Wear the band's logo t-shirt while gigging?

[Greg Edwards69]

13 hours ago, Norris said:

Sounds like you need to print a QR code on your shirts. We have a laminated sheet with a QR code that takes people to our Facebook page - it's quite popular

The though has crossed my mind!

 

I need to do a new batch of business cards or postcards that we can hand out. But I need to decide whether to steer people to the website or fb page. 
 

Although I am a designer, and have worked in branding for many years, actual marketing isn’t one of my skills. 

[Ed_S]

18 hours ago, Greg Edwards69 said:

But I need to decide whether to steer people to the website or fb page.

 

I'd stick to the main website address in human-readable text, and then for the QR just buy another cheap domain linked to the band, generate the QR code for that and use web forwarding in the hosting tools to point the 'QR domain' towards whatever made most sense at the time.

[tauzero]

1 hour ago, Ed_S said:

I'd stick to the main website address in human-readable text, and then for the QR just buy another cheap domain linked to the band, generate the QR code for that and use web forwarding in the hosting tools to point the 'QR domain' towards whatever made most sense at the time.

 

I have the main website address in human-readable form and on the QR code, and there's a link on every page of the website to the Facebook page. I can't see any point in having a separate domain that the QR code points to.

[Ed_S]

35 minutes ago, tauzero said:

 

I have the main website address in human-readable form and on the QR code, and there's a link on every page of the website to the Facebook page. I can't see any point in having a separate domain that the QR code points to.

 

My thought was that it allows you to point to something totally different, like perhaps the website of a festival you're going to be playing, or your bandcamp page to buy new merch, or your YouTube channel for a new video, or whatever. The front person says "just scan our QR to take you straight to..." and it does, irrespective of when the business card, flyer etc. was printed.

 

Obviously if you don't see any personal benefit to doing that, that's fine. I haven't personally gone the QR route, but one of our guitarists who does web stuff maintains the .com for our website, and I bought the .co.uk, .org.uk and .uk which currently forward to the Facebook, X and Bandcamp pages respectively, and ensure that if somebody types the 'wrong' address they still get something that leads them back to us. If I generated the QRs for those three domains and subsequently decided that I wanted .org.uk to point to whatever the new Meta Twitter thing was instead, then I'd change the forwarding, not the QR, meaning my existing cards and flyers were all still valid.

[Bolo]

I keep forgetting how many people here play in functions and cover bands. Big difference with originals bands.

[Greg Edwards69]

Obviously keeping the web url in readable text is a no brainer, especially from an accessibility point of view. I just can't decide whether to steer people to the website or FB. Having a variable QR code destination doesn't fix this.

[Ed_S]

11 minutes ago, Greg Edwards69 said:

Obviously keeping the web url in readable text is a no brainer, especially from an accessibility point of view. I just can't decide whether to steer people to the website or FB. Having a variable QR code destination doesn't fix this.

 

Indeed - I was taking it as a given that any QR would be present in addition to a text URL, rather than in place of it. Just making the point that they don't always have to go to the same place, even if that's the default most of the time.

 

The same technology does provide an answer to your question, though. Use the website address, then if you later decide that you don't want to maintain a website and just want visitors to land at FB you can forward the domain to the FB page. It's not the only answer, and it might not be the best answer for you, but it's an answer.

[TimR]

I'm not sure why you'd have the different extensions pointing to different redirects. 

 

I'd just have them all redirecting to the .com and have the twitter, Instagram, ticktock, and Facebook logos on top of that landing page for people to click on. 

 

Make .com your website and the others don't need to feature anywhere. They're just there to stop other people stealing them and help anyone who mistyped it.

 

Seems a lot of work for little return. 

[tauzero]

2 hours ago, Greg Edwards69 said:

Obviously keeping the web url in readable text is a no brainer, especially from an accessibility point of view. I just can't decide whether to steer people to the website or FB. Having a variable QR code destination doesn't fix this.

 

My inclination would be either to have the QR code going to the same place as the web address, or put both the FB and website addresses on the poster with QR codes for both.

[Downunderwonder]

3 hours ago, Greg Edwards69 said:

Obviously keeping the web url in readable text is a no brainer, especially from an accessibility point of view. I just can't decide whether to steer people to the website or FB. Having a variable QR code destination doesn't fix this.

FB is on the way down. Your band URL is hopefully on the way up.

[TimR]

The key is to get a Facebook \vanity  instagram and twitter @, and Web url all exactly the same wording. 

[nige1968]

I think last time this came up, we decided it was OK for some but not for others.

 

This chap may well be one of the others.

 

Edited August 30, 2023 by nige1968

[Greg Edwards69]

I'm assuming it's okay for these chaps though

 

Edited August 31, 2023 by Greg Edwards69

[DCS222]

Is that because they were “Maid in” a different mould?

🤔

[White Cloud]

Music is art there are no rules.

 

I say just wear what you want 😁

[MacDaddy]

25 minutes ago, White Cloud said:

Music is art there are no rules.

 

I say just wear what you want 😁

 

If you think that, try wearing a Hells Angels patch and see what happens! 😉

[dmccombe7]

Not in our Glam covers band but usually one of us wears our punk covers T shirt band more as an advert that we sell them. Our singer will at some point in the show point to the wearer and say our t shirts are available to buy. Not every gig but quite a few. 

Dave

[White Cloud]

1 hour ago, MacDaddy said:

 

If you think that, try wearing a Hells Angels patch and see what happens! 😉

Lol...context fella, context 🤣

[pnefc42]

Cool enough to appear in one of rock musics most recognisable promo vids? 😀