What a booker actually looks for in an EPK
Robertino · DJ, producer and creator of StageLink · October 6, 2026 · 4 min
An electronic press kit is the document you send when someone might book you, sign you, or write about you. It replaces the folder of files most artists end up emailing — a bio in one document, photos in a zip, a mix on a third-party link, a rider somebody wrote in 2023.
It is worth being blunt about how it gets read. A promoter going through submissions is not reading your EPK. They are scanning it for five things, in roughly this order, and they leave as soon as they have them or as soon as one is missing.
The five things
- Who are you — name, where you are based, what you do. One line.
- What do you sound like — one track or one mix that plays immediately, without a login.
- Where have you played — venues, festivals, labels. Three real ones beat a list of twenty.
- Who do I contact — a working email, and whether it reaches you or an agent.
- What do you need technically — the rider, or at least a link to it.
If those five are answerable in twenty seconds, your EPK works. If someone has to download something to answer any of them, it does not.
What does not belong
- A long biography. Two short paragraphs. Nobody has read a third paragraph of an artist bio in the history of the format.
- Every photo you own. Three to five, high resolution, at least one usable horizontally for a flyer.
- Genre stacking. Listing eight genres reads as uncertainty, not range.
- Streaming numbers, unless they are good. An unlabelled number invites a comparison you may not win.
- Anything behind a login. A private SoundCloud link that asks for a password is a dead end.
The most common failure is not a bad EPK. It is an EPK that was accurate eighteen months ago and now lists a label you left and a rider for gear you no longer use.
Why a link beats an attachment
A PDF is a snapshot. The moment you send it, it starts drifting from the truth, and every copy in every inbox drifts with it.
A hosted EPK is one URL that always shows the current version. You update the rider once and the promoter who booked you three months ago sees the update. It also opens on a phone, which is where a good share of these get read.
The trade-off worth knowing: some bookers still want a file to forward internally, so an EPK you cannot print is incomplete. Any hosted EPK should have a print view that produces a clean PDF.
Treat it as maintained, not finished
The EPK that gets you work is not the most beautiful one. It is the one that was true on the day someone opened it.
Set a reminder to reread it every few months. Check the rider against what you actually play on now — here is what belongs in one — check the contact email still forwards, and delete the achievement you have outgrown.
Do I need an EPK if I only play locally?
Yes, and it is easier at that stage. A local promoter is choosing between people they half-know; being the one who sends a clean link instead of three attachments is a real advantage and costs an afternoon.
What if I have no press quotes?
Leave the section out. An empty or padded quotes section is worse than none — it signals you built the EPK from a template rather than from your actual career.
Should my EPK be public or private?
Public is simpler and rarely a problem: everything in it is material you want circulating. A private link adds friction for the person you are trying to make it easy for.
How is an EPK different from my artist page?
The artist page is for fans and points at what to listen to next. The EPK is for the industry and answers whether to book you. They share the same underlying material but lead with different things.
Included on every plan, free included.