An EPK, short for electronic press kit, is one page or file with everything a promoter, journalist or label needs to judge your act: bio, music, photos, upcoming shows, press quotes and a contact address. Bookers open your EPK before they answer your email, so the page decides whether you hear back.
Why bookers ask for one
A venue booker gets pitched every day, often with a Spotify link and nothing else. The booker then has to work out who you are, what you sound like, whether you draw a crowd and how to reach you. Your EPK answers all four up front.
A journalist on deadline wants a bio to quote, a photo to run and a name to email. Hand those over and you save them twenty minutes of searching.
What goes in an EPK
Promoters expect the same core sections, in roughly this order:
- Name, genre and location. One line. "Berlin techno DJ" tells a booker more than a paragraph does.
- A short bio. Two to four sentences up top, with a longer version further down.
- Music. Your two or three strongest tracks or mixes, each one tap from the page.
- Upcoming shows. Dates, cities, venues. A full calendar signals demand.
- Press photos. Two or three high-resolution shots, landscape and portrait.
- Highlights. Support slots, festivals, radio plays, press quotes.
- Contact. A booking email, plus your agent or manager if you have one.
Video, a technical rider and social links come after those. The EPK checklist goes through each section in detail.
Web EPK or PDF?
EPKs started life as PDF attachments, and plenty of artists still send them. A PDF goes stale the day you book a new show, and the booker has no idea a newer version exists.
A web EPK lives at a link. Update the page once and every promoter who opens the link sees the current version, on the phone where they read your email. Keep a PDF around for the odd festival or agency who wants an attachment.
How a promoter reads your EPK
Expect about a minute on the first pass. Most promoters check the sound first. They hit play on your top track, and if the first 30 seconds fit their night, they keep going. Next comes the draw: recent shows, cities and room sizes tell them whether you bring people through the door. Photos and the bio come last, as a check on whether your look and story suit their brand.
So put your best track first and open the bio with your sound. Your origin story belongs in the long version.
Mistakes to avoid
- Dead links. A SoundCloud track set to private or an expired Dropbox share ends the conversation.
- A buried booking email. Put the address at the top and again at the bottom.
- Old dates. A calendar ending in 2023 reads like the act split up.
- Blurry photos. A phone shot won't print on a poster. Upload files at least 2000 pixels on the short edge.
- A wall of text. Long bios with no headings get skimmed.
How to make one
You've got three routes: a PDF in Canva or InDesign updated by hand, a general website builder where you set up every section yourself, or a tool built for EPKs with the sections already in place.
Artist Kit is the third kind. You get a page at artistkit.co/yourname with bio, music, gigs and contact sections ready to fill, and your releases show as cards with listen links to Spotify, Bandcamp and the rest. The free plan covers a complete EPK, and Pro adds a photo gallery and a custom domain. Start with the EPK checklist, then write your bio with the artist bio guide.