CASA - The Contemporary A Capella Society

Quick tip to younger groups:

One easy way to point out how amazing you are without saying it yourself is to just quote other people.  Do everything you can to perform in front of important people (offer free tickest to your show, go participate in competitions, offer free gigs to key people, send your album to pros) and then ask them for a quote on the record about your group.  When you get a quote from someone, or if you ever see something in print about your group, quote it and put it in your press materials.  Put it in your bio.  If you quote OTHER people who are speaking highly of your group, that lets you brag without saying it yourself.

Same goes for awards.  Although some people can give good arguments for why awards are stupid, at the end of the day they give OUTSIDE credit for how good you are.  If you win a few awards, whether for live performing or recorded music, those awards speak _for_ you.

If you let outsiders say how premiere you are, how original you are, how incredible it is that you're only using your mouths, and you can just stand there and smile. :)

From a publicity and booking perspective, you gotta know that booking agents quickly get to a point where they can immediately spot those bloated claims in a press kit. And those claims have the opposite effect (of their intention), wherein they make (the group) less legitimate in their eyes, before they've even heard your audio.

I know you're talking mostly to collegiate groups here, Tim, but I think this applies to everyone. I've even recently overhauled my own group's EPK to more finely tune these types of things OUT of it. I'm still not happy with it, but it's getting there.

But Dave's point is spot-on - if someone else says it, use it as a quote, absolutely. It's totally legit to ask someone (you respect and who has some name recognition) to give you a quote for your press kit or bio. It's done all the time.