Tuesday, October 22, 2024
In this episode, Jared shares the behind-the-scenes experience of a challenging gig at Cherokee Ranch and Castle. From unexpected weather to power outages, Jared recounts how he adapted to the situation, stayed calm under pressure, and turned a potentially stressful event into a five-star success. Listen in as Jared discusses handling last-minute changes, the importance of being prepared, and the invaluable lessons learned from years of gigging experience.
"Even though it was stressful, I still felt pretty calm and was able to operate at a high level despite the circumstances. Do enough gigs, and you get comfortable—imagine that."
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What's up, renegaded musicians? It's Jared Judge. Welcome back to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. And this is a follow up podcast to the previous episode where I mentioned I was on my way to a gig at the Cherokee Ranch and Castle in Sedalia, Colorado.
And now I'm on my way home from that gig, and I just had to do a follow up episode because it was a crazy gig, like, just in for any gigging musician.
This one had its challenges that I think I handled pretty well. In fact, I just got a notification of my phone from the corporate event planner leaving a five star review on Google.
But this event, you know, through no fault of the planners, was just kind of crazy because it was on the back end of a golf tournament. So this. The gig was for about, like, 40 or 50 guests, and they were all attending a golf tournament with their company.
And then they went to this Cherokee ranch and Castle venue, which, by the way, google that. It's such a cool venue. And they were going there to have, like, cocktails and then a nice dinner where they could socialize.
And I was hired as the cocktail hour entertainment and as the dinner entertainment, 4 hours, and I got to take plenty of breaks.
So the first thing that happened was yesterday I got an email from the event planner just mentioning, hey, the tee times for the golf tournament were pushed forward an hour, and thus, we need to push the entire event forward an hour. Are you okay with that? Which this event was going to be from six to ten.
So, you know, I did mind getting home an hour earlier. It just meant I have to leave an hour earlier to get there. So that was great.
And then we had done a planning meeting because this, logistically, was going to be a pretty complicated event because it was in two different locations. The cocktail hour and the dinner were in two different locations. And by the way, I love playing cocktail hours.
It's literally like you're just playing a bar gig. People are just hanging out, drinking, listening to your music. And so the cocktail hour was actually inside this castle.
It was an actual castle, and it was inside, like, the main. The great hall, which was super cool. So cocktail hour was in the castle, but then immediately following the cocktail hour, the dinner was in a tent outside.
That did have power, which was nice. So right away, I knew, like, it was a fast transition time. So I'm gonna need two setups.
Plus, they. Apparently they needed wireless microphones, but they actually didn't use them. So I did set up wireless microphones.
So the second setup was in the tent. And I used two sets of equipment for it for inside the castle. It wasn't actually a very large castle.
I'd say the indoor space was maybe 30 or 40ft by 20ft. And so I knew it was pretty small that I could use my bose s one pro battery powered speaker and that would be plenty of power. And so I set that up first inside the castle.
That's where I was going to be playing first. And then I set up my two, like, powered pa speakers and mixer in the tent.
But the issue was that there was a thunderstorm approaching and so the people from the venue were like doing their best to try to waterproof the tent and put like kind of these sandbaggy things on the ground in front of the opening to the tent.
And so I set up my stuff, thinking, oh, it'll hopefully be pretty dry. Little did I know it would not be dry. So anyway, that's some foreshadowing for y'all.
And then let's. After I was done setting up, then I go back into the castle and I do a live stream in the business. Tips for Gigi musicians Facebook group.
So if you want to actually see the setup, you should totally join that Facebook group and just check. It was posted a couple days ago. I don't know when this will be posted, but let's get the actual date.
Today is August 22, so scroll back to our posts from August 22 and you'll find it. And then I played for about an hour and 15 minutes or so, and it was good. People really enjoyed it.
And I could tell this was more like a classic rock kind of crowd, not so much a Taylor swift kind of crowd. So I kept my music selection pretty classic rocky, you know, summer of 69, aerosmith, and even some modern rock too. Like all the small things was a huge hit that went over really well.
So I played there and then that's at the tail end of the cocktail hour, was when it started to downpourethere. So that's. I got a text from the event planner saying, hey, we lost power in the tent.
Are you able to operate off of battery? Which, lucky for me, a couple weeks ago, I bought a nice battery pack. It's a Jackery 500, J A C K E R Y, which is this amazing battery pack that I think they call it a power bank. You know, it's kind of like those phone power banks, except this will power more than a phone.
This will probably power your whole house for an hour. And so this thing, you know, I got the 500 watt version, which is one of their smallest ones, but it works for my entire powered setup with mixer and wireless mic for, like, four or 5 hours. And so I was able to use that for the.
For the entire dinner. And luckily, like, power did come back. But at that point, like, I had already switched over to my battery, and I was like, I don't want to risk the power going out again.
I'm just gonna run off of battery. When I moved from cocktail hour to the dinner, I did notice, like, the water waterproofing that they tried to do did not work.
Like, sure, it might have kept out a ton of water, but still a bunch got in, and then my, like, plugs and power bricks were kind of in some standing water.
So I was actually kind of nervous, like, what will happen when I plug this in? Am I gonna get electrocuted? But I decided it was worth the risk.
I hope that my mom isn't listening to this, but I decided it was worth the risk and tried it, turned it on, and I did not get electrocuted. And then it worked totally fine.
And then for the rest of the dinner, first off, like, I ran some music off of Spotify for, like, the first 1520 minutes of the dinner just because, like, I needed a break. And it was in my contract that I get breaks. Plus, they fed me some really nice food.
It was catered. The food was delicious. It was like, like, prime rib and sesame chicken skewers and just really nice food.
So that was really delightful. Then I played my music, and, yeah, people really got into it. That's when I busted out the zeppelin.
I played stairway to heaven. I played cashmere. And, like, after both of those tunes, I didn't play them back to back.
I kind of spread them out a bit, but I got, like, applause, which was really nice. And then, you know, just random, like, great jobs from people in the audience throughout the rest of the evening. Then once I was done, like, the bartender came up to me and he was like, dude, that was effing amazing.
I love the sound of a violin playing all those tunes. Then he, like, said, what do you want to drink? And got me a jack and coke, which was really nice. And then they had some security guards there, one of whom was also a musician.
He said he's a drummer. He said he drums in his church. And he said, like, he gets a little wild.
People call him animal from the Muppets. And he said, yeah, you are great performer. I was like, oh, thank you.
Like, feels really good to get these kind of compliments. And then when I was done. You know, I packed up and everything and then chatted with the event planner, thanked her for having me, and she's like, dude, you saved the night.
Thank you for being so willing to run off of battery and changing, you know, the plan. And you just did amazing, and we'd love to have you at other events.
And I was chatting with the co event planner, and she said, like, this company, they actually sponsor a Formula one car racing team.
And I kind of, like, planted a seed. Like, hey, if you guys do events around those races, let me know. I'd love to come and play.
Play for them. So hopefully I get to play for a Formula one car race. That would be another, like, bucket list item.
Not that I'm a huge car person, but, you know, I know what Formula one is. I think it's really cool, and I'd love to play for one of those events. And then, yeah, the original event planner was just so happy with it.
And I asked her, like, hey, if you liked it, like, would you mind doing a favor? And she's like, oh, you want a review? For sure. And so I handed her. I have these special business cards that were inspired by one of our full time music academy members.
Roger. These business cards just say, leave me a five star review. And they have a QR code that goes straight to my Google, my business profile, the review page.
And then as I was driving home, I got a notification from Google saying, hey, new five star review from Lauren. And so I can't read it yet because I'm driving. But I saw that that already happened, which is awesome.
So that is today's crazy gig where I did not get electrocuted, luckily, but the risk was definitely present, and I think I handled it well. It was a stressful moment, but, like, I don't know. It definitely was one of the more stressful gigs that I've experienced.
However, the stress did not feel nearly as intense as, like, some previous stressful gigs I remember from back in Milwaukee. Like, I remember. I think some of the most stressful gigs that I ever did was when I was a wedding DJ.
I DJ'd five weddings before I decided, like, oh, this isn't for me. Which, spoiler alert, I might be getting back into that, but we'll talk about that another time. And just, I guess the uncertainty of how does a wedding work and how does a DJ do what DJ's do, and is the equipment gonna work?
Like, all that was super stressful, and I just remember my brain hurting throughout that gig, and I didn't have any fun.
And as a result, I vowed that I never dj a wedding again. But that is actually going to change again.
So this gig, even though it was stressful, I still felt pretty calm and I was able to operate at a pretty, pretty high level despite the circumstances.
So I'm proud of myself. I feel like I've come a long way and not just from like the marketing and promotion of my music, but also like the way that I handle myself at a gigden. So yeah, do enough gigs, you get comfortable doing gigs.
Imagine that. Alright, that's all I got for y'all today. By the way.
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alright, that's all I got for you guys. Thanks for tuning into another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. Remember, "Your music will not market itself!".
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