Are DJs Our Competition

What's up gigging pros! It's Jared Judge. Welcome to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. I feel like it's been weeks since you and I last chatted, but it might not have been. It is August 3 today. And I'm happy to announce that yesterday, I finally got my Colorado license plates. So my car is official. Yay. It's been a crazy couple of weeks here, as far as gigging is concerned, and crazy in a good way. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I don't know if I mentioned it here in my email newsletter. But basically, I had fallen off the wagon. As far as reaching out to new venue and event planners. You know, I preach it all the time. And the partnerships that I've created so far have really been paying dividends. Like I burst into this new city with no connections, no following nothing, and have already been playing tons of gigs, just by the few pieces of of work that I've taken to the few partnerships I've created. But I know I can be doing a lot more. So I've been doubling down. I have had my dream team, which is my virtual assistants reach out to every venue and event planner in Denver, within 30 miles. And I've been getting tons of emails back, saying, Yeah, let's have you out to our venue, come, come take a tour, bring your instrument. It'll be a great time. So I'm really excited about that. So I urge you if you have not been diving into the strategy yet, do it now is the time. The second thing is some unexpected partnerships have been happening that I hinted at on previous episodes. You know, I say that you could partner a lot with event venues and event planners, and then I'll cover your weddings, corporate events, nonprofit events, private parties, etc. But I have not hammered as much the fact that you can partner with other businesses in the events industry. good case in point is DJ company. So you know, I will admit I am an electric violinist, which is easy to pair with DJ. However, I don't think that means it won't work for those who are not electric violinists, or saxophonist or guitars feel like this could work for all kinds of musicians, you just have to be a little more creative with your partnership. So I partnered with a couple DJ companies, one of which I met at an open house that I sponsored, which I talked about, that was at conifer ranch in conifer, Colorado, about 40 minutes outside of Denver. Met this DJ company, their owner of the company, they were DJing in a different space of the venue that I was playing at, I was playing at another space, and the owner of the DJ company came over, listen to me play and said she loved it. Thought it was amazing, would love to work together. So we exchanged business cards followed up afterwards. And then, interestingly enough, last week, I get a text from her, asking if I'm available in December, for a gig at Empower field, which is home of the Denver Broncos. I was like that sounds awesome. What kind of gig is that? She's like, it's a holiday party. For a corporation, like boom, a holiday party that I literally booked in July, five months ahead of time. So if you are not marketing yourself for holiday parties yet, now is the time the proverbial starting gun has already fired and the race is on. So that's my one piece of advice from this episode. But also think about that a partnered with a DJ company they heard and he played an open house. We chatted and already got a very handsomely paying gig pays. Oh, let you guys know, pays 1000 bucks for two and a half hours for a soloist, which is pretty awesome. And then another DJ company that I met with in person at their office, and jammed out with the owner, actually plugged my electric violin into his mixer. He played some tunes, we played together. And we've just been getting to know each other and becoming friends. He reached out to me for a gig in September, in Winter Park, Colorado, which is up in the mountains. I think it's about an hour away from Denver, have suffered in new here, so I don't know the lay of the land. So he reached out to me for a gig. And this gig is a wedding that came from this partnership. I'll be playing the ceremony cocktail hour and a little bit of the dancing part, you know, playing alongside the DJ, which I'm excited to do, and that guy is paying 1500 bucks for a solo us. So all pretty cool stuff. Stuff is in the works. These partnerships are paying off to other gigging updates just so you guys are aware of what's going on and maybe You can find a way to model it. Today, I have a gig in the afternoon, maybe I'll do a podcast episode on the way to or from. This is at a hotel. Hotel has a ribbon cutting event. I think they're relaunching it, maybe they did a redesign or something like that. That is in Broomfield, which is 2025 minutes away. And they're doing a ribbon cutting. And they booked me to play for two hours in their lobby, as they have invited industry partners, and other invited guests to this open house, which reminds me, I might need to get some new business cards I might be running out, I gotta check. So hopefully I can get those before the gig today. That gig came from thumbtack, which I'm not usually a huge fan of the online booking websites. So I feel like you don't need them. But the reality is people booking entertainment, you know, Different people use different methods to search for and find their entertainment. And so I still say if you can afford it be everywhere, you know, be on these platforms, just understand the quality of client on these platforms, tends to be a bit lower. This one this ribbon cutting was lucky as a high quality client. And in our conversation afterwards. The reason they had chosen me was they heard me perform at the MIT conference. So I played this MIT conference back in March, I did several episodes on it. And it is still paying off to this date. By making it easier to book clients. Like there's no price resistance, there's no oh, well, I'm just checking out a few other options, like know, the sponsoring of that one conference. When I say sponsor, I do not mean money, I mean by playing is still paying dividends, and I'm sure it will for years to come. Hopefully I can live that conference every year. We'll see. Alright, so that was the third of four, giving updates. The fourth update is an interesting one, which is that maybe I'll do a whole whole episode on this is on Friday, which is tomorrow, I am playing my first group gig in Denver. Up until now I've played as a soloist. And tomorrow I'm playing a wedding, the Denver Botanical Gardens with the five to eight oh, string Cortez. So 5g way to serve quartet is kinda like what Dream City Strings is in Milwaukee, which is the string quartet that I still run in Milwaukee, despite the fact that I live in Denver, there are a roster of musicians, they market themselves primarily to weddings. And then they subcontract out the music at the musicians, to local freelancers. And they had a connection to that group. And they put me on their roster. So they're having me play viola for a wedding tomorrow and another one the week after. So yes, I do still play for other groups. But primarily still private events. And getting involved in these groups, I think is a good thing. Obviously, if I'm doing it, I think it's a good thing. It pays. And it's a another way to break into the gigging scene, if you're not as strong of a marketer, for your own act. It is not to say I'm not a strong market of my own act. But I love working at multiple anger angles. And so I think it's great to tap into this network. Plus, you never know what will come from these gigs. When you're playing as a hired gun for somebody else's, it is their good is not your gig. So I am not going to be marketing my act intentionally, like it's not my place to do so. But you're certainly free to connect with the other musicians. And if there are opportunities to work with them in the future. That is totally fine. But like, it would be poor form for me to go up to the event planner at this gig and say, Hey, by the way, I run this other musical act like no, that's not professional. That's the easiest way to get yourself on the blacklist. Just kind of showing you guys what's going on and my approach to certain things. And I feel like there's plenty of opportunities for everybody. Right. Like that is I think one of the biggest roadblocks that we musicians have is the mindset that there's not enough opportunities. There's no possible way I can make a living doing what I love. But that's not true. There's so many people out there who want to hire a live musician, but don't know how. In fact, I did a poll in a Facebook group for people planning their wedding. Why wouldn't they hire a live musician? And about 40% did say they were not interested But then the next thing on the list was, they're too expensive. Which, that's an interesting one. Because when probed a little further, I found that these people expect live musicians to cost in the 10s of 1000s of dollars for range. So like, you know, I could literally put a downpayment towards something big, instead of a live musician, which you and I both know, we musicians do not all charge 10s of 1000s of dollars. So that's an objection, that is not actually true. So we can overcome that objection, I don't want you to say that you're cheap. Because I don't want you to charge cheap, you're worth more than what you're currently charging, I'm sure. And I feel the same way about myself. But a lot of people just think it's out of their budget, to hire musicians. So you could overcome that. And then another one was people don't know where to find musicians, which that is completely our fault for not marketing to them. So I own that problem. And because of all of these things, I believe there are more opportunities out there for musicians than we possibly can imagine. Because even think about the two opportunities with the DJ companies. Those are opportunities for live music, that many musicians would think, Oh, they got a DJ, there's no way they're gonna hire live musicians. But surprise, we're partnering with DJ companies. Now, this is not a zero sum game, where one person wins than another loses. This is a game where everybody can win. But you got to shift the mindset. And I've got the mindset, there are more than enough opportunities out there for musicians, but it's on us to go and get them. And I'm doing my part about you, you're doing your part. If you feel like you can do more, if you want to tap into these partnership strategies, then I invite you to get a free copy of the Gig Vault. This is your list of potential partners, a way to reach out to them Facebook email, website, even the physical address, so that you can just literally say, Okay, today, I'm gonna visit this venue today, meet up with their contact, and get on their preferred vendor list. So grab your copy of the Gig Vault, it'll come with a free 30 day trial of Fulltime Music Academy, which is where all the strategy comes into play. It's got training videos that will show you exactly how to partner, it'll show you why you don't need to be a great marketer, or even a great networker to do this. But you actually don't have to talk that much. Because you can use the power of music when you're meeting up with these people. And they will instantly fall in love with you. So it will come with a free 30 day trial of Fulltime Music Academy. And you can get your Free copy at OpenTheGigVault.com. So go ahead and grab that free copy. Use it. Partner yourself with some venues and event planners and DJ companies and caterers and cake decorators, makeup artists, all the people in the private events industry. And go get it. Go get some guys. So remember, "Your music will not market itself!". Thank you everybody. Bye bye