Nonprofit Gig Aftermath and Happy Thanksgiving

In this episode, Jared lays out exactly what happened during the nonprofit gig he played last week. There were a few surprising moments - and things didn’t quite go as planned. Tune in to find out what happened!

Transcript

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Hey, what's up gigging pros. It's Jared, welcome to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. I am at one of my favorite spots in the world. I call it my mountain. In Arizona, I am visiting my parents, we just finished Thanksgiving a couple days ago. And I'm here we're staying here visiting some more family. And I'm at the top of my mountain, which is kind of my fun place where I go to, you know, hike, get some exercise, and then reflect on my, you know, my music business. And so I thought that I would take this time to catch you guys up on that nonprofit event that I played about a week and a half ago. In Denver. It was the last podcast episode I shared. It was for the Denver French Chamber of Commerce's Beaujolais 2022 unveiling event where they brought together all these different businesses to celebrate the release of the Beaujolais Nouveau wine, which, you know, I didn't really know about this. But in France, the Beaujolais wine is like the first release of a specific wine of a given year from the harvest. And they celebrate it both in France and in some places across the world. And what was really cool was they released this wine in Denver at the same time they did in France. So we were celebrating when the French did. And so this was a great event, there were over 500 people in attendance, individuals, businesses, nonprofit executives, and it was a great way to showcase it. It was hosted at a really cool venue called Real works Denver, which is actually a music venue. I think they bring in a lot of like big artists through there, but I'd actually never heard of it before. So you know, I'm new to Denver, still figuring out the scene. And what was so amazing was that I actually had a stage to perform on usually when I'm playing these private events, I'm usually just on the floor with the guests. But for this one, there was a big stage, it had one of those led walls behind it that was actually behind me as I played, it was on and there was a DJ, and there was so much to this event. Where do I even begin? So as part of the celebrations of this event, there was a wine competition. So they had different vineyards, around Denver come and showcase different wines. And they had a professional wine critic come and judge, they also let the audience judge there was like Audience Choice Awards for that. So that was really cool to watch that happen. And there was also a restaurant like food competition, as well, where they were different categories of appetizers, entrees, and desserts that were all judged by professional food critics, and also audience choice. So my music was really in service of the proceedings of the event, kind of before each of the speeches were made. I was supposed to play one song. So I actually played four songs over the course of four hours, which was really interesting setup, I've never quite done something like that. But you know, it's if you do nonprofit events, that can be a little bit more common, because you're kind of the house band that accompanies the speeches. At least that's how it should have worked in theory. What actually happened, though, was that the events time schedule, got a little off track, as they tend to do you know, this is a live event, I tend to play a lot of weddings that get off schedule. Well, they don't get not a lot of them, but some of them do, because, you know, hair and makeup emergencies or one of the shuttles break down. But in this nonprofit event, you know, the executive director, who was running all the speeches had some fires to put out. And as a result, you know, she just said play at the scheduled times. And they may or may not accompany speeches. So that was kind of interesting. And when the DJ commiserated about that not in a bad way, but you know, it was just oh, this is different than expected. And so I played my four songs. And then when I wasn't playing, the DJ was playing. And then occasionally, they had also hired a pair of silk dancers. I don't exactly know what they're called, but like aerial silk dancers that that's it. So they had two pieces of fabric hanging from the ceiling and the ceiling was like 100 or so feet high. And these aerial silk dancers were dancing on them entertaining the guests when I wasn't playing, which was very interesting, too. So very rt c focused event. And I was like, wow, this is probably one of the the best events I've ever played. It was so cool. And as I mentioned in many podcast episodes ago, I have a philosophy of recording everything. And so I brought my DSLR camera, I put it on a tripod, set it up with the microphone and before each of this songs that I played, I hit record. And I captured some of the best footage of myself I ever have. So that I've already leveraged and put put up on Tik Tok and YouTube. And I'm going to incorporate it in the emails that I send out to couples and clients who want to work with me. And just use it in social media actually already have used it in my Facebook group strategy where I get gigs from Facebook groups. And it's already been working, which has been really cool. But at the event itself, when I wasn't playing, I had about an hour of downtime in between songs. So during that time, I made sure to bring a hefty stack of business cards. And I was networking, I went into networking mode, people obviously recognized me for being on stage. So like, Oh, it sounds so good, which was obviously very gratifying to hear. But I was on a mission to visit all of those different restaurants and wineries that I mentioned before that were being judged because they all had tables at this event. And I was schmoozing as best as I could, as best as introvert me was able to. And it did a pretty good job, I actually got to all of them and introduce them. And of course, there was food tasting. And so I got to taste their food. There was also wine tasting, which I didn't do as much of because I was on the job. So I tried to keep it as professional as possible. And then I would chat with them. And you know, there were a lot of restaurant owners there, which some of them actually said that they were interested in having me come and perform like they had New Year's, new year's events coming up. They're like, yeah, do you play public shows? And I was honest with them. I said, I don't do that often. I typically play private events. But I'd be interested in chatting with you about that. And so we exchanged information. And we're going to have some follow up conversations in the next couple of weeks, because New Year's is right around the corner. But it was just an amazing opportunity. And then a lot of the executives of the nonprofit after the gig came up to me and just said that was so amazing. We have all of these other events coming up. Would you be interested in playing some more? And I said, Of course, this was a beautiful event. I loved how it was put together. And I would love to work with you again. So that was cool. Plus, there were also some other nonprofits in attendance. Like there's a bunch of French schools. One there was one called Allianz Francaise, which is I think it's a it's got chapters across the country, because I definitely remember there being one in Milwaukee. And so I chatted with them. They said, Yeah, we host nonprofit events to be ever interested in playing, you know, let's chat, exchange business cards information. And, you know, I do believe in this nonprofit strategy, this will probably get me at least 10 gigs. conservatively, because this will lead to some repeat things too. So just one gig can turn into many. And so that was the that was the Beaujolais event. I'm so excited. I got to be a part of it. So much fun. And yeah, the electric violin was a huge hit. And the video footage, you can see it on Tik Tok. If you, you take a look for extreme strings, that's the first post and I'm going to start to be a little more regular on tick tock. So if you want to see what I do there, you feel free to follow my journey. Other things that happened, took a couple more venue tours, which again, go back through the archives to look why the heck would you do a tour of a venue without playing there without being hired for a gig? Well, if you listen to that podcast episode, you will see exactly why it's in your best interest to do that kind of thing. And, yeah, it's been so crazy. It's been a busy Thanksgiving. And I do want to mention, I am so thankful to all of you, my listeners, for sticking with me throughout all of this and hearing my crazy rantings about why musicians need to treat their music careers as businesses. And if you listen to this, you know, hopefully that message starts to sink in. So I'm just thankful that you are a listener, and I'm thankful for music, you know, this is my passion. I love doing this. And I love helping other musicians do more of what they love. And yeah, I'm thankful for all of my Fulltime Music Academy students. And I'm thankful for a lot of things. So thank you all so much for listening. I hope you have had a wonderful Thanksgiving. And I look forward to continuing this podcast. If you got any value out of this, please drop me a line let me know. And you know before the end of the year, next year is coming up very quickly. And if you want to make real money with your gigs play some private events, then I invite you to check out YourFirstGig.com That is my program. It's kind of an entry level here's how to play private events. And not just how to play them but how to book them how to get access to them. You know, maybe you are a bandleader and you've only They played public gigs to this point, you know, bars and restaurant gigs, and you're frustrated with how little they pay, and how much work they are in compared to how much you're getting compensated. So private events would be a great way for that. Maybe you are a bandmate. And you really don't have control over the bookings. But you would be interested in maybe going out solo or trying this, and even trying to influence the bookings of your band, this would be great for you too. Or maybe you have never even played a gig before and you're interested in it, which is why you're listening to this podcast, this would be a great way to get your start. So go to YourFirstGig.com. And I will send you a couple of amazing things. One is my book Gigging Secrets, it's been super popular, we've shifted out to many countries now and people have just given me some amazing feedback on it. But you will also get my flagship private events bootcamp course, this is a course online, you get instant access to it, that will show you the ins and outs of booking private events, it will show you how to make your website amazing, and where you can find all of the people who book these private events. So you can play nonprofit events like I did, you can play weddings, you could play corporate events. And it will not be difficult to figure out how to do that because I just give you the strategy there and show you exactly what to do. So if you're interested, go to YourFirstGig.com And go ahead and grab your copy of that. I'm not sure how long I want to leave that open for just because I don't want too many people going through the program at a time. But yeah, go to YourFirstGig.com and I will see you on the inside. So thanks again for listening to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. Remember, "You are just one gig away!".