Get great performers for your TEDx event
At TEDxTUM we love to have at least one artistic performance per session on stage. Dynamic, creative experiences help to not only engage the audience but also digest the cognitive load from the talks during the day.
Unfortunately, getting performing artists can be quite challenging. 10–15 minutes on stage without getting paid doesn’t sound appealing to many of them. So how do we get great musicians, dancers or comedians to perform on a TEDx stage? Finding and convincing them is a challenge, that I can imagine many of us are facing.
In order to find out how to identify these artists and what would motivate them to perform on our stage, we talked to professional artists we know personally. Below you find the gist of what we learned from these conversations and what steps you can take to make your event more appealing to performing artists.
Focus on artists or projects that are just starting out
Our biggest mistake in the past was repeatedly offering musicians exposure and a video on a YouTube channel with >21 million subscribers. The gist of the conversations we had about this was as follows:
“The video and ‘exposure’ through a channel that is not geared towards the art world will not convince me to perform with a ‘mature’ project of mine. If I want a video for that, I would rather invest some money and get exactly what I want and then market it through more specific channels.”
Don’t stress the you get a free video part too much. Instead, focus on the two things that sounded most intriguing to the artists we talked to:
The local community is there to experience something new.
This is the perfect place to experiment with new ideas or projects. The audience is there to be inspired. As an artist, this gives you the unique chance to try something new without the need to be entertaining or the fear of failure. Worst case, people will remember “there was a weird performance but I guess that was their point”. As our 2018 performer Gustavo put it “This is such a warm and welcoming audience and everyone’s focus is completely on your art. It’s a perfect atmosphere to try out new ideas.”
Most of the audience (local and online) is not part of their typical audience.
This gives an artist the chance to reach a new audience and draw some people towards their art form. For instance, this year we are going to have a group of modern dance postgraduates on our stage performing a piece written specifically around our theme — because the head teachers at the dance school felt the need to convince the world that modern dance is something for everyone to enjoy. TEDx can be a platform to spread art into realms it would otherwise not reach. One great example for that is the most watched video on the TEDx YouTube channel: Beatboxer Tom Thum at TEDxSydney.
Where do you find these projects or musicians? Try to contact local art schools for music, dance, fine arts or film-making. When talking to artists, stress that you are looking for experimental, “close to the heart”-type projects. Projects that use art in context of a social project are also a great source of inspiration.
Make it feel like a Competition
As a young artist, you usually get offers from two types of non-paying events:
- Events that offer you exposure. This exposure is often very vague and you learn pretty quickly that those events are (most of the time) not worth it. Contributing to these events costs time, money and nerves.
- Competitions for which you have to hand in a sample of your work and if a jury likes it you get invited to an audition and have to convince them, that what you are doing is worth supporting. Often these competitions are focused around a very specific idea or topic and artists have to accommodate that. If you make it to the final round you can often use that as a selling point for potential future clients.
In the past, we made the mistake of marketing ourselves as part of the first category. We thought that we already had very few applications and that making the application process competitive would make things even worse. Finally, we built an application form similar to the one for our speakers — and to our surprise we got ten times as many performance applications as we did the years before. (You can check out the material we are using here.)
Another thing that makes performing at your TEDx feel more like a competition: Give your artists a creative challenge. Don’t just tell them to do ‘something cool on stage’. Communicate your theme to them early and ask them to tailor at least one part of their performance to it. You will be surprised about how much they get engaged with your event. Meet them multiple times throughout the year to discuss their ideas and give them feedback. You also do this with your speakers that have a similar amount of stage time. In the end, you will get something very unique for your audience and make your artists appreciate you a lot. And they might even brag about mastering the challenge of a TEDx performance to their peers. These referrals within the local artist community can be your ticket to a continued supply of outstanding, excited artists.
Make them feel that they are part of your event
Many artists we talked to are excited about getting involved in TEDx events. About connecting to the local community and being a part of this culture of spreading novel, surprising and sometimes challenging ideas. However, they also fear that they are just eye candy in-between the real thing. They often feel left out and not really appreciated by organizers.
Here’s how to set yourself apart: Treat your artists like you treat your speakers! Involve them in anything that you have planned for your speakers, give them the same information, the same perks, the same attention. This sounds super simple and obvious but really makes a big difference! An example: If you have something like a dinner or rehearsal night planned — invite your artists as well. Also: It helps to tell them explicitly that there are multiple ways to communicate an idea and that art is one of them.
Be professional!
Our challenge as speaker-centric event is that we often know close to nothing about the needs of an artist on stage. The obvious solution: ask them. Ask them early on what they need. Also: keep asking them several times whether anything changed. Artist’s needs often change during the creative process.
To get you started on what to ask them, here are some things that are often overlooked:
Artists tend to have a unique warm-up process.
Ask them early on how much time they need to get ready and whether they have special needs in doing so. A group of dancers might be on stage for 10 minutes only, but might still need 40 minutes of warm up time in order for them not to hurt themselves. A drum corps might need some space far away from the stage so they are not audible when doing their warm up.
Artists often require or are used to special equipment that is typical in their field.
Check very early what exactly they need: what kind of audio cables, how many power supplies, what kind of microphone, which type of sound monitor, what kind of floor are they expecting, how much space do they need on stage? Sound is crucial and much more tricky for live music. Talk to your sound technician early to avoid typical pitfalls and make sure you find some time to do a proper sound check.
Check and discuss how you record the artists (audio and video).
There is nothing worse than luring in an artist in with a nice video on YouTube and then that video ending up being something that they don’t like.
At TEDxTUM we are now in our second year implementing these changes and we can already see a huge improvement in the professionalism of artists in our lineup as well as how engaged they are with our event. All three performances of our upcoming 2019 event have composed, orchestrated or choreographed special pieces just for our audience and are super excited about our event. They are sharing their participation on social media even more enthusiastically than our speakers and have become real TEDxTUM ambassadors. We can’t wait to see them on stage.
By making it competitive to become part of your event, including artists as much as your speakers in preparations and asking them what they need, you will motivate them to see your stage as an opportunity rather than another unpaid gig. If you do a good job, they will tell their fellow artists about it. So this is our take on motivating great artists to share their unique projects on a TEDx stage.
What are your experiences with performances on stage? Do you have any comments or advice about finding and motivating them?
