There Are More Than Enough Gigs To Go Around

Hey, what's up gigging fares this Jared judge, welcome to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. I'm excited for today's podcast, because I feel like it is a chance to help shift your views and beliefs about what is possible for you as a musician, financially. Because this is an area a lot of musicians don't think about, don't consciously think about, yet, there are so many, you know, beliefs and viewpoints that are imposed upon musicians over their years, that really prevent them from having success. And if they actually thought about it logically, and used evidence, you can perhaps realize it's a lot easier to make money as a musician, and there's more opportunity out there than musicians to play. So let's, let's chat a little bit. This is actually based on a response to a survey I sent out at the end of my Fulltime Music challenge, where, you know, in the Fulltime Music Challenge, and there is an opportunity to join Fulltime Music Academy, which that is not always the case, you cannot just openly join it, there are processes you have to go through. And so I sent out a survey asking, like, why were you unable to join Fulltime Music Academy at this point, and somebody responded, saying they didn't believe that there were enough opportunities, like gigs for their trio to make their money back. Which, you know, it's a perfectly reasonable explanation. But if you actually logically thought through it, then you might realize that there are some, some assumptions underlying that statement, which are not actually true. So you know, in the last couple episodes I've been, I went over the the four main categories of high paying gig types. And I want to share with you how, like I said before, there are more of these opportunities available, than there are musicians to play them. And let's, let's do this, from the perspective of venues. So in order for a gig to happen, it has to happen at a venue, right? That's pretty obvious. gigs don't happen in outer space, they happen at a place that hosts a gig. And with those four high paying gig types, those don't take place at restaurants or clubs. Those typically take place in ballrooms or hotels or, you know, wedding venues. And so in order to disprove this false notion that there are not enough gigs to go around to break even on something that isn't even that, that expensive. Think about how many of these types of venues exist in your area, like, go ahead and do a quick Google search. I mean, if you're in your car, you know, pull over to the side, don't just text and drive. But do a quick search for a couple of different terms, like wedding venues in city name, or ballrooms in city name. In fact, if you really want to dive into weddings go on a website called wedding wire.com. And then you can filter by category, and literally choose wedding venues in city. So if I do that, in Denver, there are hundreds of venues in Denver, which is amazing, hundreds of them. Now, what that implies, so here's the thing about venues is like their goal, in order for them to stay in business. They have to host events, they're like, that's how they make their money is by hosting these events. And so they sell people, their venue. And they, most of them want to sell at least one every single weekend day. So Saturday, Sunday, even maybe Friday, like a lot of wedding venues, and things they host events Friday night, and then throughout the week, too. So I think it's kind of safe to assume for each of those venues, there are at least three gigs, a weekend. Don't worry, we'll get to the fact that you know, some of these gigs still have musicians, we'll talk about that. Now, another thing is that a lot of these venues have multiple sites, like multiple spaces for events to occur multiple ballrooms. I played a gig at this one place in, in Wisconsin back in the day. It's called Lake lawn resort. And I think they had they mentioned to me they could host like seven weddings in a day that had seven spaces for for private events. It's pretty awesome. But what that basically does is it drives the average number of events per venue in the state up above one, right? It's usually not below one, unless they go out of business because then they're not making back their investment in the building and being able to pay staff and etc. So it's good rather than one, let's just say for math purposes, it is one and a half. So one and a half events per venue per day. And these venues are probably hosting events three times a week. So three times one and a half is four and a half. And then multiply that by, you know, I said there, several 100, let's say 300 venues in the Denver area. So four and a half times three, I'm gonna actually get my calculator up for this. So 4.5 times three is 13.5. Is that correct? 4.5 times three is 13.5. Okay, so 13.5 events, per venue, per weekend. Sorry, it's early in the morning. Let me do math here again. So 4.5 events per weekend, times 300. That's the number I was looking for. So every weekend in Denver, there are about 1350 private events going on. So 1350 per weekend. Okay, so then we multiply that by how many weekends there are in a year, of course, there are seasonality to this, like, you know, not all weddings happening in winter. And I'm also talking just about weddings, because I do play tons of those. But there are also corporate events, nonprofit events, private parties. So let's say events happen, on average 40 times a year, 40 weekends a year. So that is a conservative estimate. This is literally just napkin math, 54,000 gigs, a year of high paying gigs, which I know for a fact this is is a conservative estimate. But 54,000 gigs a year that could hire musicians. Now, oftentimes, this, this is going to address the fact that not all of these gigs hire a musician, sometimes they will hire a DJ. But almost all of them require entertainment of some sort. The reason why not all of them hire musicians, is mostly because DJs market themselves better than musicians overall. And I know this because if you look in the marketplace, you will see how aggressive DJs market themselves. And I believe they market themselves mainly because their services are typically a commodity. Most DJs do the same thing. You know, on the on the basic end of things, they provide a sound system. They play background music, and they offer emceeing services. Some of them offer lighting, and some of them offer some other like special effects or photo booths and things. But on the surface, most DJs do the same thing. It is a lot harder to differentiate yourself as a DJ. So they are marketing very aggressively in the typically market themselves as the easiest option to entertain your guests. So that is the angle that DJs typically take. However, I'm not advocating that we steal gigs from DJs. Although if you out market a DJ, go for it. I like to market myself as complementary to a DJ. You know, a DJ provides sound system wealth, we would provide live music that can plug into the DJ sound system. So you get the best of both worlds, you get the brilliance of live music, the highly entertaining aspect of live music, plus the convenience of a DJ to fill in the rest of the evening, then if some cover bands even offer a DJ service for their breaks, which I think is a great idea, because then you're selling the best of both worlds. So 54,000 Gig opportunities in a city in a year, there's no possible way I could play 54,000 gigs in the year, it's like physically not possible. You know, I play typically 150, maybe 200 If I'm pushing myself a year. But then the next part is, as a private event musician, you get to set your own rates. So even if I got half a percentage of 54,000 and do the math on that, so 54,000 times 0.005 that is half a percentage. That is 270 Gig opportunities for me, where I get to set my own rates. And I get to set my own rates because I have chosen to market myself as a musician. And I don't let the market dictate what people pay me. I straight up refuse people who say, you know, we can only pay you 200 bucks. It's like no, I can't do it. And so that's how I maintain my integrity in the marketplace and maintain the amount that I make per day. So I get half a percentage of all of those gigs. That is 270 gigs, which is more than I personally am able to play. Which, you know, I think I could get more than that, simply because I'm one of the few musicians who know how to market myself. So that's a lot of gigs. And I know, not every city is as big as Denver, but do the math on your own city, and figure out how many venues that host private events are in your city? And you'll be surprised because private events are also hosted at places like you know Elks lodges, and even local YMCA is those hosts, events to churches, hosts, those synagogues, mosques, other places of worship, host private events as well. And, yeah, so there are tons of these venues and do the math on, you know, how many events? Can they host a year? How many events? Can they host in a given day? Is it a place like Lake lawn resort that can host seven events at a time? Is it a one and done, but the average will be more than one per day, and then multiply that by three opportunities in a weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then multiply that by 52 weeks in the year, multiplied by the number of venues in your area. You see, there are tons of opportunities, and then shift the mindset from like, you know, I'm competing against DJs to I'm not competing against DJs. I'm collaborating with DJs and perhaps their gigs that I have access to that I didn't realize I did before. And then, you know, figure out what percentage of those gigs can you actually get? And I assure you, it will be more than you probably have capacity to play. But how do you get those gigs is through marketing. So that's, I guess, you know, back to that survey, that you think that there are not enough gigs for you to actually be able to make a return on your investment when you invest in something like business training. I just think that that's a little short sighted. And we can do better. But the mindset has to be of abundance. And by the way, you know that I use very conservative numbers. In my estimates, I do believe that the potential is actually much greater. Because I don't like to limit myself by numbers saying like that I only can do 270 gigs a year means like, Well, what happens if I do book 270? Well, I turned down the 271st. Probably, just because like, I know that I'm making more than enough money as a musician that I don't need to take on that extra gig. Plus, that's also a great marketing strategy is by limiting your availability, so that you become exclusive. And not everybody can get access to you. And that's something I'm playing around with a lot right now in my marketing. And I'll share more about that in the separate podcast episode. But I have this really good feeling about it, that it will change the game for my music marketing. So hope that helps. I know it's kind of a ramble. But I just got to this really interesting little park in Denver that I'd been to before but had never gotten to it this way. And it's beautiful, lush green grass fields. And that's super cool. So, hope that helps. Hope you guys think about this in your own area. And instead of thinking like, there are not enough gigs to go around, like actually do the math on it. And realize there are more than enough gigs for any single act to play. But it always takes a shift in mindset. Alright, thanks for tuning in to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. Remember, "You are just one gig away!".