Build a band website fans return to and promoters can use
Fans visit a band website to check the next show near them, hear the new record and buy a shirt. Promoters and journalists visit for a bio, photos and a contact. Social profiles do some of this, but a site you own is the one place that's always current and always yours. Here's how to plan it and build it with Anticode.
Why a band still needs its own site
Streaming profiles show your music, social feeds show your week, and ticketing sites show one show at a time. None of them puts every date, every release, the merch and the booking contact in one place you control. When a promoter searches your name, or a fan wants to know if you're playing their city, the band's own site should be the first and most reliable answer. It's also the place a mailing list lives, and a mailing list is the one audience no platform can take away.
Tour dates that are never out of date
The tour page is the most visited page on most band sites, and the most neglected. A list of last year's shows tells a fan you've stopped. Keep it current by putting dates in a CMS collection rather than in page text.
- Date and doors
- Day, date, doors time and stage time if you know it.
- Venue and city
- Venue name, city and country, so fans can scan for theirs.
- Support or billing
- Headline, support, festival slot.
- Tickets
- A button to the venue's or promoter's ticket page, with "Sold out" when it is.
- Age limit
- All ages, 14+, 18+: parents check this.
In Anticode, a shows collection with those fields gives every date its own page and an overview list, and anyone in the band can add a show in the dashboard. Remove past dates or move them to an archive collection so the list always starts with the next gig.
Releases, listening links and merch
Each release deserves a page: cover art, release date, tracklist, credits, a short note about the record, and links to where people listen and buy. A releases collection keeps them consistent. Lead with the latest release on the homepage and link the rest.
For merch, Anticode doesn't run a shop with a cart, sizes or stock. Instead, point the Merch button at a checkout from a provider you choose: Shopify, Stripe Payment Links, PayPal, Gumroad (good for digital downloads) or Lemon Squeezy. There's one payment link per account and every buy button opens it, so for several items or sizes, link to a store or product list at the provider, such as a Shopify store. The sell merch from your website workflow covers stock and fulfilment.
The press kit page
Promoters, bookers and journalists don't want to email you for basics. A press page (or electronic press kit) should hold:
- Short and long bios, written in the third person, with the band's sound described in specifics rather than adjectives.
- High-resolution press photos with photographer credits, linked for download.
- The latest release and two or three key tracks.
- Selected press quotes you actually received, with the publication named.
- Technical rider and stage plot if you're booking your own shows.
- Booking, management, label and press contacts, each with a name.
Our EPK website page goes deeper on what bookers expect.
Mailing list and booking enquiries
Anticode's newsletter form collects an email address and can send it straight to Mailchimp (with double opt-in) or Kit, so fans join the list you already use. A contact form with name, email and message handles booking enquiries; connectors can forward each one to a Discord or Slack channel the band shares, so whoever handles bookings sees it. Submissions are saved sealed at rest and emailed to you.
Design that sounds like the band
A band site should look like the record, not like a template. Anticode's seven design systems give a starting point: Brutalist (Archivo) for punk and noise, Editorial (Geist) for singer-songwriters, Luxury (Jost) for polished pop, Playful (Fredoka) for bright indie. Upload your own artwork and photos, choose an action colour from the record's palette, and use the visual editor to move sections around. The Static Bloom Records template, an indie label site in a brutalist zine style, is a good reference for a raw, cut-and-paste look.
What Anticode doesn't do for bands
No ticketing: link to the venue or promoter. No cart, size variants, stock or shipping for merch: those belong to your store provider. No embedded audio players from outside services on design-engine pages, which contain no scripts, so listening happens through links. No fan accounts or members' areas. Publish to your own domain on a paid plan so the address on posters is yours.
Questions people ask
Can I sell merch directly on my band website?
Through buy buttons that open your account's one checkout link, from Shopify, Stripe Payment Links, PayPal, Gumroad or Lemon Squeezy; for a range, point it at a store or product list. Anticode doesn't hold stock or calculate shipping.
Can fans play our songs on the site?
Standard pages don't embed outside players, because they contain no scripts. Link each release to streaming and download stores instead.
How do band members update tour dates?
Add them as entries in a CMS collection in the dashboard. Team workspaces let several people work on the project.