I never did marketing for a music event myself, but if I'm to I'll go with a simple approach. Let's sort things out..
Niche : music / entertainment / public events
Sub niche : X artist / X music genre / events or concerts in X city
Who're the target audience?
People on your city who are interested in attending such events, fans of the artist or type of music.
Laser targeting : people in your city who attend events regularly and are fans of who/what you're going to feature.
If you can find related previous event pages, websites or even YouTube videos; get the info, scrap the users if possible to target later, gather as much possible info regarding these events so you'll have better insights about your market.
Broad targeting: everyone in your city/country, the local and global artist/genre fanbase.
Things should be determined according to your desired result, event size and any other related procedures.
Do your due research and you should have better insights about how big is your audience, the expected attendees, their ages, other interests, etc.. and possibly you'll also have a good list of contacts and prospects that you can target.
How to reach the target audience?
Social networks: you know what social networks are the most popular for your geo and target audience. Mostly facebook is the best for such thing, but if your locale prefers twitter you should be going with that too.
Make your pages, paid ads targeting your audience, outreach related pages or influencers to promote your event.
Many fanbages for your artists or groups for local events will be happy to promote your event for little (maybe a free ticket, giving them permission to take photos, videos and make a coverage?).
May it be local magazines, influencers or anybody who's into making content or media covering your niche would be interested happy to sponsor your event for exchange of getting exclusive content and/or a disclosed fee.
YouTube: works great in music niches. A teaser video is a must, some paid ads for that targeting your desired audience might work good. Post coverage of your event is good if you're going for the long run and wants to build reputation/authority.
Other marketing channels: you know where your audience hangs online or what apps / services they use the most. Even music streaming could work as a channel for your paid advertising, know the facts, Find out what's popular, converting best for your targeted audience and use that for manual/paid reach out.
Offline channels: for local exposure
The same approach; you know where your audience hang out, may it be clubs, bars, other music venues or everywhere around the city. Printables still work.
I was part of a campaign for a local event, it was a cycling marathon (in my city this have a good audience). One of the things I did was flyers with event name/date and a qr code leading to the event landing page, 10% discount for anyone with the flyer, spread those to some places where I know my audience hang. The expenses; printing fees+ gave owners of these places a couple free invitation.
Making money opportunities
The direct revenue is your ticket sales and that solely depends on the number of attendees. The exposure and attention the event gets would be a good plus if you're planning to go into that for the long run, hosting more events, etc..
What else could be done? Think what your audience will look for.
Mainly, merchandise, food and beverage are common.
Merchandise could be utilised for marketing purpose easily. Quality stuff, freebies, just be creative about it, find what could work best for your audience and what might provide additional sponsoring and marketing or money opportunities.
Food and beverage follow the same route; find what works best, sponsored place, rented space, etc...
Summary;
- Better to stop reading any other marketing guides and See what other music events do. Watch some videos, documentaries about events and the music industry in general you'll find out more valuable info.
- ppc works fine, manual reach out each and every prospect will help you maximize the exposure and hence the profit.
- Freebies and offers work great, just be creative about it.
- The place hosting the event, the artists, any partners involved can play a big role in marketing and sponsoring the event for a fraction of the actual cost. Also, these provide a huge opportunity for additional money.
- if you're in for the long term, try to build authority and gain reputation from the very first moment.
