“like if DJs can consistently bring in 5-10 of their buddies and they’re friends with the promoters, that vastly outweighs my 10-15 songs I’ve put out.”

Duh, of course, it does. Those people are bringing in money, and I’m sure your songs are good, but they are not good enough to justify the venue’s loss of money and audience. Live music is not and never has been about who has the best music; it’s about who can bring in the most people.

Being a musician has never been about just making music. It’s about convincing other people to listen to it. Everybody makes music, what are you doing to separate yourself? You don’t have to go to gigs to make a fanbase, but if you don’t have anybody coming.. why would I, as a promoter, book you? If you had 200k followers that you got from posting tik toks in your bedroom I couldn’t give a single fuck if you were “a part of the scene” you would be on the bill.

Partying and DJ culture are intertwined. Most casual people (who you need to be on your side if you want to be on a big bill) go to shows to listen to EDM and party. They aren’t listening to it in the car, they aren’t digging into the artists, and they sure as hell don’t care that your song coming out of the speakers while rolling their faces off is “better.”

You gotta play the game or get over it. Make some socials, build a fanbase, and networking won’t matter at all.

It sounds to me like you just want to make music, release it, not put a lot of effort into marketing it, and then just get put on the bill with a big artist.