It might be a good Idea to advertise: First 100 people at concert get free EP.

I think I heard Michael Jackson did this early in his solo career. I guess it worked.

this seems like a widly used method of promotion and i dont feel it would be if it didnt work to some extent

something like this is good and is bad, if you give out ur cd's and no feeback is heard then

1. you wasted your time
2. you just wasted you money, becuase cd's cost money.

something like this should be advertised if the artist has already had positive feedback, and frankly, you know people love the group already. if the group is already known and you know people love them then a promotion like that would work becuase then you know people want to listen more and giving cd's out only expands there horizons with the success the group has already.

if you know people will rave about the concert event, then give out cd's, if your doing it beacause everyone else does it, then play it safe and dont expose ur self if you know people arent going home and listening to the cd's cuase it would just be a waste, and show ur too desparate to have people listen.

Just sell ur cd's its a good way to gain profit and a good way to get known.

I dont know if you have a cd exchange in your area but if you do, thats a great place to put ur cd's on the shelf. and you can put posters in windows of grocery stores, or at stores that allow that stuff (advertising) to promote your creations.

Best of Luck,
Andy

The value of handing out a CD with a few tracks on it... well.. there's branding.. The graphic design of your CD, they become familiar with.. and that's a sort of thing that has a nice cumulative effect... an important part of building a brand... and of course the url this beyond hearing your music, which is really the most important part

I think giving out CDs might be a very nice thing.. I'd suggest, in your long term strategic view.. doing something like putting little stickers on them with.. say... a number... where they could go to your web site and down load an mp3 for free with when they plug in promotion number, or perhaps it works like a coupon for when they buy your CD... what this does is it allows you to measure the impact of handing out your CD like that... and then in the future you have data to in form your decision making. Further, you could ask a few survey questions... and ask if they'd like to receive your news letter, when they drop by to down load the mp3.. if the sticker is like something you print out from your personal computer... you can have different numbers for different events where you gave it out.. so you could then measure the effectiveness of handing it out in relationship to how well you thought you did on that night... or this measures a small aspect of the effectiveness.. Its hard to measure the effects of branding... but it gives you some data to think about... especially with the survey questions..

or thats my thought n e way.. hope its help full