, but don't make it too short either, or you risk not collecting the information you're looking for.
Analyze the competition
Any small business marketing strategy should take your competitors into consideration. In order to compete effectively, you have to know who they are and what they're doing. What are their strengths and weaknesses, and how do they compare with yours? Spend time researching your competitors: find out their prices and look at their websites. Once you know what they're doing to win customers, it's up to you to do it better!
About The Author: Amber McNaught is co-owner of Hot Igloo Productions, a UK website design and marketing business specializing in helping small businesses grow through the use of internet technologies and public relations..
You love creating music and/or art, but you are bogged down with mundane tasks of every day business - putting your creativity on the back burner. Having a manager is essential to surviving the business of promoting your own talent in this day and age. One burgeoning company based out of California is ready to take your talent to the next level. Owner's name is Amy Shapas and she is willing to negotiate a contract with you that you are able to afford. Call 831-479-0711 and visit her website at www.soyoucan.com.
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