Chase stands at the top of the staircase at New Trier High School. His arms full of fliers promoting his bands last show at the local KOC. As the 3 o'clock bell rings and the staircase becomes filled with eager kids, the confetti starts to fall.
This is a scene of a decade long ago, where kids learned of local all age events from posters and fliers distributed at school. Now they are restricted to event invites from friends on Facebook. But if their friends are not into music like them, how are they getting into the network that has all the cool kids that send out the events? They don't.
According to Eleesa Steiner, an 8th grader at Bessie Allen Middle School, "We aren't allowed to put up posters on the walls, only school stuff can go there. I've never received a flier from any kids, probably cause we'd have to carry them with us, we can't stick them in backpacks, cause that isn't allowed either." When asked if she even knew about the local concert a band she "likes" on Facebook had recently, she couldn't recall getting the event invitation. Obviously Facebook doesn't work to get the news out there about a show as well as we'd all like to think it does. Maybe it is safe to say the old school way works, no pun intended.
Before graduating from my high school the ban on non school related posters was enacted, and I saw the decline in attendance at the local shows. We couldn't hand out fliers during school hours, we couldn't put up posters on the community bulletin board, and in our city we sure couldn't put them on a telephone pole by school or risk a littering charge per flier if put on car windshields. There was no way to promote shows. As this decline in marketing occurred we were now doing other things rather than supporting our favorite local bands. The number of bands performing went down, and the scene moved into an underground punk scene that is still in that stance today, ten years later.
Schools are pushing their music programs but are stifling the local young music scene by taking away their marketing streams. Would grocery stores be so successful if they couldn't advertise in the local newspaper? If your target market is at a school, you have to find a way to get to them and let them know about your product. I've seen bands resorting to setting up their instruments at near by houses to hand out fliers to students, or show up at football games to hand out fliers. What have you seen done by students to avoid the school ban on fliers? Have you seen a shift in age brackets at local shows since schools started being more restrictive in your area? Please share you experiences, thoughts, and concerns.
