What Is an EPK? How to Build a Press Kit for Your Band
An EPK, or electronic press kit, is the package a band uses to introduce itself to venues, festivals, promoters and press. Bio, photos, music and video links, press coverage, technical needs and contact details all sit in one place. Someone who has never heard you should be able to tell within a few minutes who you are, what you sound like live and what you need on stage.
You finally reach the booker at a venue you like, and the reply is short: "Send us something and we'll take a look." The group chat goes into overdrive. "Who has the photos from last year?" "Did anyone film that show?" "Who's writing the bio?" Three days later a messy email goes out: two photo attachments, one link and a phone number. Sound familiar? An EPK exists to kill those three days. You build it once, then send the same link every time.
What does an EPK actually do?
Venues and festivals get a lot of pitches. Whoever makes the call doesn't have time to dig through every band's music. An EPK hands them what they need, in order: what kind of music you make, how you come across live, what you bring to the stage and how to reach you.
It speeds things up on your side too. Instead of pulling files together for every pitch, you send the same ready-made package. Everyone in the band can share the same link, and nobody has to ask which photo to send.
What goes in an EPK?
Use this table as a checklist. The first seven rows are the basics. Add the last one when you have it.
| Piece | What goes in it | Common mistake |
|---|---|---|
| One-liner | A single sentence on genre, city and what you play | A string of vague adjectives that says nothing |
| Bio | Short and long versions, lineup, notable shows | One long block of text nobody reads |
| Photos | A few high-res shots, landscape and portrait | One dark phone photo from the back of a bar |
| Music links | Streaming profiles or your best two or three tracks | Dumping the whole catalog in no particular order |
| Live video | At least one video of you playing live | Only a studio music video, so nobody knows what you're like live |
| Tech rider | Lineup, instruments, stage plot, input list | Explaining it to the engineer at soundcheck |
| Contact | One point person with email and phone | Five phone numbers, or none at all |
| Press and past shows | Coverage you've had and places you've played | Claims nobody can check, or inflated ones |
How do you write a band bio?
The bio is the most-read and least-loved part of an EPK. Write two versions:
- Short (2–3 sentences): Something a venue can paste straight into an event listing or a festival program. Who you are, what you sound like, where you're from.
- Long (a paragraph or two): The band's story, lineup, notable shows and any releases. For press and more detailed applications.
Write it in the third person ("the band formed in 2024"), because other people will reuse it as is. Be specific: skip "an energetic, one-of-a-kind sound" and say what genre you play, how many of you there are, and whether you play covers or originals. If you're a cover band, naming the eras and styles in your set makes the booker's job easier. Want to tell the origin story? The steps in our guide on how to start a band make a decent outline.
Which photos and videos go in an EPK?
Photos are there to be used. The venue will put them on posters, social posts and event pages. So:
- Upload high-res files. Small previews fall apart on a poster.
- Include both landscape and portrait shots. A poster and a social post want different formats.
- Have at least one band photo and at least one live shot.
- Put the photographer's name in the file name or caption so whoever uses it knows who to credit.
For video, live footage beats a studio music video. What a venue or festival really wants to know is how you hold a stage and a crowd. It doesn't need a pro shoot, but pick something where the sound is clear and the whole band is in the frame. Two good minutes beat half an hour of blurry footage.
How do you add music links and press?
Keep music links tight. Put your best two or three songs up front and link to your streaming profile for the rest. The listener may decide in the first thirty seconds of the first track, so order them with that in mind. Before sending, open every link on the phone of someone outside the band. A private video or a folder nobody has access to can sink an otherwise solid pitch.
If you've had an article, interview or radio spot, add the headline, the outlet and a link. A one-line pull quote is plenty. No press yet? Rather than leaving the section empty, list a few places you've played. Only include what really happened. Local scenes are small, and an inflated claim gets noticed fast.
What format should an EPK be?
There are three common options. A web page opens on any device and is easy to update. A shared folder makes downloading high-res photos simple but can look messy. A PDF looks tidy but has to be re-sent after every change. You can also mix them: text and links on one page, with high-res photos in a folder linked from it. Whatever you pick, start every file and folder name with the band name so it doesn't vanish on someone else's computer.
Why do the tech rider and contact details belong in an EPK?
If the venue likes you, the next question is always the same: what do you need on stage? How many channels, how many mics, who stands where? The document that answers that is a tech rider. Including one in your EPK lets the engineer and the venue prepare ahead of the day. We cover what goes in one in our guide on what a tech rider is.
For contact details, pick one point person. Venues don't want to talk to five different people. Putting that name, email and phone number at both the top and the bottom of the EPK works well. If deciding who handles this feels like a band argument waiting to happen, our guide on band roles and responsibilities can help.
How do you send an EPK to venues and festivals?
First contact with a venue might be an email or a social media DM. Either way, send your EPK as one link, not as attachments. Big attachments get stuck in email and lost in chat apps. A link opens anywhere.
- Know who you're writing to: Find the person who books the venue. Reaching the right person beats the general inbox.
- Write a clear subject line: Band name, genre and the dates you're after. The booker should know what it is before opening it.
- Keep the message short: Who you are, the dates you're looking at and why you fit this venue. Three or four sentences.
- Put the links in the message: Your EPK, your best track and your live video, right there in the text.
- Follow festival rules: Some festivals publish their own application form and deadline. If there's a form, use it instead of email and fill the fields with text from your EPK.
- Follow up, don't pester: No reply after a week or two? Send one short reminder.
Pitch to fit the room, too. If a small venue runs acoustic nights, lead with an acoustic recording rather than a video of your full-band rock set.
How do you keep an EPK up to date as a band?
An outdated EPK can be worse than none. A photo with a member who left, songs you no longer play, or an old phone number all send the wrong message. A few simple habits fix that:
- One owner: One person updates the EPK. Everyone else sends new photos and press to them.
- Update when the lineup changes: When someone joins or leaves, update the bio, photos and tech rider the same day.
- Quick check after every show: New video or photos? Swap out the old ones.
- One link: Update what sits behind the same link rather than sending new files each time. That way every link you've already sent stays current.
In BandUp, every band gets a public page at {band}.bandup.io that venues and listeners can visit. The tech rider builds itself from your lineup and instruments, is shared through a link that doesn't need a login, and updates automatically when the lineup changes. The link you gave the venue always shows the latest version, and you can download it as a black-and-white PDF if needed.
When you build your first EPK, work through the table row by row, and put any missing piece on the agenda for your next rehearsal.