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BigTime Entertainment Connecting You to Your Fans is Our Mission

Daniel Robertson and Ryan Kintz founded BigTime Entertainment in 2004 with the intent to fill a need they saw in their local music community. Their band, as well as many of their friends’ bands, was having a difficult time booking shows that were beneficial for their career and offered the opportunity they were looking for.

Since 2004, BigTime Entertainment has helped meet this need for over 5,000 bands (roughly 18,000 band members), and more than 170,000 fans have attended BigTime events nationwide. It is BigTIme’s mission to help bands by producing fun, well-attended events where they can connect to their fans. Currently, BigTime Entertainment produces concerts in 10+ U.S. markets with an ever-growing staff of 40+ BigTime team members—all dedicated to fulfilling BigTime’s mission. BigTime Entertainment also helps more than 30 all-ages venues to not only survive but also thrive—in an industry that has traditionally made it very difficult for local establishments to achieve longevity.

"No one would let our band play," explains Daniel Robertson (co-founder) of BigTime Entertainment, "that was pretty much it." Apparently the reasoning behind the creation of BigTime Entertainment was just that simple.

"We knew that the next step for our band was to start playing real shows," interjects Ryan Kintz (co-founder), "instead of just [playing] barbeques, school dances, and fundraisers. But no one who was booking shows around [our market] wanted to give us a chance."

Kintz and Robertson spent four years as a part of an alternative rock band called Faded. "Ryan and I had been playing in bands together since junior high, but most of them never even left the garage—probably because we couldn’t drive yet," Robertson jokingly reminisces. "When we started Faded though, things went a little better—at least we started getting some gigs."

However, as Kintz explains, not all "gigs" are created equal. "We grew up about 50 miles away from the nearest major city, so we didn’t even know that it was possible to play real rock shows—without being signed or on tour." Faded spent about 18 months performing with surprising regularity at miscellaneous events around their hometown: several non-profit events, a handful of graduation and birthday parties, a couple junior high dances, and even a wedding—just to name a few.

Robertson recalls, "The more we played, the more we felt like something was missing—namely, a real stage with screaming fans in front of it." So, Kintz and Robertson set out to devise a plan that would allow Faded to achieve its full potential. "We started scouring the Internet for advice about the music industry, and we even read books about growing your music career without the help of record labels, managers, or booking agents."

After literally hundreds of hours spent studying a wide variety of literature and learning about the successes and pitfalls of some of the biggest names in the music industry (Motley Crue, Goo Goo Dolls, Poison, Dixie Chicks, Ani DiFranco, Sister Hazel), the plan was finally completed. The first item on the agenda was to start performing regularly in a major city—one that constituted a viable music market.

"We called every booking contact we could find, but we just kept getting the clubs’ main answering machines—the ones where you can call in and hear a voice reading off their show calendar and giving directions to the club," says Robertson. "We also sent emails all over the place, but we got very few responses," he continues. "Those that did respond said they were looking for acts with a ‘more mature’ sound—or something else along those lines. Basically, they thought our music wasn’t any good," he admits with a slight twinge of sarcastic sheepishness.

Kintz elaborates, "We literally heard from one club owner that he wasn’t interested because he was looking to specifically book Emo bands, but somebody else in town told us that our sound was a little ‘too Emo.’ "Understandably, this obvious paradox left both Kintz and Robertson frustrated, to say the least. "These criticisms hardly seemed constructive and struck us as a little too subjective to be dictating which [venues] we could play; it was hard to not feel helpless."

After intermittent attempts that spanned a period of months, Kintz finally found himself on the line with a local club owner—thanks to a somewhat desperate, late-night attempt to reach someone by phone. "He told me that there was no openings on either of the two all-local shows coming up that month," recounts Kintz. "He said that the only shows on the calendar that were still being booked were small and mid-sized tours coming through town, and he explained that the opening slots for those shows would go to bands with an established draw of at least 100 people."

After an hour-long discussion, the club owner admitted that Faded’s only chance of getting on a show that month would be for Kintz to book the show himself. "Despite the criticism we heard from the booking people in town, we liked our music and so did most of our friends, so we figured we’d give it a try," explains Robertson. "Booking the show ourselves was work—to say the least—and was much more of a headache than we expected... But we really didn’t have any other option."

After that first show, Kintz and Robertson booked one show per month, for almost an entire year—giving Faded a consistent opportunity to put their plan into action. "After we’d done about 10 shows, the club’s management explained that business was slow and the club might have to close—unless we could book more shows," says Kintz. "We offered to give it a try, because if the club closed down, it would screw over our band and all of the bands we had become friends with—also a lot of our favorite touring bands might not had anywhere in town to play." So, out of necessity, BigTime Entertainment was born.

Faded broke up in mid 2005 (when their drummer/producer chose to leave the band to start a family), but not before Faded became the highest drawing BigTime artist of all time. More than 250 Faded fans came out to their last show and gave Kintz and Robertson the experience they had initially set out to create—"a real stage with screaming fans in front of it."

"We were sad to see Faded come to an end, but the fun we had and the work ethic we learned from being in that band were priceless," says Robertson. BigTime’s mission of "connecting bands to their fans" was born out of a belief that every band deserves the opportunity to create a similar experience for themselves.

"Even though I wholeheartedly believed our music was good, the negative things those booking people said really bummed me out," concludes Kintz. "The difference is, now I know our music was good, because we proved that at least 250 of our ‘closest friends’ thought so too."

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