In this episode, Jared recaps a whirlwind weekend of gigs, from a high-end festival to a wedding cocktail hour and a heartfelt charity event. He shares behind-the-scenes insights on booking premium gigs, the power of standing out, and the importance of relationship-building in the music industry. Discover Jared’s strategies to elevate your performances and leverage partnerships for long-term success. Whether you’re looking to book more high-paying gigs or foster connections with industry pros, this episode has actionable tips to help you grow.

"One of the greatest gifts you can give to a client who’s hired you is truly doing an amazing job—bringing artistry to every performance without making it all about you."

- 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.
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- 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? It's Jared Judge. Welcome back to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. This is going to be a quick gig recap podcast.

It is Sunday, November 3, 2024, and I just finished all of my gigs for the weekend. I had five of them. Holy crap.

So I'll do a quick recap of all of them. Three of them were one festival. So a while ago, actually about a year and a month ago, I was hired the Aurora Colorado Tourism board called Visit Aurora to perform at a launch event.

It was like a press PR event, launching or announcing their new festival that they were going to launch the following year, this year called the Aurora Borealis Festival. And so they hired me to play this launch event that was at the Stanley Marketplace.

Really cool, indoor public market kind of place with a bunch of different stores and restaurants, kind of like a mall, but a little more boutiquey.

And this particular event was inside a Mexican restaurant in the Stanley Marketplace. And yeah, it was. It was great.

I forget what they paid me for that gig, but I basically played probably an hour, hour and a half of music as people enjoyed cocktails and hors d'oeuvres. And then afterwards, they had a drone show. This is if you actually, if you go back in the archives of this podcast, there's one called Drone Show Gig.

I think was talking about this one because there was another potential drone show gig that I did not actually get hired for, but this one I did get hired for, and I did not play during the drone show. I played before it. Anyway, so that was a year ago.

And then, you know, back in probably August of this year, 2024, I totally forgot about that event, by the way. Like, I played the gig and then I just hadn't thought about the festival that they had announced, thinking like, oh, can I play this gig, this festival?

I didn't think about it. And then I started seeing ads on my Facebook and Instagram newsfeed asking for submissions for anybody who wants to perform at the Aurora Borealis Festival.

I was like, oh, hey, I played that launch event a year ago. Let me just apply, see what happens. And so I submitted an application.

I forget exactly what they asked. I think it was very simple, like, you know, a name of your act, name of the bandleader, email address, phone number, and then Instagram page, and maybe like a paragraph description of what you do as a musician.

And I think I wrote something to the effect of I play live electric violin covers of modern tunes, stuff that is trending on TikTok.

Like that kind of thing. That was the description I use because my goal is to stand out. And I don't think many people will, you know, many musicians would apply to something with that kind of a description.

So that was my initial goal, was to stand out with the description. And then, then the second thing I did to stand out was I actually found the email address of the festival coordinator and it was actually probably just like festivalisitaurora.com something like that.

And so I just emailed them saying, hey, my name is Jared Judge. You guys had hired me last year to play for the launch event for this festival and let me know what you think. Just kind of a nudge, like, hey, you already hired me once.

The second time you hire me is going to be even easier than the first. And as a result, I got an email back saying you've been selected to perform. They'd ask what your rate, what my rate was for per performance.

And I put a thousand. And then the email came back and said, hey, we want to hire you for all three days. Is that a daily rate or like, how does, like how does the rate work if we want to hire you for more? And I said, yeah, that's a day rate.

And they came back saying, we only have a $2,500 budget for this particular slot. Would that work for you? And I said, sure, that works for me. 2500 is a soloist for like under three hours of performances.

That's great. So I agreed to it. And then, yeah, so this weekend the.

What is it? The crows came home to roost and it was time to play the gig and it went really well. They. It was in this park that was kind of far away from where I live with traffic.

It was 45, 50 minutes. That's not that far, let's be real, without traffic. It was a half hour.

But it felt like I was driving to the Denver airport because that's Aurora, Colorado is where the. Basically where the airport is. And it was in a park called Winged Melody park, which is named after a art installation, which is actually the.

It's kind of a tarp that goes over the stage, this big tarp structure that is named Winged Melody. And so that's where I was playing. Big festival that was actually huge.

The production value was incredibly high. They had hired a sound company to provide sound and lighting. And the sound system did not disappoint.

It was probably the biggest sound system I've ever played in. There were line array speakers on either side of the stage. I think I counted three subwoofers on each side of the stage, which was cool.

And then behind me were like several trusses with different lighting rigs. And the theme of the festival was Aurora Borealis. So it was like purple and green colored.

And the gimmick of this festival was that like as the sun set, they activated smoke like fog machines and then lasers over on top of the audience area to simulate the Aurora borealis. They called it the Aurora Borealis effect. And so they hired me.

I think it was the only musical act that was hired for all three days. But they hired me to kind of like transition from day to night. And when they turn on the Aurora Borealis effect, it was really cool.

I felt like, once again I felt like I was treated like an artist instead of just a gigging musician. I feel like there is a difference in that and I enjoy that, that feeling. Although, I don't know, at today's wedding I also kind of feel like.

Felt like an artist. Not to like put the spotlight on me, but. All right, so let me.

Let me just keep going through the rest of the weekend. So that was Friday in fact. No, that was not just Friday.

There was more on Friday. So about a week ago I got a message on Gig Salad because yes, I am still on those directories. I don't get a ton of gigs from them because my prices I think are just a lot than other musicians on those platforms.

But sometimes I do get some gigs off of them. And I knew that I was playing the Aurora Borealis Festival Friday at 5 o'clock and a gig request comes into my Gig Salad inbox for a proposal. And this couple was getting married or this guy wanted to propose to his girlfriend and he wanted a violinist to it.

And I saw that the venue was a really interesting venue. It was. It's called Clock Tower Events in Denver.

And it's an old clock tower, it's 17 stories tall. And there's a tiny little private event venue on the 17th floor where the, there's a. The clock face.

Like it's a big old public clock, kind of like in Back to the Future, but bigger. And on the 17th floor is where the actual clock faces are. And that's where this proposal was happening.

And so I figured that's a really interesting sounding gig. It seems like I've got just enough time to play that gig. It was a half hour gig and then get to the festival to do my sound check and perform.

Now this proposal, he. He had a budget of $200, which is lower than what I actually normally Request. I usually don't leave the house for like less than 750 these days, unless it's like a public gig, like a hotel or something.

But I figured because I'm already playing one gig and it would be great if I could use this proposal for some like and also as a warm up before the festival. So I said, screw it, I'll just quote him exactly what his budget is. And I got the gig.

So I played that gig. It was a little bit stressful, but I made it work. So that gig was at like 3 o'clock on Friday and I played and it was gorgeous.

I set up my phone camera, I already posted some of the reels to my Instagram and TikTok and then played that gig and then booked it over to Aurora, which was about a 45 minute drive with some traffic.

And then played the festival gig where we did a sound check which actually took longer because there was a band playing after me and the band had their sound check right after I had my sound check. And so their sound check took a while.

They had to do the sound check for each individual drum and then bass and then guitar and vocalist. And the sound check just, it was fairly efficient. It just took a while because there was a lot of instruments and things to sound check.

And so I actually started about 15 minutes after my scheduled time. And then the gig went a little bit later than normal because there was supposed to be a speech by the mayor of Aurora, like announcing the festival, like welcome and whatever, but the mayor arrived 15 or 20 minutes late, so I actually played a bit longer. I did not use my own contract, so I can't charge that over time, but I don't know, it was a good gig.

I'm not complaining. So that was Friday and then Saturday was the festival again.

And each time I played slightly different set list just to kind of match the vibe of the audience that I was getting. People really seemed to enjoy it. My wife came this Saturday, which was nice, and I set up my phone on a tripod and recorded that gig.

And something I mentioned before, like, I'm starting to feel like an artist, not just a gigging musician. Somebody came up to me after I was done playing and asked for a photo. It was the first time somebody ever asked for a pic with me.

And it was, it was a woman, I don't know, maybe in her mid-20s or something. She's like, I play violin too. It was so great.

And then she took a photo with me, which was nice and definitely stroked my ego a Little bit. But I don't know. That's not really why I do this.

I just really love playing. So that was cool. And then my wife and I listened to the band that was playing after me and they were pretty good.

And we, because I'm a performer, we got access to the VIP tent with drink tickets and food and all that. And that was a good time. We had a nice little date out of it.

And then we watched the Lazer Light show after the band because they did like a special Lazer show choreographed to some EDM music, which I really enjoyed. My wife got a little bit overwhelmed by it, but it's not really her style of music, which is okay. And then.

So that was Saturday, and then today is Sunday and Sunday was chaotic. It was my own fault. But I had two gigs Sunday.

I had the festival at 4:30. 4:30 was my downbeat and it was a half hour set. And then I had another gig.

So 4:30 to 55 is the end of the set. And then I had gig. It was a wedding cocktail hour that started at 5:40.

So if you notice, I gave myself 40 minutes to get from the last note of the first gig to the first note of the next gig, which was a little bit too tight, but I made it. I actually had time to spare because the wedding ceremony went a little bit longer. But yeah, like I let the sound engineers know at the festival, like I gotta book it right after this.

And he offered to help tear down a little bit, which was really nice. It actually, it did help. So my set ended about 5:00 and maybe 30 seconds.

So I pushed it over 30 seconds, which is okay. And then I tore down and then booked it to my car. And then I had about a 30 minute drive from Aurora to the Children's Museum of Colorado, which is where this wedding was happening.

And then what I did, which really helped was before the festival, I actually went to the Children's Museum and set up my sound system that I was going to use there so I could just show up after the festival, plug into my system that was already set up and then just start playing.

And yeah, so it worked out totally fine. I played my set and since I was warmed up, I was really warmed up from the festival.

It went really well and people really loved it. There was this one guy who came up to me, said, that was effing awesome. Or he said, like, that was effing incredible.

Which was really, it was cool. So I did again feel a little bit like an artist at this wedding. I think it's totally possible to do that, but you have to kind of embrace that.

You have to embrace artistry. I don't know. I don't have fully formulated thoughts on this just yet.

I'm sure I will as the podcast goes on, but I think a lot of wedding musicians tend to phone it in a little bit. And if you phone it in, then you know it's just going to be background music.

I'm not trying to say, like, you shouldn't, like, I'm not trying to say you should make somebody else's wedding all about you, but I feel like one of the greatest gifts that you could give to somebody who has booked you and hired you to perform is like truly doing an amazing job.

And that is my goal with every wedding or corporate performance. Like, I'm not there just to phone it in and play the same covers that everybody else plays. Like, no, I want to do it my way.

And I want people to be impressed and wowed but still be very appropriate for the situation. Right. I'm not trying to be a rock star at somebody else's wedding.

It's not my wedding, it's their wedding. So I'm sure I will have more thoughts on this. By the way, one other thing, that's a piece of strategy because, you know, I'm here on The Gigging Musician Podcast.

I'm all about how can we book as many high end gigs as you want. This wedding I didn't get paid for. And that was intentional because this wedding was.

There is a very well known and respected DJ company here in the Denver area and One of the DJs recently went through extremely hard times. I don't remember the exact hardship, but basically, you know, a bunch of wedding vendors in this industry got together and decided to donate their services to this DJ.

And you know, it definitely brings us closer to that dj, brings us closer to each other and shows other people in the industry like, hey, this is, we're in this for the right reasons.

We're not just trying to make money off of weddings. We're also here to support each other and be a really solid industry. So that was my strategy.

But even though I donated my services to this, I still wanted to do a great job, which is why it was a little stressful, you know, getting there with 10 minutes to spare. So probably wouldn't do that again. But I don't know, sometimes the circumstances call for it.

All right, I am just getting home, so thanks for being my company on my car ride. I really appreciate you and thanks for listening to this episode. By the way.

Get your free trial of BookLive so you can manage these high end gigs. And also you can develop partnerships and relationships with other people in the industry because it's got a big old directory of people just like the person I played for tonight.

And yes, you have to reach out to those people, but if you do, it's so fruitful, right? You can get many, many gigs out of one relationship.

So I harp on this. Just go out there, reach out to somebody, introduce yourself. Especially if they're in the events industry because they can help you out.

But you have to be willing to build that relationship. It can't just be a pitch fest, you know, saying me, me, me, I'm such a cool person, you gotta hire me. No, you gotta actually show interest them first and then they will reciprocate by being interested in you.

So get your free trial at booklivepro.com and thanks for tuning into another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. Remember, "Your music will not market itself!".

Bye.