Rejected.
Why Your Artist Publicity Shot Getting Knocked Back Might Be the Best Thing for Your Brand
Portal Photos: Friends Don’t Let Friends Upload Bad Publicity Shots.
Now that artists can upload their own images into the Pushworth Live Booking Portal, a new sport has emerged:
“Guess why this was rejected.”
Let’s skip the guessing.
A publicity photo is not:
Your favourite memory
A cropped group shot
A logo-heavy festival poster
A 2004 masterpiece that “still holds up”
It is a commercial weapon.
Promoters download your image to use on:
Massive in-venue LED screens
Websites
Social ads
Posters and flyers
Newspaper features
If it can’t survive that journey, it’s not ready.
But here’s the twist.
When your image gets rejected?
That’s not failure.
That’s positioning pressure — and pressure builds diamonds
Consider the submission rejection as market feedback in disguise. A declined image means one thing:
You are being evaluated at a commercial level.
Nobody audits brands they don’t believe in.
If we didn’t think your act had value, we’d let anything slide.
But your photo is the handshake before the music plays.
It sets expectation.
It sets tier.
It quietly sets fee.
Low-resolution, logo-covered, grainy, over-filtered or twenty-years-ago-you images don’t just look dated.
They lower perceived value.
And perceived value influences:
Where you sit in the Gig Calendar
How hard a promoter pushes your show
What they’re willing to pay
That’s not personal. That’s economics.
This is a marketplace. The non negotiables for a usable publicity image must be:
High resolution (sharp, 300dpi capable, no pixel crumble on big screens)
Current (last 12 months — your present look, not your nostalgia era)
Clean (no logos, no beer brands, no venue backdrops, no text overlays)
Uncluttered (background intentional or neutral)
Professionally lit (we need to see your eyes, not fight stage wash)
One image.
No graphics.
No watermarks.
No festival banner behind you.
Promoters need a blank canvas they can brand.
If your photo is already a poster, it’s unusable.
So this is a reminder to you that rejection is your most powerful business tool. Because when you reshoot your Publicity Images intentionally, something shifts.
You start to ask yourself:
Who am I in this market?
Who is my audience?
Am I premium? Pub rock? Corporate-safe? Arena tribute?
What rooms do I want to walk into next year?
A proper shoot forces brand clarity.
Wardrobe tightens.
Posture changes.
Energy sharpens.
You stop looking like someone who plays gigs.
You start looking like a product that sells tickets.
And that difference is subtle — but commercially massive.
Remember that Visual Positioning is actually Market Positioning. Before a promoter hears a single note, they scan a frame.
That frame tells them:
Are you reliable?
Are you premium?
Are you easy to market?
Do you elevate the room?
A grainy image whispers “risk.”
A sharp, current, intentional image says “safe bet.”
In venue land, safe bets get programmed repeatedly.
Because when a venue manager downloads your image, it must drop seamlessly into:
A Facebook event
A website hero banner
An In House Big Screen
A print program
A media release
A local newspaper story submission
That’s the bar.
So if the Photo that you uploaded into the Booking Portal gets knocked back:
Good.
It means your brand is being treated like a commercial asset, not a hobby.
And in this business, that’s not criticism.
That’s opportunity wearing a referee shirt.
Written by Nichola Burton. I work in partnership with Agents, Artist Managers and Event Producers, who juggle a diverse range of relationships in the Musoverse, to curate, manage and measure data in systems, experience, creative and content to support the entire Musoverse operation in my enterprise A Little Pitchy Copyright 2026
