Nonprofit Gigs and Networking in Denver

Hey, what's up gigging pros. It's Jared. Welcome back to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. A lot has happened since my last podcast for you guys. Specifically with my Gigging Act, as I mentioned a couple episodes ago that I was pursuing the nonprofit event route. And I got booked by a couple of them. And I'm happy to announce that tonight is the first one that I was booked at. So the gig is happening tonight. It is actually for the Denver French Chamber of Commerce. It's called Beaujolais 2022. And this is a really interesting night, put on by the French Chamber of Commerce, they are launching. It's like the announcement of the newest wine in the Beaujolais brand. I think I'm not a wine connoisseur, I do enjoy having some wine from time to time, but I don't know enough about it to, you know, know, the whole world of launching French wines. So I'm excited to be a part of that tonight. Very interesting setup, they're having like a wine judging competition where everyone gets to vote for their favorite wine, different French restaurants in the Denver area are all coming together and you know, putting out their food. And then they are giving speeches throughout the night. So this is actually an interesting setup for me, because they want a song before the four speeches throughout the night. And the speeches happen on the hour. So I'm only playing four songs. And I'm playing one song an hour. So it's a long gig for me, but not a lot of playing. And again, I am volunteering to do this. And I mentioned when I first emailed them, I said I'd like to sponsor the event, so that I could get my logo and signage up throughout the event and links to my website and all of that. So that's happening. I'm excited because you know that downtime in between songs is going to give me a great opportunity to network with all of these different businesses in their French Chamber of Commerce. So I'm going to be bringing business cards. And I'm also going to be bringing a one pager, I call it the street team, one pager, which I teach all my full time Music Academy students to put together that will give, you know, interested people some information on what it looks like to hire and work with me. So that's going to be a great opportunity. And that's happening tonight, I will let you know how the gig goes. I also got booked for this other Denver nonprofit, the let me see exactly what it's called. It's called December Delights. And it's put on by Four Mile Historic Park, which I'm excited I've never visited it because I literally just moved to Denver a couple of months ago, but looks really cool. And they're going to have me two nights playing for their December Delights, which I think is like a holiday themed event with entertainment and food and beverages and all that. So that's happening in December, about a month from when I'm recording this podcast. So those are the two that I am actively working on right now. Aside from that, another really important thing has happened in my pursuit of gigging in Denver, which is I was just elected to the Director of Marketing position for the Denver National Association of Catering and Events. I've talked about this organization in the past, but I don't know if you really understand the impact of this organization. If you're interested in playing high paying private event gigs, these, the National Association of Catering Events is all of the people who are in that industry of private events, weddings, corporate events, nonprofit gigs, and private parties. And they all hang out at these monthly networking events. And they throw referrals to each other all the time. And so if you're a musician that you're not getting involved in these things, you're leaving so many gigs on the table, so much money on the table. Because you know, maybe you just don't know the strategy or you're intimidated by that, you know, kind of thing. But I would urge you not to be these people are warm and welcoming. And their main goal is just to make, you know, the experience for their clients really good. And you are a critical component of that. And so that's why I have committed to getting involved in these kinds of organizations like National Association of Catering Events, and that's specifically why I ran for and was elected to the Director of Marketing position, because I keep mentioning over and over like your ability to grow your music career is almost entirely dependent on your ability to market yourself. And I've honed that art and craft you know, I was never originally good at it. I was just like you you know having no clue what marketing even is. But little by little I practiced it started out with very simple things started to get better and better at it. To the point where I felt confident enough to help this National Association of Catering Events, specifically Denver's chapter, help them out with their marketing and ran for the position of Director of Marketing, I won that position. And what that's going to do is that's going to allow me to get in front of all of the current members of this chapter. And to help recruit new members of this chapter, which means I'm going to be meeting so many people in the private events, industry, sharing with them, my musical abilities, and my ability to play for their clients. And in turn, this is going to generate so much referral business for me, like, you know, it's already started to happen, which is really cool. So I'm excited for that like that my term officially starts in January, but I'm going to their board retreat in December, just to kind of see what's been going on and have a very smooth transition from their previous director to me. So a lot of cool stuff happening. I just wanted to provide you a quick update, and hopefully that motivates and inspires you to take action on some of the things that I share on this podcast. Like, try them out, you know, if you've just been listening to this podcast, but you haven't actually tried anything. Now might be the time to try like research. Is there a chapter of the National Association of Catering and Events in your area that you could go to a meeting? Or are there nonprofit events that you can find on Eventbrite and send their organizer an email saying, Hey, I'd love to sponsor your next event, and come and play. And you'd be surprised at just by putting that energy out there in the universe? How much will come back to you. So give it a shot. Hope you find this motivating and inspiring. And, yeah, remember, let me know if you do any of these and you get results. I got an Instagram message a couple of days ago from one of our listeners, saying that they took action and they got some really good pieces of advice. They originally thought this didn't apply to them because you know, I'm a classical musician. Yes. But then they started to listen, and they realized this applies to all kinds of music and all kinds of gigs and they were pleasantly surprised by that. So I love hearing from my listeners, and feel free to reach out you can DM me on Instagram, it's @JaredJudge or shoot me an email Jared@BookLive.com. So thanks for tuning in to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. Remember, "You are just one gig away!".