Southern Gospel Promoters Association

SGPA - Jul 06

Greetings from the SGPA

I am pleased to announce that concert attendance is up. More and more promoters are experiencing larger crowds and, therefore, the financial losses are shrinking.

I have had eight concerts thus far this year and they have all been successful with no losses. However, I have made some changes in my approach to promoting. I will no longer sign a contract for an artist’s fee that I feel is too high. If I lost money on an artist last year, then I am certainly not going to make the same mistake twice. We can and should negotiate and I am finding that the artists understand and are willing to work with me as long as I shoot straight with them.

I am also exploring new avenues of advertising. I am putting forth a lot of time and effort in the churches and it is really paying off. For too long now promoters have advertised in the same manner that they have been doing for years and it simply does not work. I have been meeting with Pastors recently and explaining that we must have the support from our churches if gospel concerts are going to survive. I have been pleasantly surprised at their willingness to cooperate. We give the pastor and wife complimentary tickets as well as a discounted price to the church members, and always recognize the group and seat them together. If more than one pastor is in attendance, one usually opens our concerts with prayer and another closes with prayer.

Some of the churches are now handling tickets in their church offices for us. I have an out-of-town concert coming up and the area church members have already in advance filled two buses, a total of 94, to attend.

I have formed a DJ Association for gospel DJs within a 50-mile radius of my concerts wherein we have free DJ parties recognizing the DJs and their wives for dinner, fun and games with gifts. We provide free passes to the DJs for all our concerts. I continue to purchase radio advertising, but the friendship and extra emphasis we receive over the years is well worth the cost. We rotate the DJs as emcees and include them as part of our events.

I handled the Gold City Homecoming recently - a huge two-day event and I spent lots of time with some new fresh ideas. We even had a large church to host the event with Bro. David Denson at North Glencoe Baptist Church in the Gadsden, Alabama area. We had great support from this church. Other churches saw that we were including the church community and began to jump on board. Thus, we had a very successful event and have begun preparation for next year. I am also leaning heavily on internet and websites in my promotions. I am from the old school and change is difficult for me, but I have learned the hard way that I really do not know it all.

I have discovered that the more new ideas that I incorporate, the larger my attendance becomes at my concerts. I urge everyone not to be afraid to try something new. You never know, it might just work. I am doing less and less grumbling and complaining, and more and more positive planning and my concerts are getting better and better.

I am also seeing a real outpouring of the Holy Spirit in my concerts. People are really being fed. My hat is off to the Kingsmen for the great job they did at a recent concert with me. It was a complete package - bringing back the old songs along with the new. It was entertaining, yet the guys could see that the Lord was in the service and completely let Him lead. It was great. It is our top priority that we never lose sight of the most important part of our concert - the Spiritual side.

Visit our website at http://www.sgpromoters.com . UNITED WE STAND!

God bless,
Jim Hefner