The last thing any of us needs is more to do outside of playing, so here's where I'd list your gigs, from someone who'd much rather be playing than typing the same date into five websites.
It's not your job to make that pub busy, but you still advertise it and you let people know that you're playing there. Listing your gigs is how you do that part.
Start with one calendar
Everything I do starts in one place. I definitely keep two different diaries to make sure they're separate, one for my life and one for gigs, because I rely very heavily on my diary being up to date and accurate. Google, Apple and Outlook calendars are made by big companies that know what they're doing. They're free, and the same calendar can be connected to other places, not just one. Pick a calendar, put the gig in once, and share it everywhere.
That matters more than which websites you pick, because a listing that's wrong does real damage. I had someone come to my gig and say "oh, we thought you were starting an hour earlier." The time zone on one of the links through to my website was set differently, so one part of the site showed the right time and another showed my gig starting an hour early. I might not have noticed that off my own back. Real fans pointed it out, and I had to fix it when I got home.
Your own website
Your website is the one place nobody can take away from you, and the gig list on it should look after itself. I cancelled my website subscription with Bandzoogle, because with Claude I was able to build a brand-new website that was slick and automatically updated. I add a gig to my calendar and it appears on the site on its own. If you want to build one like it, I wrote up exactly how in Build a Gig-Synced Musician Website in a Weekend.
Social media, on the day
I started off with a simple automation to grab gig dates from a free Google calendar and post the information as a story on the day of each gig, which saved me a ton of time.
What it won't do on its own is reach everyone. I have 11,000 followers on Instagram and I know only about 10% will ever see one of my posts, so social media is one place for a gig, not the only place. I've written about automating music promotion and how it wasn't all plain sailing.
An email list
An email goes to people who've asked to hear from you, which is more than a social post can promise. I send The Soundcheck every Sunday with what I've been up to and where I'm playing next. I used to spend about three hours after my gig on a Sunday night trying to put that email together, and after a few weeks I just burned out. Now I dictate my week and it goes over to my mailing service, which schedules it. If you keep a list, put your next few gigs in every email you send.
The big listing sites
There are plenty of places built for listing gigs, and they each do a slightly different job.
- Facebook events. Make the event on your own page and people can say they're going, and the venue can share it to its followers.
- Bandsintown and Songkick. Both are built around fans following an artist and hearing about dates near them, and you add your dates through their artist tools.
- GigPig. If a pub books you through GigPig, the gig is listed there already.
- The venue's own page. Share whatever the pub posts about your night, and ask them to tag you.
They're all worth knowing. The catch for me was the typing. For years I'd been putting the same gig on Facebook, Instagram, my website and a couple of listings sites, one after the other, and by the time it was done I'd got nothing left for the songs.
Where fave.rocks fits
So this is my go at fixing it. On fave.rocks, if you perform, run a venue or host a night, you connect the calendar you already keep and your gigs go on your page without you having to lift a finger. Updating your calendar updates the site. It works with Google, Apple and Outlook calendars, and the page is free.
Every gig in that calendar shows up on your page, on the venue's page and on the town page for wherever you're playing. Anyone signed up as a fan within 10 miles of the gig gets it in one email on a Monday morning, and so does anyone who has faved you, wherever they are. People can tap a button on your page to subscribe to all your gigs in their own calendar, and there's a widget you can put on your own website so your gig list there keeps itself up to date from the same diary.
The only thing it asks of you is to write each gig the same way: the venue and the town in the title, like The Crown, Dorking. That's how the site knows which pub you mean, because there are hundreds of Red Lions. Private bookings stay private too. Put the word Private in the title and the place is never shown, and you choose whether even the date appears.
None of this replaces your website, your socials or your email list. It's one more place your gigs appear, and it's the one I don't have to type anything into. If you're starting from scratch, start with the calendar, and if you want somewhere for those gigs to land straight away, make a free page and have a play around. Tell me what you like and what you don't.