I used to play shows all the time. Over 150 of them. I toured with DMX and Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. I had a 7-piece band. I spent 8 years in Nashville and 4 in LA grinding it out in the music industry. Then COVID happened, life happened, and suddenly six years went by without me stepping on a single stage.
Six years.
If you're reading this, maybe you know the feeling. Maybe it's been two years for you. Maybe ten. Maybe you never stopped wanting to play. you just stopped knowing how to get back in.
The Guilt Nobody Talks About
There's this weird shame that builds up when you stop performing. You still call yourself a musician, but a voice in the back of your head says "are you though?" You haven't played a show since before the pandemic. Your gear is dusty. Your contacts are stale. The venues you used to play might not even exist anymore.
And the longer you wait, the harder it feels to start again. Because now you're not just booking a show. you're staging a comeback that nobody asked for.
I get it. I lived it.
What Actually Changed
The music industry didn't wait for me. The venues I used to know have new bookers. The artists I used to tour with moved on. The whole landscape shifted while I was on the sidelines. Starting over at zero felt humiliating for someone with my resume.
But here's what I realized: the actual mechanics of booking a show haven't changed. You still need to find a venue. You still need to email a booker. You still need a short pitch with your music, your draw estimate, and your available dates. The formula is the same. it's just tedious as hell.
And that's the part that stopped me. Not fear. Not imposter syndrome. Just the sheer exhaustion of knowing I'd have to spend weeks researching venues, hunting down booker emails, writing pitches, and following up with people who probably wouldn't respond.
So I built a tool to do it for me.
What I Built
I taught myself to code and built Shows For Artists. an AI-powered booking system that does exactly what I used to do manually, but faster and without the emotional weight of cold emailing strangers.
You sign up, tell it your genre and your city, and it matches you with real venues that book your kind of music. Then it writes personalized booking emails. not generic templates, actual personalized pitches using your artist name, your sound, your comparable artists. and sends them from your own Gmail account.
When a venue doesn't respond (which is most of the time, and that's normal), it follows up automatically after 5 days. Because I know from experience that most artists give up after one email, and most bookings happen after the third or fourth touch.
The whole thing runs on autopilot. You set your pace. 1, 2, or 3 emails per day. and it handles the rest while you do literally anything else.
This Isn't Just About Me
I built this for myself, but I quickly realized I'm not the only one who needed it.
There's the construction worker in Ohio who used to play drums in a rock band. He's 48. He has the money to pay for studio time and the talent to fill a bar. He just doesn't have the time or energy to cold email venues after a 10-hour shift.
There's the retired guy in Florida who started a cover band at church. He's never booked a show in his life and doesn't know where to start. The whole process feels like learning a foreign language.
There's the 19-year-old singer in Atlanta who writes incredible songs but has never been on a stage. She's terrified of the booking process because every guide online assumes you already know the jargon.
And there's me. A Grammy Voting Member with 150+ shows under my belt who let six years slip by because the administrative burden of booking felt heavier than the music itself.
The Comeback Starts With One Email
If you've been off stage for a while. whether it's been six months or six years. the path back is simpler than you think. One venue. One email. One show. That's all it takes to remember why you started playing in the first place.
You can do it yourself. Google some venues, find a booker's email, write a short pitch, and hit send. Follow up if they don't respond. Repeat. It works. It's just slow.
Or you can let AI handle the grunt work and spend your time rehearsing, writing, and getting ready to play the show you've been thinking about for years.
Shows For Artists. from $49/month. Get a venue reply in 30 days or your money back.