When an organiser or venue is weighing up whether you fit their programme, they want to see and hear you fast. An EPK - electronic press kit, or just press kit - is where you gather that: who you are, how you sound, how you look on a stage, and how they reach you. One link, no chasing files back and forth.
The two terms mean the same thing. EPK is the English abbreviation, press kit the plain word - both are a digital folder of your material, ready to share. Below you'll find what a good EPK includes, the specs for photos and audio, the mistakes that most often spoil an otherwise fine press kit, and how Dionysia assembles one automatically from your profile.
What an EPK is, and what a press kit is
An EPK, electronic press kit, is a digital press folder. It gathers your bio, press photos, links to music and video, your technical needs and a way to get in touch, all in one shareable format. Press kit is simply the everyday word for the same thing, and you'll meet both terms when organisers, venues and agencies ask for material.
The point is simple: a booker should be able to form an impression in under a minute. They open the link, read a couple of lines about you, hear a track and see a photo they could use on a poster - and know straight away whether you fit the night. The fewer questions left over afterwards, the easier it is to say yes.
Think of it as a profile, not a CV. You're not selling everything you've ever done - you show the strongest of it and make it easy to act on.
What an EPK should include
A complete press kit for a live act pulls together six things. None of them has to be long - the point is that they're all there, so an organiser never has to ask for what's missing. The table below is the checklist to hold your own material against.
| Element | What it is | Why it counts |
|---|---|---|
| Bio | One short text on who you are and how you sound | Gives a quick impression |
| Press photos | High-resolution images, usable for poster and web | Used directly in promotion |
| Music and video | Links to finished tracks - ideally Spotify or YouTube | Hear and see you at once |
| Genre and line-up | Your style and how many are on stage | Judge whether you fit the programme |
| Tech and rider | PA, monitors, power, space and set-up time | Plan the stage and sound |
| Contact and booking path | How to take the next step and book | Act without hunting for you |
The order is roughly how a booker reads: impression first, then proof, then the practical detail.
Bio: write one sharp text
A musician bio doesn't need to be long. Aim for a tight paragraph of 50 to 80 words. It should answer who you are and how you sound, ideally with a genre or a comparison a stranger can hang it on. 'Cover band in a dusty Americana vein, somewhere between Kings of Leon and Denmark's D-A-D' says more than a full page of backstory.
Write the one good version, not two. Some guides recommend both a short and a long bio. In practice the short one is what gets read - and it's also the one Dionysia uses on both your profile card and your EPK, so you get the most out of making a single text genuinely good. If you have references or reviews worth mentioning, weave them into the text rather than parking them somewhere separate.
Avoid clichés and industry-speak. An organiser is after a quick picture of your sound, not big words. Write the way you'd introduce the band to someone who's never heard you.
Press photos: resolution, light and a few angles
A good press photo can be used as-is - on a poster, in a Facebook post, on the venue's site. That's why resolution matters. Deliver images in high resolution so they hold up in print too, and take a few different ones: a tight portrait, the whole band together, and a shot from a performance.
Shoot in good light. Daylight or natural light flatters most people, and light editing is enough - heavy filters make the images hard for others to use. If you don't have usable photos yet, this is the part worth investing in before you contact venues and press.
Worth knowing about formats: when you upload photos to Dionysia, they're compressed for the web - WebP, up to 1600 pixels on the long edge. That's crisp on screen and for the PDF your EPK prints to, but it isn't a print-ready file at full resolution. So always keep your originals somewhere, so you can send a high-resolution version if a venue asks for one for a poster.
Music and video: links over loose files
The most important thing in a press kit is that someone can actually hear you. Add links to finished, well-produced tracks - Spotify or YouTube are easiest, because they play straight away and stay up to date. Only pick music you fully stand behind. A half-baked demo or a rehearsal-room recording does more harm than good.
So should you attach audio files too? Some places ask for it - a blog or a radio show may need a clean MP3 or a high-quality WAV. But as a default, links are the better route: they're easy to share, they take up nothing, and a booker can listen without downloading anything. If an organiser specifically needs a raw file, you can send it separately.
On Dionysia the music is built on verified links. You connect your Spotify and YouTube to your account, and your EPK shows only clips from the channels you actually own. For an organiser that's a small but real signal: what they see and hear is provably yours, not a coincidence of names.
Tech and rider belong in it if you play live
For a live act, a short rider saves a lot of back-and-forth. Write the key things down: what you bring yourselves in PA and backline, how many monitors you need, what's required in power, how much space the stage needs, and how long you take to set up. An organiser who can see it in advance can plan the night without ringing around.
The economics of the tech - when you bring the system yourselves and when the venue provides it - belong in the pricing conversation. We cover that in the guide on what to charge for a gig. Here it's just about getting the rider into your EPK, so it's there when someone asks.
On Dionysia you fill in your rider in one place, and your EPK pulls it in automatically, grouped by category and with the required items marked. You maintain it once, and it's up to date every time your EPK is shared.
The mistakes that most often spoil a press kit
A few mistakes come up again and again. The first is a missing way to get in touch: a handsome EPK with no clear next step leaves the organiser unsure what to do. The second is stale material - a photo or a track that no longer looks or sounds like you costs more than it gives.
The third is too much. Ten tracks and twenty photos get no one through. Pick the strongest and cut the rest. The fourth is weak audio: a booker forgives one rough photo, but a thin recording raises doubt about how you'll sound at a party.
And then there's the technical side: a link that doesn't work, or a file that needs a login. Always test your EPK the way a stranger would open it - from a phone, without being logged in anywhere.
How Dionysia builds your EPK
On Dionysia you don't make a separate document. You fill in your profile, and your EPK assembles itself from the fields - name, city and genres at the top, then your bio, your photos, your verified music and video clips, your rider and a contact path. There's a button that prints or saves the whole thing as a PDF, so you can send a clean one-pager.
The page is shareable with a single link an organiser can open without logging in. The contact section points onward through your profile rather than an email address in print - so enquiries gather in one place instead of getting lost in an inbox.
Two things are worth knowing. Dionysia uses one bio field, not two, so put your energy into the single good text. And the photos are stored web-optimised - hold on to your originals if a venue needs print-ready images. The rest - verified music, rider and contact - is built to keep itself up to date as you fill the profile out.
It's free to create a musician profile and start filling in the fields. The more complete your profile is, the stronger your EPK stands when you bid on jobs.