Interested?

For more infomation about promotion training click here

For the Singles Club click here and tell us about your band. We're want to know things like your ages (if you're still under 18) how long you've been together, what gigs, if any, you've done, what the ambitions of the band are, etc etc.

Please also give us a link to where we can hear you on the web, or some live dates that you've got coming up or even just write to us telling us about the band and include a cd or cassette from a rehearsal. We're not listening for recording quality, we're listening for potential and enthusiasm. 

Send to: 

pdm futures

Shared Release Club

We’ve secured funding to trial a shared release singles club

The objective is a 2/300 press CD single (2 or 3 bands, 2 songs each) produced every two or three months tied in to a launch gig.

This will be for, mainly, Luton bands (as some of the money for this is coming though the Arts Unit of Luton Borough Council) who’ve not recorded before or who haven’t recorded in a while. We’ll start by putting put bands on at pdm gigs at the Hat Factory partly by way of helping us see what bands we think are right for recording and partly to make sure that they can gig to back up the release of the cd.

We will then pick two or three bands every few months to be included on a shared release. We will arrange the following:

·One days subsidised recording per band . The recording won’t be free for bands but it will be as cheap as we can negotiate it and there will be some contribution to the cost from the funding we’ve got.
·Duplication of CDs
·Distribution of some CDs to people with experience of music industry for constructive comment
·We're also going to try and liase with download sites to make the songs available for purchase as downloads.
.Launch gig at the Hat Factory

The cds that are produced will be sold by the bands or us (or both) and we’ll do something like a 50/50 split of the profits (again with any money coming our way going back into the next release)

The funding we’ve secured covers the first two releases with the option of further funding if they are successful, both in terms of bands reporting that they’ve got extra work from being involved, sales of the cd or downloads or any other success measures that we come up with as we develop the idea.

Promotion Training

We secured funding to work with the Headstart training team www.headstartproject.org to set up a training/mentoring scheme to help bands and individuals to learn the basics of live music promotion and through that the best ways to promote themselves.

Participants will learn:

How to put on their own gig at any venue
What promoters are looking for and how best to approach promoters
Basics of marketing to enable them to promote their band or their gigs
Differing roles of Promoter and Performer and how the two work together

There’ll be a one day training session covering issues such as:

·Venues
·Staffing
·Equipment
·PA/Engineer
·Promotion (fliers, internet, adverts, press releases etc)
·Insurance cover (whether own or as T&C)
·Budgeting
·Choosing a line up
·Negotiating/Deciding on payments

We will then work with each participant to set a venue and date for a gig that they will promote. Well also work with them while they sort out the line up, arrange promotion etc.

On day of event we’ll be there to support them to ensure that the gig runs as well as possible

Profits from the gig will be split between the participant and pdm.

Luton Presents

As well as pdm looking at gig swaps with other towns, as we know that some bands want to play outside of Luton, we’re working with the Arts Unit to look at the possibility of putting on occasional Luton bands shows in London venues where the Arts Unit will help us to target promotion etc to A&R teams, publishers, managers etc. There’s never a guarantee that the industry bods will turn up but if we can make it as easy as possible for them to do so, and tell them about it, there’s more of a chance.

So, that’s pdm futures.

You can help, please!! As we’re a voluntary organisation you can volunteer to help out with some of the things that are going on. For example, if you’re an experienced gig getter or Promoter you could help out as a Mentor for the people doing the training and putting on their own gigs or offer to help out on the training day sharing your experiences. If you’re a Promoter you could commit to including bands from the shared release cd on your bills so that they get a bit more experience? Do you run a recording studio and if so can you offer a good deal on a days recording so that we can make it as affordable as possible for bands to be involved in the shared release?

If you've got this far, thanks. I hope that you think that it's all as exciting as we do and I hope that you'll be involved in making this all happen and be successful.