Growing your group and audiences

To audition or not to audition: approaches to assessing members' musical ability

Many music groups choose to assess potential members in a variety of different ways – from a simple voice test, to a trial period or a full blown audition. The benefit of these approaches is that by ensuring certain levels of ability are reached, your group can aspire to a performance of a higher standard, and this in turn presents a challenging and rewarding experience for your members.

Tips for designing a website for your group, part 3: Visibility

In the final part of our three-part guide on creating a website, we'll cover ways to increase the visibility of your website to bring in more visitors; something worth thinking about before you start to build your site, as well as when you're looking to make ongoing improvements to it in the future.

We'll start by looking at how to make sure your pages are appealing to search engines, move on to using social media and inbound links, then cover how you can apply for free advertising from Google and finally look at ways to monitor your progress.

Tips for designing a website for your group, part 2: Design and copy

Now that you've worked out what you and your users both need on your website (see part 1), you're ready to move on to what it might look like and how you might display your content to users. Whether you're creating it from scratch, choosing a ready-made template or paying a professional, these tips will help you evaluate your design options and make your site as effective as possible.

Free event poster templates

If you struggle to put together posters for your concerts, we've created these templates in Word to help you on the way.

Top five tips for designing posters

A poster isn’t just for showing the details of an event (often it isn’t even mostly for showing the details of an event): it’s for enticing people into wanting to go.

Making Music Platform

An all-in-one online admin tool and website to help you run your group. Manage your members, plan your activities, take card payments, promote events and much more - everything you need in one place. 

    Survey Results: Young People and Participation in Amateur Music Groups

    Research published today by Making Music sheds new light on the obstacles amateur music groups face when attracting younger members.

    Ticketing case study: Sidmouth Concert Society pricing strategy reverses membership decline

    Stephen Huyshe-Shires of promoting member group Sidmouth Concert Society explains how they reversed a decline in membership by investigating the cause and adjusting ticketing options to address the key problem.

    Marketing your events – a step-by-step guide

    You’ve picked a date, booked a venue, agreed on a programme, and now it’s time to get cracking with ticket sales. This guidance will lead you through a set of steps to help you effectively market your events.  

    Audience development case study: Bristol Choral Society 'Mini Messiah' concerts

    Robert Convey of member group Bristol Choral Society explains how they have begun to create the audiences and music makers of the future with their Mini Messiah concerts.