What a tribute band's EPK actually needs

Almost every guide to electronic press kits is written for an original act trying to get signed.
A tribute band is a different business. Nobody is deciding whether to develop you. Somebody is
deciding whether to put you in front of a paying room on a specific Saturday, and that decision
usually gets made in under two minutes, on a phone, by someone with forty other emails open.

An EPK built for a record deal answers the wrong questions. Here is what the booking version does.

Know which buyer you are writing to

The biggest mistake is treating "a booker" as one person. In Florida there are at least six, and
they are buying different things.

- Bars and clubs. Draw. They want evidence that people come out, and they want it as numbers and
photographs of full rooms rather than adjectives.
- Breweries and taprooms. Fit. Daytime and early evening, families in the room, a smaller
footprint, and a set that works at conversational volume.
- City and county parks and recreation departments. Paperwork and reliability. Certificate of
insurance, W-9, stage plot, and someone who answers email during business hours. They also book
the furthest ahead of anyone, often six months or more.
- HOA and 55 plus communities. Recognition. The catalogue matters more than the band. They are
buying songs their residents already know, at a volume that will not generate complaints.
- Festivals. Slot fit and production. Set length, what you sound like at full volume, and
exactly what you need from their stage.
- Casinos, corporate and private events. Presentation. Higher budgets, and much less tolerance
for anything that looks improvised or unprofessional.

You do not need six EPKs. You need one page whose top screen works for all of them and whose
supporting sections let each one find its own answer quickly.

The top screen decides it

Whatever else the page holds, the first screen a buyer sees should carry five things and nothing
else: the band name, the act you pay tribute to, your home city and how far you travel, one live
video, and a contact that a human answers.

The live video is the single most important asset. A buyer is purchasing a performance, not a
recording, and a polished studio track answers a question nobody asked. One well shot, well mixed
live song, playing at the top of the page, does more than a whole gallery. It should start without a
click through to another site and it should not require a download.

If you only ever improve one thing about your press kit, make it that video.

What earns its place below

- The song list. For a tribute act this is close to the product. Buyers scan it for the songs
their room expects to hear. Give the full list, not "all the hits."
- Evidence of draw. Photographs of actual crowds, named venues you have played, dates, and any
numbers you can honestly state. A modest true number beats a vague large one, and bookers can tell
the difference immediately.
- Set options. How long you can play, and in what shape. Two 60 minute sets, three 45s, and a
short festival set are different products, and saying so removes an email.
- Stage plot and input list. One clear diagram and a plain list. This is what turns a maybe into
a confirmed date for parks departments and festivals, and its absence is what stalls them.
- Logistics. Travel radius, whether you bring your own PA and lights, power requirements, load in
needs, and how much space you take up.
- The business items. Whether you carry liability insurance, and that a W-9 and certificate are
available on request. Municipal and corporate buyers cannot book you without these, and most
tribute bands leave them out entirely.
- Photos. A handful of high resolution live shots, downloadable, correctly named. The buyer needs
them for their own posters and social posts, and making that easy makes you easy to book.

What to leave out

- The long band biography. Where everyone met is not part of the decision.
- The original act's history and discography. Your buyer already knows who the act is. That is why
the format exists.
- Anything that requires a download, a login, or a file request before it can be viewed.
- Fee negotiation. A range or "rates on request" is enough. The number is a conversation.
- Autoplaying audio. It costs more bookings than it wins.

Make it a page, not a PDF

Send a link to a web page you control. A PDF is a dead end: it cannot play video, it is heavy on a
phone, it goes stale the moment a date changes, and it cannot be forwarded internally without being
re-attached. A shared cloud folder is worse, because it makes the buyer do the work of opening it.

A page you control also tells you what is happening. Which section a buyer opened, how long they
stayed, and what they clicked next are all answerable, and those answers should change the page.
Nothing else in this list gives you that.

Use your own domain if you can. It reads as a working band rather than a hobby, and it does not
disappear when a platform changes its terms.

The email that carries it

The page does not get read unless the message does. Keep it to four lines: who you are and what act
you cover, one sentence of proof that fits their room, the dates you are asking about, and the link.
Put the band name and the act in the subject line, because that is what gets it opened and later
found again in a search.

Send it to a named person. Follow up once, a week later, and then leave it. Bookers keep files.

Keep it current

A press kit is not a document you finish. Dates go stale, lineups change, and the best video you
have is usually the most recent one. Fix the date list and swap the top video every time you get
better footage. That single habit puts a band ahead of most of the acts it competes with, because
almost nobody does it.