Sometimes the work that you do for yourself aligns with a community need.
I love to take pictures of venues and leave feedback on music stores as I travel and tour the US. This has been rewarding for me also because many of these types of places are typically not well resourced so they might suffer from a poor online presence, low photo count and (most importantly) rarely provide the granular-level of detail I was seeking as a performing musician or music lover. I love updating and dimensionalizing these spaces for others because I believe it makes Louisiana a little more accessible and musician-friendly to ambituous music nerds like me.
What other ways/methods we can help touring musicians as Local Guides? I’m looking for frehs suggestions!
As the Local Guides program has grown, so has my ability to provide feedback on venues for touring bands and concert-goers. I participate in a number of DIY groups on Facebook and have had the opportunity to help bands looking to better understand the Louisiana area. For example, I developed an asset on Google Sheets to provide band managers with a list of venues in New Orleans. I include everything from their location to how to go about contacting them by “scraping” their websites and social profiles and quickly realized that this is a great way to address any Louisiana-related questions members in the DIY music scene. Perhaps there’s a way to build an easily accessible list on Google Maps instead of Sheets? On Google Maps, I have been providing photos of green rooms, bathrooms, and areas that might help prepare a band for their experience. If it’s a music store, I will write reviews not only evaluating my experience but also to talk about the genres and categories the store is particularly good at curating. I’m sure there are other tools and ideas out there too!