Fans and follow-up
Get the next date into their phone before they leave the room
People who enjoyed tonight's set forget your name by Tuesday. How to put your next gig in their calendar before they go, and bring them back next time.
Read
Between songs, someone at the front holds their phone up at your mic stand, frowns, tilts it, steps closer and gives up. The code was there. It was just 3cm wide, printed dark grey on a black sticker, at knee height, under a stage light that bleached half of it out.
A QR code at a gig is a small thing that either works or quietly does nothing all night. Getting it right is not complicated, but it does take decisions: what the code opens, where it goes, how big it is, and what words sit next to it.
Decide what the code opens first
Most QR codes at gigs point at whatever was easiest: an Instagram profile, a list of links, a payment link. Each of those does one job. The person scanning at 10pm wants to do something now, and different people want different things.
A good gig code opens one page, built for a phone, that answers the questions people have in the room:
- Can I ask for a song? A way to send a request. See our guide to taking song requests at a gig for how to handle what comes in.
- Can I tip? Only if you accept tips. Our guide to taking tips without cash covers how to mention it.
- Where are you playing next? Dates, with a way to save them to a calendar.
- How do I follow you? Your Instagram, TikTok, Spotify and the rest.
- Can I book you? A short enquiry form for the person at the bar who runs a wedding venue.
Two rules for that page. It should open in the phone's browser with no app to install and no account to create, because every extra step loses people. And it should be readable in a dark room: dark background, large text, buttons big enough for a thumb that has had two pints.
Where to put the code
Each spot catches a different person at a different moment. You do not need all of them, but you need more than one.
| Placement | Who scans it | When | Rule-of-thumb size | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mic stand | People near the stage | Between songs, when you mention it | 6 to 8cm square | Stage lights, glare, being hidden by the mic clip |
| Table card | Seated people | Any time, especially between sets | 4 to 5cm square | Spilled drinks, cards knocked over or moved |
| Poster by the door or bar | People arriving or queuing | Before you start, during breaks | 10cm square or more | Height, lighting, distance from where people stand |
| Merch, cases and banners | People looking at your gear | After the set | Depends on distance; bigger is safer | Curved or shiny surfaces, creases |
| Screen or projector | The whole room | When you point at it | Large; test from the back | Brightness, glare, viewing angle |
The sizes are rules of thumb, not a standard. A common guide is that a code scans reliably from about ten times its width, so a 6cm code works from roughly 60cm. Measure where people will actually stand and work back from that.
The mic stand
This is the code you talk about. Mount it at chest height on the stand, below the clip, facing the room, not tilted up at you. A rigid card on a clamp or a laminated tag on a cable tie both work. Keep the stage light off its face if you can, or angle it slightly down to cut glare.
Table cards
Table cards do the quiet work. People read them while waiting for food or during the break. Use a folded card or a small acrylic stand so the code faces two ways. Put one line of text above the code and nothing else. Collect them at the end of the night, or ask the venue if they can stay.
Posters
A poster by the door catches people before you have played a note. It is also where someone who liked the set looks on the way out. Put the code at eye height, not at the bottom edge where it lands behind a chair.
Give each placement its own code
If one code sits on the mic stand, the tables and the poster, you have no idea which one people use. Give each placement its own code, all opening the same page, and you can see which spots get scanned.
That tells you practical things: whether table cards are worth printing for a restaurant residency, whether the poster by the bar does anything, whether mentioning the code from the stage makes a difference. Keep a note of what you changed each week so the numbers mean something.
Be honest about what a scan is. A scan is a phone opening the page. It is not a person in the room, it is not a fan, and ten scans can be three people trying twice and one friend testing it. Look at trends across weeks, not single nights.
Print it so it scans
Most failed scans are print problems. A short checklist before anything goes to the printer:
| Check | Why |
|---|---|
| Black on white | Highest contrast. Coloured or inverted codes fail on some phones, especially in low light |
| Quiet zone of four modules | The blank border around the code, four of its small squares wide. Phones need it to find the edges |
| No logo inside the code | Error correction tolerates some damage, but a logo eats into it. Put branding outside the border |
| Matte finish | Gloss laminate and shiny stickers reflect stage lights straight into the camera |
| Vector or high-resolution file | Use SVG or PDF for print; a stretched PNG blurs the edges of each module |
| Test-scan before printing | On at least two phones, one older, at the real distance, in dim light |
Test again once it is on the stand. Turn the stage lights to show level, stand where the audience stands, and scan. It takes a minute and saves a whole night of a code nobody can read.
Add the words that make people scan
A bare QR code is a puzzle. People scan when they know what they get. Put one short line next to every code:
- "Scan to request a song"
- "Request a song, find our next gig"
- "Scan for tonight's set and next dates"
Then say it from the stage. One sentence early in the set and one after the break: "If you want to hear something, scan the code on the mic stand." Nothing you print will beat a performer pointing at a sign.
Keep the code working
A printed code is only as good as the link behind it. If it points at a URL you might change, a social profile you might rename or a free link tool that expires, every card and poster you printed can break at once.
Point printed codes at a page you control, or at a service whose link stays the same when you change your act's name, bio or links. Then you update the page, not the print. The same code can go on a banner, a guitar case and your press kit; the page it opens is also a quiet help when a promoter asks what you do, as covered in getting more bookings from your gigs. And the upcoming dates on that page are what bring a scanner back next week, which is the whole point of getting fans to your next gig.
Where GigTag fits
GigTag gives your act one page behind the code, with requests, tips where enabled, upcoming gigs, links and a booking form, plus separate codes for the mic stand, table cards and posters as PNG, SVG or PDF. The printed code stays the same if you rename the act. There is more on what musicians get. Create your act