How to Take Your Brand Into a New City and Actually Own It

Alf Marcussen

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Jun 5 • ❓ Questions

Most promoters think the hard part of expanding to a new city is the venue.

It's not. The hard part is that nobody there knows your name yet.

In your home market you've got history. People show up because they trust you.

In a new city you're starting at zero, and the crowd has no reason to care.

I learned this packing 5,000 people into San Francisco City Hall on Halloween, and dozens of times before that on smaller rooms. None of it happened because I had a great flyer.

....It happened because I knew the right people in the room before I ever threw the party.

So here's the real question when you walk into a new market.

Do you have contacts there?

Not followers.

Contacts.

The movers and shakers, the people who already pull a crowd, the ones plugged into the social scene every single weekend.

Because the fastest way into a new city is not to compete with what's already working.

It's to collaborate with it, then build something nobody there has seen yet.

Before you read on, do this. Write down the top three things you genuinely do well as an organizer.

Now write down the top three things that scare you about a brand new market.

Be honest. That list is your map.

Now let me talk about a move most people miss.

When you've got real pull, you don't have to fill a new room alone.

You bring in the other promoters. I would take on a big event myself, carry the risk, produce the whole thing, then pull in the strongest organizers in the city, each one with their own crowd.

Suddenly the room is bigger than anything I could have built by myself, and everybody wins.

But you only get there by building something those promoters actually want to be part of.

You study what they're doing, you find the gap nobody's filling, and you create the event they wish they had thought of first. That's how you go from outsider to the name everyone wants to work with.

Here's the part almost nobody does, and it's the part that separates a flop from a packed house.

Before you commit a dollar to a new city, do your homework with the actual partygoers.

Go to the existing events.

Stand in the crowd.

Watch what they respond to and what falls flat.

Talk to them.

What do they love about their scene?

What's missing?

What would they drive an hour for?

Get the feel of the room before you ever rent it.

The market will tell you exactly what to build if you bother to listen first.

Now keep going on your own situation.

Do you have access to venues there, and better yet, unique venues you can lock in before anyone else gets them?

Do you know anyone inside the local colleges?

What is your signature event, the one thing people would cross town for?

Who is your clientele, and are there sponsors who would pay real money to put their product in front of that exact crowd?

Here's the part nobody can shortcut. You can read every article on the internet about expanding to a new city. You can ask any tool you want for a step by step plan.

What you can't download is having actually done it, the mistakes, the relationships, the feel for a room full of people.

That only comes from doing it, and it's the part that wins.

A new city doesn't reward the loudest promoter.

It rewards the one who studied the market, made the right friends first, brought the right people together, and put something fresh on the table.

So study the market.

Make the friends.

Then throw the party only you could throw.

That's how a brand travels.

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How to Take Your Brand Into a New City and Actually Own It