What a press kit is actually for
A promoter with a slot to fill is not reading your kit. They are checking it — against a room, a night and four other names in the same inbox. The document has one job: answer the questions they would otherwise have to ask you, in the order they would ask them, before they lose interest in asking.
Which is why the shape matters more than the writing. One page. Name at the top, rooms near the top, something to listen to in the middle, a way to book you at the bottom. Everything else is decoration, and decoration is what pushes a kit onto a second page nobody opens.
The six sections, and what each one is doing
| Section | What to put in it | Why it earns the space |
|---|
| Name, one line, city | Six words under your name that say what kind of night you run. | A promoter is deciding whether to keep reading. "Melbourne — house and disco, warehouse and club" does that job; "internationally recognised selector" does not, because every third kit says it. |
| Rooms you have played | Four rooms, biggest first. A promoter reads this line before your bio. | The fastest proof on the page, and the one a promoter checks first. Four is the right number — a list of twenty reads as a list of every bar you have ever been paid in. |
| Bio | One paragraph. What you play, where you play it, and the one thing a promoter can bank on. Third person, no adjectives you cannot evidence. | Third person, one paragraph. Write it so it can be pasted into an event description without editing, because that is exactly what will happen to it. |
| The numbers | Three numbers a promoter can act on — shows a year, capacity of the biggest room, years behind the decks. Not follower counts alone. | Three figures a promoter can act on. Shows a year tells them you are working; the capacity of the biggest room you have held tells them you can hold theirs. A follower count on its own tells them about the internet. |
| Listen | One or two links, most recent first. A promoter listens to the first one and stops. | One link, most recent, and make sure it opens without an app. They will click the first one and stop, so the first one has to be the one you would want judged. |
| Booking | The address you actually answer, and the handles you actually post from. | The address you actually answer. A press kit that ends without a way to book you is a poster for yourself. |
The three things that sink a kit
Adjectives you cannot evidence.“Renowned”, “sought after”, “one of the most exciting” — a promoter has read all of them this week and none of them changed a booking. A room name did.
A wall of text. If the bio runs past a paragraph it stops being read and starts being scrolled past, which costs you the venue list underneath it.
No way to book you. It happens constantly. Put the email on the page even though it is in the message you attached the kit to, because the kit gets forwarded and the message does not.
How to send it
Attach it as one file with your name in the filename, and paste the mix link into the message as well as the kit — the person deciding may never open the attachment, and a link they can tap while they read is worth more than a link they have to go and find.
Then rewrite it after every quarter you actually work. A press kit is a snapshot, and the fastest way to look like you are not working is to send one with last year’s biggest room still at the top of it.
What this tool deliberately does not do
Each of these is a Kadens feature, and each is left out on purpose rather than faked. A free tool showing a panel that can never populate teaches you the feature is worthless.
- Photos
- No upload field, and none is coming here. An anonymous page taking image files is a moderation queue, a storage bill and a deletion path somebody would be owed — for a document that reads fine set in type. Your header colour is generated from your name instead, so the page still looks like yours.
- A live link a promoter can open
- This is a file. Kadens hosts your kit at an address that stays current and lets you decide who can open it — on request, any booker, or link only. Nothing here is hosted, which is exactly why it needs no account.
- Numbers taken from your real gigs
- Every figure on this page is one you typed. In the product the venue list and the gig count are derived from bookings that actually happened, which is the difference between a claim and a record.
- Testimonials
- There is no field for them, because a quote nobody can verify is worth less than the space it takes. Kadens carries reviews left by the people who booked you, attached to the gig they are about.
- Saving, sharing or coming back to it
- There is no account and no draft, so there is nothing to come back to. Finish it in one sitting and take the file.
Questions
What is an EPK?
An electronic press kit: one document that answers everything a promoter needs before they can put you on a poster. Who you are, what you play, where you have played it, something to listen to, and how to book you. It is not a CV and it is not a portfolio — it is the page somebody skims in forty seconds while three other DJs are also in their inbox.
What goes in a DJ press kit, and in what order?
Name and one line at the top, then rooms you have played, then the bio, then a mix, then how to book you. Rooms before bio is deliberate: a promoter is checking whether you can hold their floor, and a venue list answers that faster than a paragraph can. Keep the whole thing to one page — a two-page EPK is a one-page EPK nobody finished.
How long should the bio be?
One paragraph. What you play, where you play it, and the one thing a promoter can bank on. Third person, no adjectives you cannot evidence.
Do I need photos in a press kit?
For this one, no — it is typographic on purpose, and the header colour is generated from your name so no two kits look alike. If a promoter asks for artwork they will ask for a specific size anyway, and sending it as a separate file beats burying it in a PDF. This tool takes no image upload at all, which is also why it needs no account and stores nothing.
Does anything I type here get saved?
No. There is no account, no email field and no draft. Everything lives in the browser tab until you close it, and the PDF is rendered and handed straight back without being stored. No image is ever uploaded, because there is no upload field — which is why this page needs no signup and owes you no deletion path.
What does the paid product do that this page does not?
This page gives you one file. Kadens gives you a kit at a real address that updates itself — the venue list and the gig count come from your actual bookings, so it is current the week after you play somewhere new, and you decide who can open it. This file is out of date the moment you play another gig.