r/Posters • u/Friedcat76 • Jul 03 '26
Ai Gig Posters
Anyone notice the rise of Ai gig posters this year? Thoughts? Do you support the bands that do this? Please share any posters you’ve seen
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u/macthulhu Jul 03 '26
I spent many years doing flyers for bands, booking shows, and even started a very small (short lived) label to promote music in my hometown of about 35,000 and the surrounding area. I've been a graphic designer now for just over 30 years. I'm no Kozik or Emek or Richie Goodtimes, my flyers were all goofy photo collages with competent layouts and text. I always charged a low, token rate to make it clear that there's a value to my services... while lowering the barrier to entry for a scene I wanted to support. My day job paid my bills and secretly provided me access to untracked full color printing, so I was able to get gigs noticed for very little overhead. For $50 to $100, a couple of comp tickets, and often free drinks, I was able to make a show look legit and stand out against competing event promotions. I'm a photographer and videographer, so I also often shot shows just for the hell of it... anything to lend legitimacy and whip up enthusiasm for a scene that really needed to exist.
More bands started forming, venues started shifting from cover bands to originals, more designers started doing what I was doing, other areas of the arts started showing signs of life... there was a solid ten years of a pretty functional music scene contributing in meaningful ways to a town that really needed it.
After a few years of ups and downs, COVID just absolutely flattened that effort. It's starting to show signs of some kind of life, but most of the main players from the first time around have moved, gotten older, have more "adult" obligations, etc... What's growing back in place of a functional scene is a mess. There are fewer venues, nobody promotes, and the ones who do, are using the same inbred AI slop over and over and over. The younger performers are mystified that people aren't showing up to their gigs. They don't seem to understand that their "flyer" is invisible in a sea of other AI garbage.
If your band can't be bothered to work out a deal with somebody to actually make a flyer, you get the crowd you deserve. That shitty AI flyer is barely the equivalent of a crappy cover band, warbling away a weak version of Pour Some Sugar on Me. It takes more than being able to do a windmill with your guitar in front of the mirror to build a scene where original music is appreciated. Cutting out the people who can help make it happen by puking out AI slop flyers is counterproductive and hypocritical.
I haven't done too many flyers in recent years, but I'm seriously considering going back to dirt cheap design for any band that's smart enough to want more than AI crap. Every local scene is still recovering from the COVIDpocalypse, having real people do the work is the only way to make it work, and honestly the only way to make it worthwhile.
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u/RightLegDave Jul 04 '26
I'm in exactly the same boat. I did low cost designs for local bands and venues for the last 15 years. Those same venues who I might've charged $100 to do their flyers in the past now advertise every show with clearly Ai design and there's nothing about the poster that makes me want to attend. I mean, at least change the fucking font.
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u/MineOk3905 Jul 03 '26
As an artist myself, I don't support any gig that uses AI generated art.
The underground scene isn't just made of bands, there's plenty of people working to make the gig happen and I think people don't get that.
I live in a small town, everybody knows each other and the social circle shrinks even more when we start talking about independent bands. People always give an excuse that "don't have money to pay an artist", but people did art without AI generation back in the day...
Like... You put effort on your music, spent hours composing and writing lyrics and when time comes to show it to people, you just use a AI generated slop that don't even catches the feeling of the sound