Hey Guys,

Dan from Afton here, when Ryan and I founded Afton it was out of pure necessity. We couldn't get the kinds of shows that we wanted and the only answer was to start a production company. After that, we were overwhelmed by the number of artists who were facing the same problems that we were. Since then, we have spent literally thousands of hours working toward one primary goal--we want to help bands solve their problems and make it as easy as possible for them to achieve their definition of success. I'm proud to say that we consider the launch of this new Artist Resources website a huge step in this direction.

The vast majority of the strategies addressed on this site are tactics that we personally used to accomplish our goals as a band. The rest are new strategies that have been introduced to us since we stopped playing that we have seen work well for the artists we've worked with.

When we were working toward our musical goals, we used Audio Fliers instead of traditional paper fliers because we tested and saw how ineffective traditional paper fliers were--simply because people couldn't hear our music from a paper flier. We used Mailing List Cards instead of a sign-up sheet when we realized that it allowed us to reach many more people in the same amount of time. Ryan always walked off the front of the stage and headed back to the merch table right after our last song--and our drummer would always wait by the exit door and thank fans as they were leaving. We also gave special deals to our Mailing List fans if they brought out friends to our shows so that we could expand our fan base through our existing fans--and the list goes on.

All of these strategies yielded good results for us, and that's why we are comfortable recommending them. Conversely, there are plenty of widely used strategies that we found to be ineffective in achieving our goals--and for this reason we have intentionally excluded them from this site. If other strategies not listed on this site are working well for you, than our advice would be to keep using them. But we simply cannott in good conscience recommend strategies we personally found ineffective.

Time and time again we run across artists who are using the “same old” strategies and NOT getting the results they are looking for. If this is you, and what you have been doing is just not working, we urge you to try something else--try anything else, even if it's not listed on this site. If you keep using the same strategies you've always used you'll just keep getting the same results! There are effective ways to grow your fan base, sell more CD's, and create the career you want for yourself--but it's up to you to find what works best for you!

We look forward to working with you, whatever your goals are and whatever strategies you choose, we wish you the best of luck. Thank you for contributing to Local Music and for enriching peoples lives with your art.

Best regards,

Dan Robertson
Co-Founder AFTON, LLC

P.S.
For more information on how Ryan and I founded Afton and why, visit: About Afton