In this episode, Jared explores how musicians can take advantage of large events coming to their cities, using examples from his experiences in Milwaukee and Denver. Jared discusses practical strategies for getting involved in high-profile events like the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, and highlights the importance of having a solid marketing foundation and proactive approach to networking.

"When a large-scale event is coming to your town, you have to be active in your pursuit. Don’t just hope they’ll find you; take action to get on their radar and secure those high-paying gigs."

- BookLive: Everything you need to start marketing and booking your act online (without having to hire or rely on a tech team!)​
- Your First Gig: Everything you need to book your first high-paying gig.
- Fulltime Music Masterclass: The Secret To an Unlimited Stream of High-Paying Private Event Gigs …Without Spending a Fortune on Online Advertising or Having Any Connections!
- Fulltime Music Academy (Gig Vault): 24,665 High-End Venues + Event Planners: Use this directory to book your highest-paid gig to-date.
- Breaking Into High-end Gigs Masterclass: How I Went From Broke Musician to Thriving By Breaking Into These Largely Unknown High-Paying Gigs

What's up, renegade musicians? Welcome back to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. I am your host, Jared Judge, and on this podcast, we talk about how we do music differently. You know, we're not pursuing the low paying, low end gigs.

We're not pursuing millions of streams or fans on Spotify. We're pursuing actual high end gigs that pay us a living wage and make us feel treated the way that we deserve. So, anyway, I wanted to chat about, you know, how to take advantage of a large opportunity that comes to your city.

So there are two kind of case studies, actually, three case studies that I want to highlight right now. And let's talk about. Yeah, let's talk about Milwaukee.

Milwaukee is the city that I came from. I live in Denver right now, but about a year and a half ago, I lived in Milwaukee, and right before COVID came in and ruined so many things, Milwaukee was chosen to host the democratic national Convention. Now, I'm not going to bring any politics into this.

I don't think politics and, you know, our pursuit of music business mix, but let's talk about the actual logistics of what happens when the Democratic National Convention was supposed to come until Milwaukee.

For those of you who don't know, the Democratic National Convention is kind of a week long conference or whatever for members of the Democratic Party, specifically in the administration side, where they officially get together and officially, like, elect the candidate who they are going to put on the ballot for the main presidential election. And you'll notice Milwaukee was also chosen for the 2024 Republican National Convention.

And so we'll kind of talk about each of those events separately. And so back when, you know, when the DNC, that's Democratic National Commission, when the DNC was coming to Milwaukee, there was like, a huge, I don't know, buzz in the business industry.

Like, so many people just had their fire lit underneath them because they were like, this is going to bring in thousands of people from across the country, and they're going to spend lots of money in Milwaukee area businesses, which presented huge opportunities for these businesses and musicians, because we musicians are businesses, too.

To actually capitalize on that. And so when I was in Milwaukee and this was happening, I had my finger on the pulse of this. I was getting emails from the tourism board and all of the other local community organizations who had anything to do with this, some of the venues that were selected to host it.

And so I wanted to take advantage of this, too. And so I was actively subscribing to these different email newsletters where people were putting out information about it. There was actually.

There was a local DNC host committee. Yeah, they called it a host committee, which was an organization that was founded, like, pretty much right after the DNC chose Milwaukee as their venue. And it was a group of local business leaders who decided, or didn't decide, I think they actually had to work with the national DNC.

They were chosen to do all the organization be the boots on the ground of organizing this whole event, working with police, making sure that it was, I don't know, safe and secure and all that, plus working with all the businesses to make sure they knew what opportunities were available and how to take advantage of them.

And so the host committee presented several sessions, like, kind of open forums for local businesses on how to get involved in the DNC.

And I attended some of them, which was really interesting, and they had information about, like, here's what the DNC is going to look like from a scheduling standpoint.

Here's the perimeter in the city, what kind of venues are going to be used, and then what kind of businesses would be needed, like catering services, hospitality services, hotel, whatever. And then they also had information on how to apply to get on a list of, you know, businesses that could be chosen for that. And they created a whole portal, an online portal where you actually had to apply.

And so I applied and just kind of went to as many of these different meetings as possible. There was another organization in town called, what was it? Imagine MkE, which was kind of the arts chamber of commerce. And they were involved in this process, too, because they kind of served as a.

Not gatekeeper, but like, a liaison for the whole arts community in Milwaukee. And so they were involved in this, too. And I went to a lot of their meetings, too.

I actually met with their CEO of imagine MKE, and we talked about, how can I get involved in this? And he just kept hammering on, like, there's gonna be so many private events at this DNC, and they're all going to need some sort of entertainment and a lot of jazz trios. He's like, get your jazz trio is ready. It's like, okay.

And that's actually part of why I marketed Dream City jazz, which still exists. We have a jazz combo jazz trio, mainly led by Anthony Deutsch, who's an amazing musician, good friend of mine, and I kind of do a lot of the coordinating and organizing for that, even from Denver. And so.

So we got jazz trios ready. But as we all know, Covid came and actually prevented the DNC from happening. They wound up doing a lot of the events live streamed from Maryland instead of Wisconsin, which was a huge blow to the community because a lot of people had invested lots of money in getting their facilities ready, getting staffing ready, marketing to these host committees.

Oh, actually, I remember there was one other thing. The host committee actually hosted a, what do you call it, like an expo where you could come in and have a booth, and then delegates from the different people who were coming in for the DNC would come in and go from booth to booth and explore these businesses. And I actually had a booth.

So I set up a booth where I advertised Dream city strings and Dream City jazz. I actually had like a, an upgrade, write bass as part of my booth and my violin and videos of our performances, and I had a booth. So that's another way I took it, tried to take advantage of the DNC before COVID ripped it away from us.

And so kind of that's like the principle of when a large scale event is coming to your town, whether it's the DNC, the Republican National Convention, the RNC, the Super bowl, which came to Phoenix a couple years ago. And I was there.

I didn't go to the Super bowl, but I've got family in Phoenix, so I saw a lot of their activations, but it was really have a pulse on the event that's going to happen.

If they're hosting information sessions on how to get involved, find out about those information sessions, like look up local, you know, event listings. You'll see them on newspaper websites and other community events calendars, and then go to them. Like, be active in your pursuit of this and ask lots of questions of people.

Like, you know, when I found I, I chatted with the CEO of imagine MKE. I was asking lots of questions, like, how do I get involved in this? And he was very clear how to do this. Also, if they have places where you can get on a list, like a portal to apply, then fill out that application.

Don't be intimidated. They will ask you for stuff like your business information, and you have to be prepared with that. Even if you're just running your band as a sole proprietor, you can still list that as a business on those forms.

Don't get too intimidated by the length of those forms because they're worth doing. So then let's talk about here in Denver. There is a not quite as big event coming up, but it is.

My networking group, NACE, National association for Catering and events, is hosting a, they call it the Nace Experience conference. And that's in Denver. That's probably going to bring in 500 people or so from across the country, all members of NACE chapters in different states, which is really cool.

Hopefully, I get to see some of you there if you're NACE members in other cities. And so Denver was chosen to host it. And the way that I have been getting involved in that is also by keeping a pulse on what's happening.

So I looked up the agenda. There's a whole website for it. So I literally just scoured that website, learned what's happening, and then looked for volunteer opportunities.

So in the NACE world, here's why I'm looking for volunteer opportunities instead of just paid gigs of. I treat these networking groups for the events industry. That's where I sow my seeds.

And I think I did a podcast episode a while ago called Planting Gig Seeds. And so I am more than happy to sponsor any event in the networking industry, in the events industry for a networking group, because it is planting gig seeds that I do know pay off. Like, I've experienced it firsthand, and I've seen other musicians who have done this strategy also plant gig seeds.

For example, I'm on my way to a networking group right now, and th entertainment, the booking agency, is sponsoring it. Why would they sponsor it if it didn't give them a return on that, right. So I'm gonna go volunteer for this NACE experience thing.

They put out a call for volunteers, an email, and I immediately filled out the form. Turns out I was actually offered to volunteer as an event planner by accident, which I'm not interested in doing. And so they confirmed with me, like, oh, this is for planning one of the sessions.

Are you interested? And I was like, oh, actually, I'm just looking to perform at any of the receptions, so. Okay, here's how you do that. And so they.

I filled out another form for that, and then they let me know that I was selected to perform at two of the sessions. The first one is Monday, I think it's July 21 or so, that they're doing a chef culinary lunch experience for 300 people, and I'm going to be playing, providing the entertainment for that.

Then the second one is, they have a foundation, which is their non profit, where they raise money to give scholarships to people in the networking groups.

And so they're having a dinner that night, same Monday, but this time it's at 08:00 so I have a couple hours of rest between those two gigs. So I happily accepted those, and I will incur the costs of parking and just my own time setting up my sound equipment. And performing.

But what I'm hoping comes from this is a lot of my local networking industry peers will continue to see me and the good work that I do and have the epiphany that, hey, this guy, I gotta bring him to my, my actual corporate gigs and my weddings and all that.

And then similarly, what I'm possibly excited about is the NACE members from across the country hearing my music and liking it enough that, hey, we'll pay your travel fee. We got a corporate event in Dallas or New York City where we want to fly you in and put you up in a hotel and have you playdead.

So I think that would be pretty awesome, too. I'm not expecting that, but I think it would be awesome. So, yeah, that's, that's the second way that I'm taking advantage of these large scale events that are happening.

And then this third one is kind of like, I'm not personally trying to take advantage of this, but I, I've actually seen some of my BookLive members in Milwaukee take advantage of this, which is that the Republican National Convention is coming to town. I think it's actually next week. I don't know.

I don't really stay on top of those kinds of things. And so that's happening next week or whatever. And I noticed in BookLive, some of my members have actually already booked gigs where the title is Republican National Convention cocktail Hour, which is awesome.

And so they are taking advantage of it. I imagine that they stayed on the pulse of it. Plus, you know, there's one other component to this, like, taking advantage of large scale events thing, which is having a solid marketing foundation.

You gotta have a website for your act. The people that I've seen on BookLive who have booked, you know, the RNC gigs have a website where they advertise corporate events because this is essentially a large scale corporate event.

And so they, they have that fundamental foundation of a website that does a lot of the marketing for them, especially gets them found on Google when people are searching.

And so there are ways to take advantage of these events, especially if you know about these events coming to town, then you've got to take action on those events. You can't just like, hope and pray that, oh, they'll find out about me, they'll use me, because odds are they won't, right? You have to be active in that pursuit.

And I actually know that from personal experience because I have not gotten an RNC gig yet because I'm in Denver and I've pretty much stopped actively marketing my my acts in Milwaukee, I still get a lot of work from my preferred vendorship partners, but it's not a lot of, like, new connections and new, new opportunities.

It's really just a wedding planner who's worked with our act five times in the past. Oh, here's. Here's a six time.

And so, yeah, you do have to be active in your pursuit of these. These events. And then the question is, like, why just the high profile gigs? Why just the high, large scale events? Why not scour your local convention hall's website for their calendar and get on the radar of the people organizing those conventions? Right? There's no reason not to.

So I don't know. All right, I hope you found some of these hints and tips helpful. I didn't really have a plan for how to go about this, but we got it done, and I hope you guys found some useful information from that.

I have just arrived at my networking event, so I'm gonna hop off here. But by the way, if you would like a free trial of BookLive software to help you find more opportunities and organize your performances better, go to Booklive.com, sign up for a free trial, and get her done.

All right, thanks for tuning in to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. Remember, "Your music will not market itself!". Take care, everybody.