What a booker reads in thirty seconds: the one-page press kit

I have been on both sides of the press kit. As a violinist I have sent my own to venues and festivals, and as a producer of concerts and cultural programs in New York I have read a great many of them. The ones that got a reply were rarely the most elaborate. They were the ones a busy person could understand in half a minute.

That is the real brief for an electronic press kit, or EPK: one page that answers a booker's or an editor's questions in the order they ask them. Here is that order, and what belongs at each step.

1. One line that says what you are

Before anything else, the reader wants to place you. Not a mood or a mission statement, but a line a promoter could paste straight into a listing: Nordic folk violinist and composer, four-piece post-punk band from Tartu, jazz trio playing Estonian runic songs. Add where you are based and your genre underneath, and the reader already knows whether to keep going.

2. A photo they can actually use

Festivals print posters and editors crop for columns, so the photo has to survive both. Send one that is at least 1,500 pixels wide, sharp, well lit and recent, with the photographer's name so it can be credited. If you can, have a landscape and a portrait version. A dark live shot with three people half out of frame looks atmospheric on Instagram and is useless on a poster.

3. Two short paragraphs, in the third person

Write the bio the way a program note or a newspaper would quote it, in the third person, so it can be lifted without editing. The first sentence says who you are and what a show feels like. The second gives one reason to believe it. Everything after that is optional, and most readers stop after the first paragraph anyway. Somewhere between 40 and 220 words is enough.

4. Proof, not adjectives

"Mesmerizing" and "genre-defying" tell a booker nothing. One concrete fact does more: a festival you played, a venue you sold out, an artist you opened for, an award, or a single quote from a publication with its name attached. Two or three of these, set apart from the bio, make everything else on the page believable.

5. Two places to listen, and one live video

Give a streaming link and one other, such as Bandcamp or your own site, rather than every platform you are on. Then add a live video, even a simple one. Promoters want to see what you look like on a stage and how a room reacts, and a studio track cannot show them that.

6. A contact that reaches a person

A booking email at the top of the contact block, and management, label or press contacts underneath if you have them. Make sure the address is one somebody reads. A press kit with no working email cannot do its only job.

What to leave out

• The full story. The long biography belongs on your website. The press kit links to it.
• Every release and every link. Choose the best two places to listen and the one video that sells the show.
• A shared folder. A Google Drive link full of loose files asks the reader to do your layout for you. Put the essentials on one page and add the folder as an extra if you must.
• Heavy attachments. A 40 MB PDF often never arrives. One page with a compressed photo travels well.

PDF or web page?

Both, ideally. A PDF is what you attach to an email and what a festival files away. A web page is what you link from your bio and update when a new quote or date comes in. They should say the same things.

Build yours in a few minutes

I built a free EPK Builder that follows exactly this order. Fill in a short form, pick one of three looks, and save a one-page press kit as a PDF or a web page. It also checks the eight things bookers look for first and tells you what is still missing. There is no sign-up, and nothing is uploaded: your photo and your draft stay in your browser.

If you would rather have a full artist website, with your press kit, music, shows and store in one place, write to me.