A festival promoter sees your show on a Thursday night. They like you. On Friday morning they search your name. They find an Instagram without a bio, a Spotify page with no professional photos, and no way to contact you in under two minutes. They open the next artist’s profile.

That’s where an EPK makes the difference.

Three names, one document

EPK, digital press kit, and press dossier all refer to the same thing: a space with all of an artist’s professional information, accessible in one click.

EPK is the English acronym — Electronic Press Kit — standard in the international music industry. Digital press kit is the term used in Spanish and Catalan contexts. Press dossier is the older term, inherited from journalism. If you’ve seen all three and wondered whether they were different things: they’re not.

How it has evolved over 30 years

In the nineties, a press kit was a physical folder: printed photos, a demo CD, a photocopied biography. You handed it to promoters in person or sent it by post.

In the 2000s, it became a PDF attachment by email. More convenient, but with the same problem: once you send it, you can’t update it. Whoever has it saved has the old version. Forever.

Today, an EPK is a web page. The same URL you share now and in two years. Whoever has it saved always sees the current version. And Google can index it.

Who opens it and why

An EPK isn’t for your audience. It’s for industry professionals:

  • Festival and venue promoters: they check you have the material needed to include you in a programme
  • Journalists and critics: they need high-resolution photos and biographical data to write about you
  • Casting directors and production companies: they need to quickly see your profile and how to contact you
  • Agents and managers: they assess whether working with you is viable

They’re all looking for the same thing: accurate, accessible, downloadable information in under two minutes.

The 5 essential elements

An EPK can be simple. But it must include, at minimum:

  1. High-resolution photographs — free to download, clear usage licence, at least one neutral photo and one in action
  2. Bio in two formats — short (50–80 words, for programmes and listings) and long (200–300 words, for press and presentations)
  3. Recent video or audio in streaming — not for download; viewable directly from the page
  4. Direct contact — an email someone actually reads; if you have representation, your agent’s details
  5. Your own URL, easy to remember and share — not a Dropbox link or Google Drive, a clean web address

The mistake almost everyone makes

Letting it go out of date. An EPK with 2021 photos and a bio mentioning finished projects communicates, precisely, that the artist isn’t actively managing their career.

Review it at least every six months.

If you’d like to go deeper on what a digital press kit needs for your specific profile, read the guide for actors.

If you’d prefer us to build it for you, tell us about your project.