One of the questions that I’m often asked about booking Square Pegs is, well, “How do I do it?” [Well, that's after, "Why does [insert Square Peg here] never play in my area?”] Most of the Pegs have their booking information shown directly on their sites. But if you’re not in the mid-South or in an area that regularly sees the Square Pegs come to your area, you’re … probably a little intimidated. [Hello, West Coast folks.] With that in mind, we have some suggestions:

1. Find other venues in the area that have hosted your Peg in the last few years. One resource for this is the admittedly non-exhaustive history of Square Peg tour dates that we’ve kept since July 2006 or so on upcoming.yahoo.com. You’ll be able to see where Pegs have played in your area. If you’re from somewhere off the beaten path, look for a place a couple hundred miles from you, and see if you can book shows a day or two apart. That spreads the travel costs over the two dates, lowering the burden on the both of you. Sure, you might have the funds to bring Andy O to Washington State once, but the chances are that you can’t do that twice a year. [If you can, can we borrow some funds? This server stuff gets expensive.] As an example to this, there’s a guy from the next town over from where I grew up in Ohio that contacted me a few months back. I gave him some contacts in Cincinnati and Columbus [and at my old church in Beavercreek ... and if you know Beavercreek, email a brother ], and I think that’s helped some. We can’t all live 90 miles from Nashville, right, Chris?
2. If you can’t find folks in your area, see when your Peg is generally playing a bunch of dates. You might get a discount for filling a slot for an open date. Think about it: if you toured around the country, you’d want to do that for a few weeks at a time, then spend some time at home. Few people, myself included, like doing little bits of travel often. [And yet I have to go back to Houston at the end of the month, having just been there last weekend.] If you’re not in the area of the tour, you’ll probably want to get on one end or the other.
3. Ask your Peg for ideas. Let’s be honest: they make money from playing shows, so they have an incentive to get things done.

Below are booking contacts for the Pegs [current as of this writing]:

• Andy G: Andy is self-booked. He has an entire page on how to book Andrew Gullahorn, filled with trademark Gullahorn humor.
• Andy O: Andrew is also self-booked. Email Toesenga to set something up.
• Andy P: The Breen Agency books AP. Ask for David.
• Chris: Chris is self-booked. Email Chris to book him.
• Derek: Third Coast Artists books DW.
• Eric: Eric is also self-booked; email him at booking AT ericpeters DOT net.
• Jeremy: Jeremy is … say it with me … self-booked. Email the Jer to get started.
• Jill: The Breen Agency books Jill as well.
• Randall: Mighty Nice Booking books Randall.

Have questions? Ask ‘em in the comments.