Few people have the ability to get up in front of people with no fear from the start. The vast majority of people would have a very hard time playing a show in front of a stadium crowd without having played in front of smaller crowds first and working their way up. Thankfully, most musicians don’t start out playing Giant’s Stadium.
In the beginning, you play small clubs to a few people – which is good, because you probably aren’t nearly as good with a crowd as you should be. The smaller the crowd, the fewer the people who will see you while you’re still trying to get comfortable as a performer.
As you progress, if you’re promoting yourself effectively, your crowds will get bigger and your confidence as a performer will increase. You’ll have tons of experience on a stage and it will start to become easier to work a crowd. The more you play, the more you’ll be able to see what moves a crowd and what doesn’t and you can work on developing the things that work while shedding the things that don’t.
If you’re conscious of this then, when you’re ready to move up to bigger venues, you’ll be able to adapt to the larger audiences.
If your career gets to the point that you can draw enough to fill a larger club, you will be able ease your way into being comfortable playing larger venues. While you might not have enough drawing power to fill an arena or stadium, you can still play them on a lesser scale by playing festivals. Most festival shows are comprised of musical acts that have a decent following. Promoters will put these shows together by packaging several bands into one large venue. Since these bands fill clubs, they can collectively fill stadiums, arenas and fairgrounds.
Festival sets are typically shorter than club sets (for headlining acts), so there isn’t as much pressure. Besides being easier, you’ll have a chance to gain experience playing to a huge crowd. Should you ever get the chance to get to the big show by yourself, you won’t go in green.
The other path to growth as a performer is as an opening act for larger bands. This is more difficult as many of the people in the crowd are there to see the headliner and may not be open to the rest of the bill. The benefit of playing these shows is that you’re playing a larger show than you’d be able to play by yourself. You’ll get exposure, of course, but to get the best out of these shows you’ll need to try to win over the crowd. If you can turn a crowd from disinterested to captivated, you’ll have grown exponentially as a performer.
The idea here is not to become impatient trying to play bigger and better shows as soon as possible. A gradual progression, if approached as a path of growth, can be an invaluable education. As a result, your career may even move along more quickly because you’re concentrating on improving yourself as a performer. A better performer will attract more of a fan base than a poor performer ever could.
