Dunc on Flyering

The second of Autumn Store Dunc’s guides to putting on a DIY gig or club night is up, this time on the art of flyering and it’s a damn good one.

The humble flyer is still the most important bit of paper in the independent promoters arsenal. Posters can be too easily ignored, but putting a flyer into someone’s hand actually makes people make a decision about a night and whether they want to go. Chances are it’ll be a probably not – but they’ve had to take in the information to make that decision. A flyer will also follow them home if they take it and maybe even adorn the fridge making it less likely they’ll forget that the event is on and why they would want to go.

He goes through decisions about format, paper quality (the balance between expensive or quantity), distributions strategies (with the promise of a list of suitable venues in Birmingham to target) and using them online.

Of particular note is something that hadn’t occurred to me. Birmingham City Council recently brought in a law where leafleting in public is illegal without a £250 permit. This is ostensibly to limit the amount of rubbish on the high street but it also applies to giving out flyers outside gigs, especially if you’re not involved with the gig in question, and you could be fined £2,500. Of course the likelihood of an inspector being outside the Barfly at midnight is slim but it’s something to be aware of.

Personally I like the idea that a flyer is a concentrated information burst. Everything you might want to know about the gig should be on there from web addresses to a mobile number for information, not to mention hooks for what the event might be like. Flyers are like business cards, only nicer and without the wanky connotations. And, of course, they can be lovely art objects.

Anyway, read and digest.