The venue pitch: a template that gets a yes

A venue reading your email is answering two questions and only two. Will this fill the room and take money at the bar, and will this person cause me problems with my neighbours, my licence or my staff. Every good pitch answers both directly. Most pitches answer neither, because they spend their space describing the music.

The six things to include

1. Who you are, with evidence

Give one line and one link. A previous event page, a series, a page showing what you have programmed. If this is your first, say so plainly and lean on the artists' track record instead of pretending to have one.

2. The date, and alternatives

Lead with it. The first thing they do is check the calendar, so make that possible in the first two lines. Offer two or three options and put a midweek option among them.

3. The headcount, honestly

The most important number in the email. Give a realistic range and say where it comes from: past events, artist followings, an existing mailing list, a residency's regulars. "We expect 120 to 180, our last three at Bar X did 140, 165 and 190" is worth more than any adjective in the paragraph above it.

Do not inflate. A venue that plans staffing for 300 and gets 90 remembers it, and the correction is more expensive than the honest number would have been.

4. The night itself

Two or three lines. Genre, format, timings, the artists, why this room. The "why this room" part matters more than people think: it shows you have been there and are not sending the same email to thirty venues.

5. The deal you are proposing

Name it. "We would be looking for a door split with the bar to you" is a starting position and invites a counter. "What are your rates?" makes them do your work and gets a rate card.

6. The operational reassurance

The part nobody includes and everyone should. Two sentences that say you know how a night works: who is running the door, that you will respect the sound curfew, that you have run this before, that you will handle your own promotion. This is what separates a booking from a risk.

A worked example

Subject: Saturday 14 March, techno night, 150 to 200 expected

Hi [name],

I run [night], a dub techno and ambient series that has been at [venue] for the last eight months. Last three editions did 140, 165 and 190 through the door: [link to previous event].

I would like to bring it to [their venue] on Saturday 14 March, with 21 and 28 March as alternatives. It is a 23:00 to 06:00 night, three residents plus one guest, and it suits your back room specifically because the sound down there is right for it and the garden gives people somewhere to go at 3am.

Expected headcount is 150 to 200. Our crowd drinks and stays late, and the bar at [previous venue] has averaged around [figure] across the series.

I would be looking for a door split with the bar to you, though I am open to how you normally structure this. We handle all promotion, bring our own door team of two, and have never had an issue with a sound curfew.

Happy to come by this week and see the room properly.

[name, phone, link]

What to leave out

• Your passion for music. Everyone emailing them has that.
• A long artist biography. A link is enough at this stage.
• An attached deck. For a first email, attachments reduce the chance of a reply.
• Vague headcounts. "A good crowd" tells them nothing and reads as a dodge.
• Anything you cannot deliver. The overpromise gets remembered longer than the event.

Following up

Venues are slow, and it is rarely personal. Follow up once after five to seven days, once more after another week, then stop and move down your list. Two follow-ups is normal professional persistence.

If the answer is no, ask one question: is there a night that would work better? A no to Saturday is frequently a yes to Wednesday, and a Wednesday residency is a better outcome than a one-off Saturday anyway.

When you have no track record at all

Three substitutes work.

• Borrow credibility. Lead with the artists and their followings, or a collective you are part of.
• Ask for the slot nobody wants. Midweek, early evening, the back room. Lower stakes, easier yes.
• Take on the risk. Offer a guarantee or a bar minimum you can genuinely cover. It converts your lack of history into their certainty, and it is the fastest way in if you can afford it.