In this episode, Jared shares his experiences performing at the National Association for Catering Events (NACE) conference, highlighting the power of networking with event planners and creating high-value opportunities. He reflects on the importance of playing sponsored gigs, balancing multiple performances in one day, and how small interactions can lead to big career moves. If you're a musician looking to break into high-end gigs or expand your reach nationally, this episode is packed with insights and inspiration!

"I am playing in front of event planners from across the country, and my goal is to get into national and even international events. That’s why I’m doing this."

- 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, where we do things differently than what the majority of the industry tells you to do. And as a result, we get better results, we're happier, we get more money for our gigs, and we have a lot more fun doing it.

So I am actually in between two gigs today. Today is Monday, July 25, I believe, or 23rd. I'm really bad with dates, as you can imagine, but I'm in between two gigs, and both of them are for the conference called the National association for Catering events, and it is their annual conference that's happening here in Denver.

I actually learned today at my first gig that the next year's is in Milwaukee, so I'm going to try to go back for that just to visit some old friends and maybe even play a gig up there.

Who knows? All right, so. And yeah, man, it's been a crazy busy weekend. I had two weddings this past weekend, one on Saturday and one on Sunday.

The first one on Saturday. Oh, God, where was that? The one on Sunday? Sunday was at a cool place called Blackstone Canyon Ranch in Idaho Springs, and it was gorgeous. It was by a babbling brook.

And I played for a wedding ceremony and a cocktail hour, and that was so much fun. Oh, and the one on Saturday, I remember where it was now. It was at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

My first time playing a gig there. I've been to that museum before, but they do a lot of private events, and I think I did a really good job at both of those gigs. And I also did a good job at this morning's gig.

This morning was the first of my two gigs today for the conference, and it was at the Sheridan downtown. And I've played at this venue before, but it is huge. They've got so many different ballrooms and different locations.

And so I actually got lost walking around the hotel trying to find this place, and I wound up taking my cart full of speakers up a couple of steps, which was not a smart idea. I was actually kind of. I don't know, the adrenaline was very high.

I don't know why. I just felt like a lot of, I guess, stress. And part of the stress is actually because my parents are in town.

Not that they make it more stressful, but, you know, I've got so much going on. And just having that in the back of my mind, too, made me, you know, extra stressy. So I found it.

I took an elevator to get to the right place. And then what was really nice is they had a sound engineer there, so I really didn't have to do much. I had a.

My own stage. Like, they had a main stage for the speakers. The actual event I was playing for was a culinary experience lunch, where it was curated lunch.

And I played for about an hour as people were eating. And then afterwards, there was a talk about sustainable practices in the catering industry. And so that was.

That was really cool. I picked a nice, fun playlist. I reused one that I used at the.

I played a concert last Tuesday, and the playlist was good, had a lot of variety, some Taylor Swift, some aha, some the weekend. So it's a good mix, and I think it worked well. So I just decided to reuse that playlist, and I skipped a couple of tunes that just like, yeah, we can do better for some of these.

So that was. That was good. And then I got lots of compliments.

I set up my phone on a tripod and recorded the entire gig. And it's like a perfect shot to put on my corporate events webpage. So I'm really excited about that.

And then I got to see some old friends at this conference because I was a part of Milwaukee, Milwaukee's chapter of the National association for Catering and events. I'm now in Denver.

And so some of the Milwaukee people did travel for this conference, and so I got to say hi to them.

Actually, one of the chapter members recently passed away, super young, and so I've not had a chance to talk with them about that and, you know, grieve together.

But I met this person who passed away, and we had lunch, and I actually helped her with a little bit of her website, too. She was an event planner, and so definitely want to catch up with them about that, too.

So tonight's gig is at four mile historic park, which I've played this venue before. It is a large park, privately held, and they do a lot of on site events, like corporate events, and they do some festivals around Christmas. They've got a whole lights, like, Christmas lights display.

And I actually played there for that. And then there was a meeting of this national association for catering events. Our local chapter had a meeting here about two months ago, and so that was cool to just attend an event there for the first time.

You know, you play so many private events at all these really cool venues, and I realized, like, you probably don't attend events at them because you're always working them.

So it's nice to sometimes not have a gig, but it also is really nice to have a gig. And so today, this is actually for their foundation as part of the national association for catering and events.

They have a foundation which basically. Hang on one sec. Almost missed my turn.

Okay, cool. All right, we are back on track here. So they have a foundation where they raise money to give out scholarships to people who need them and just grants and things like that.

And so tonight is a fundraising event during the conference. It's part of, like, similar. It's the same conference as this morning, but just a different branch of the organization.

Okay, cool. Wow. The highways are kind of tricky here in Denver.

And so the theme at this event is bright lights and black lights and neon, something like that. So it's like they instructed all the attendees to wear black and, like, white tennis shoes, stuff that will glow in a black light. And so I'm.

I brought two outfits just in case, but one of them is an EDM jersey. It's my fun shirt that I wear to, like, electronic dance music concerts. And it does glow a little bit in black light, which is super fun.

And so I'm gonna wear that. And then I put together a nice playlist of more, like, neon type songs. So more in the EDM realm, a lot of bassy kind of stuff, and it's gonna be a super fun playlist.

And then I chatted with the DJ. So they have a DJ who's sponsoring the evening. I'm just playing cocktail hour, or so I thought, until I called the DJ and I said, hey, you know, if you are playing afterwards, you know, would you like some music, some violin jamming over your tracks? And he said, heck, yeah.

So we're gonna make it happen together, and I'm gonna play first this cocktail hour, and then also for the dancing afterwards. So it's a marathon. I am already kind of tired.

I did have some coffee in the afternoon, which I don't do because it usually keeps me up, but I absolutely needed it today, so I had some coffee. I'm feeling pretty adrenaline.

Oh, and, um, to kind of make matters worse, when I was loading up my car today, I loaded up speakers because I had no idea what the sound engineer would be equipped with.

Luckily, they had professionals, and I didn't need to use my equipment. But I literally brought all of my sound equipment with me, my large mains. And, uh, when I was bringing them downstairs from my apartment into the car, I bashed my knee with one of these speakers.

And these speakers are, like, 40 or 50 pounds. And so it hurts. It still hurts right now.

It's definitely gonna be bruised, but the show must go on. And the reason why I'm doing all these, like, sponsored gigs, because this morning was one that I sponsored. This evening is one that I'm sponsoring as well, is because this is like a national stage.

I am playing in front of event planners from across the country. And after this morning's performance, one of the event planners came up to me, like I said, I business cards. One of the event planners came up to me and said, this was awesome.

I asked, oh, where are you based out of? She said, dallas. And then she said, do you ever travel? I was like, absolutely. I would 100% travel to Dallas.

Play a couple gigs down there. That's kind of my goal. You know, I want to get into the national and even international events industry.

I want people flying me down to Mexico to play their wedding or fly me somewhere across the country in California or Florida playing some corporate events. So that's why I'm doing this.

And even locally, another person, after this morning's gig, he came up to me, said, you know, did a great job, and he connected with me because he used to play violin back in high school.

And he said, yeah, you sound awesome. Are you local? And I said, yes. And he said, great.

I run the Haiwan Golf Club and some other golf course in evergreen. He said, let me take your cards and pass them around the office. And so I feel like this strategy is already paying off.

So I know this episode was kind of rambly, but I'm in the thick of it. I am so excited. I've got tons of energy and let's hope that it lasts the night.

Kind of like that one scene in the Lord of the Rings, the two towers. Your friends are with you, Aragorn. Let's hope they lost the night.

Alright, I'm gonna end this episode before I embarrass myself even further. But thank you so much for listening and tuning into another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast.

By the way, get your free trial of BookLive, the software tool to help you find more private event gig opportunities and then organize them so you don't have to spend that much time actually running the act.

Spend more time playing. Get your free trial BookLive.com. and remember, "Your music will not market itself!".

Bye, everybody.