We don’t have an ‘application’ process for playing at Stockton Calling; so emailing or ringing us, without us knowing who you are, will probably be a waste of time. The same goes for messages via Facebook or other social media… it clogs up our inboxes – and we’d rather people visited our website and read this advice page.
Stockton Calling is a great event for Stockton and the wider Teesside area to enjoy. Apart for its first year (when nobody had heard about it) Stockton Calling has sold out EVERY YEAR… with audience numbers in excess of 1,500 people making sure they get their tickets each time. We always aim to reward the loyalty of our audience with the very best emerging artists that our area has to offer.
We get offered lots of artists through professional agents and we also work with some great promoters from the Teesside area – who we ask to put line-ups together in some of our venues.
The best way for any band or artist to get a slot at Stockton Calling is to develop a relationship with the venues and promoters that come together to stage the festival each year…
Don’t just contact us in the weeks before the event – attend gigs at The Georgian Theatre, ARC or KU during the rest of the year – find out who puts their line-ups together and make contact with them…and find out who puts the line-ups together for our other stages; maybe attending some of the gigs that they promote to make contact…
It’s unlikely that we’ll programme anyone into Stockton Calling who hasn’t played a few successful gigs around Teesside beforehand – and by successful gigs, we mean attracting 50 or more people to a gig where people pay to enter.
Putting on an event such as Stockton Calling costs tens of thousands of pounds – we need to balance the books each year; otherwise the event just can’t survive.
We don’t receive any funding to promote the festival – all of its costs are covered by ticket income and a small element of sponsorship.
We need to book artists that are at a point in their careers that will attract a decent amount of ticket buying people to come and see them… that’s the harsh reality of programming gigs nowadays.
If you follow the advice above, it will put you closer to getting a gig in future years – but above all, play some cracking local gigs and start creating a buzz about yourself so that we hear about you and know who you are… that way, we’ll probably contact you…