Wedding Expo Recap

What's up gigging pros. It's Jared, welcome to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast, I'm actually on my way to another venue tour. It's a venue about a half hour west of my city. And if you don't know what a venue tour is, then welcome to the game. It's what we do to get us more gigs. Listen to one of our previous episodes on venue tours, to demonstrate how important they are, and the amazing, incredible results that they give you. Just simply by visiting a venue and introducing yourself and playing bringing your instrument. Anyway, that's not what I'm here to talk about. Today. I'm here to recap, a wedding expo that I played last night. So for those of you who don't know me that well, I am a wedding musician. But the strategies that we talked about in the Gigging Musician Podcast do not just apply to weddings, they are live music, business concepts that can be applied to other types of gigs, but also none gigs, if you're interested in perhaps getting more students or getting recording contracts or other things like that. These business principles that we talk about apply to all sorts of types of opportunities for musicians, but it's the musicians who are creative and figure out how they can apply them to their unique situation. They're the ones that win. And that's what I'm here to help you with, is how to win. So I played a wedding expo, which for those of you who don't know what a wedding expo is, it's kind of like a trade show, if you imagine, you know, some people might know, the NAM trade show where they, then I think it's North American Music Merchants Association. It's basically where all different music retailers and instrument manufacturers and sheet music publishers and all that where they get together and put on this really cool show where everyone has a booth. And they're selling their their product and showing their product to people who could possibly buy. So wedding expo is kind of like that. But it's for newly engaged couples, for them to come and see all of the different wedding services that are available in their city. There are venues that showcase like pictures of the venue, there are caterers that give out samples of their food, there are flowers, florists to, you know, have full flower arrangements on display. And then there, it's, it's a fun experience, if you haven't gotten to one, just go to one, as you know, even if you're not getting married, just go and check it out. Because you'll get a lot of free stuff, which is fun. But you're gonna learn a whole lot, because the cool part is, not only are there those services that I just mentioned, but they're also DJs, which, you know, we're kind of in a similar category as DJs. If you're a musician, people do think, you know, musicians tend to compete with DJs for weddings. And that is a very real phenomenon. So it's great to see how are DJs marketing themselves at these things. But then they're also the very few live musicians at these expos. So last night, at this expo, there were three total live musicians, there was me demonstrating dream city strings. And then there was a booking agency in town who I've actually played for a couple of times. They're friends of mine. And, you know, I always love seeing them. And then there is also a new kind of booking agency in town. They're a band that's trying to do multiple variations of their band. And they're not necessarily based in my city, but they want to break into our market. So it was really great to meet a new player to the scene. So just the networking opportunities alone are worth it to have a booth at this wedding expo. So this particular wedding expo had an incredible opportunity for musicians that, you know, it's rare at these things, unless you figure out creative way how to get them. This was held at a live music venue, which had a stage Turner Hall ballroom, if you are familiar with Milwaukee, it had a beautiful stage that literally like some of the greats in the music industry have toured through and played. And, you know, the this wedding expo has three performance slots for musicians to go onstage. So that was really cool, because we got one of the slots. So this year, I am launching a jazz trio as part of dream city music. So we have the strings. And then we also have the jazz trio. So you're kind of getting a sneak peek of how I am building that from the ground up with the help of one of my good friends, Anthony. And so I got one of those spots just simply by asking. They mentioned Hey, we have three performance slots available. Is anyone interested is like well, heck yes, I'm interested. Let's do it. So we nabbed the first slot. And I was careful to choreograph this so that I wasn't playing. I had the jazz trio playing I'm not a jazz musician. I'm a string player. I choreographed it so that I would speak and introduce them before and after their set, it was a 30 minute set. So very quick set. And it started off with me on the mic for the entire wedding venue, introducing myself and my company, just briefly going over what we do for weddings, because it was a wedding expo, and then making an offer right then from the stage for them to come to my booth and grab a free copy of, I put together a lead magnet, which I'll probably do an entire episode on. Another point. A lead magnet is simply a tool that you can use, it's a giveaway, you give something away, doesn't have to be super high value, like it doesn't even have to cost you much to give it away. But it should be valuable to the person getting it. So my lead magnet was Milwaukee's top wedding ceremony playlists. And I gave that away in exchange for their email address. So that's how I captured their email address. And I made that offer from the stage, both before the jazz trio played. And then after I came back on reminded people who they were introduced them by name, and then once again made the offer of the lead magnet. So I had some people coming to the booth and grabbing a copy of my lead magnet. And the cool part about that lead magnet is. So here's the mindset that you have to understand when people come to wedding expos. The majority of them are not getting married this year, or some of them not even next year, they might be getting married in two years time. So you can't be pushy, you can't really try to push them to book right on the spot. They're just gathering ideas and information. So the nice thing about giving away this lead magnet is that's exactly what they want. They wanted ideas, information inspiration. And because I have their email address, I'm able to follow up with them. And then when they are ready to book, I can help convince them to book us. So I did that I captured a bunch of email addresses. I literally just got back last night and I haven't gotten into the office yet to check how many we got. But as part of the lead magnet, I send them after they consume the lead magnet, there's a link to my wedding sales presentation, where it's a 20 minute recorded video of me giving that presentation. So the people who went to the expo got the lead magnet, the PDF, saw the link in it, clicked the link and watched the sales presentation. And actually overnight, we booked one wedding from that already which is pretty incredible. And you know I didn't do much pushy I didn't do any pushy selling because, again, I hear the Gigging Musician Podcast, our whole mindset is that selling is serving. So it's not like sleazy, trying to just get your money, like a used car salesman is selling is serving, I want to help these people have a wedding that they'll remember and treasure forever. But I can't help them unless they book. So that's how I serve them is by getting them to actually put a deposit down and book us. So that is my wedding expo strategy. There's a bit more to it, of course, and maybe I'll post a picture of my booth on our Book Live Facebook page and Instagram account just because it's kind of cool to see. But check that out. It is just another cool idea of how to increase the number of bookings for your gigging act. And again, this isn't just for weddings, because there are trade shows and expos for other industries too, like corporate event planning, nonprofit event planning, and the creative musicians, the ones who really want to make their music careers work. We'll figure out how to take these gold nuggets of how it works for one industry and apply them to others and have success. So that's all I got for you today. Thank you so much for tuning into the Gigging Musician Podcast and if you have not heard, we are giving away a free copy of our Gigging Secrets book. It is a short book, but it is the underground playbook to making a living performing at only 68 pages long you could literally consume that in a night. Start applying some of these gold nuggets to your gigging act right away and work towards the dream of making a living as a musician. So thanks for listening and remember you are just one gig away.