In this episode, Jared breaks down the strategies he uses to land high-paying gigs, from sponsoring key events to conducting venue tours. He recaps a packed week of performances, including gigs at high-end venues like the Four Seasons Hotel and a unique event for newly elected governors. Jared highlights the importance of networking with event professionals, using tools like BookLive’s Gig Vault, and focusing on the business side of music to maximize opportunities. Whether you're looking to get on preferred vendor lists or strengthen relationships with event planners, this episode is packed with actionable insights.

"Networking isn’t just about collecting contacts; it’s about building real relationships that turn into gigs—and sometimes, repeat clients."

- 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? It's Jared Judge. Welcome back to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast where I'm taking you behind the scenes of what I'm doing to book my act for high end gigs like corporate events, weddings, etc.

So today is. What day is today? Today's Tuesday, November 19, 2025. So I've got a couple of updates for y'all what I've been up to in the last week or so. So Thursday of last week I had a double header gig in the morning.

I played for the Meeting Industry Council of Colorado, which is a conglomerate of multiple networking groups in the events industry, including Meeting Professionals, International national association for Catering and Events, Wedding Industry professionals, and so forth.

And they all got together on this particular day, a Thursday morning, for an event that they created called Serving Up Hope. Serving Up Hope is an event, is a fundraiser, actually.

So what was really nice about that is they were raising money for the, for the Food bank of Colorado. And this was an event that I had attempted to sponsor a couple months ago.

Like I tried emailing them and saying, hey, I'd love to provide my performance services for free so that you guys can have a better fundraiser and that I get a little bit of exposure in the high end gigs world.

And I did a whole episode on this, but they essentially agreed and then later they went back on it because a booking agent had been promised to be the entertainment sponsor a while ago. Now, I don't know about you, but I believe that sec. The success leaves clues.

And if a booking agency is doing something, it probably means it's profitable and something that we should consider as independent musicians. And so I was like, yeah, that's why I'm doing this, so that I don't have to go through a booking agency.

But the booking agency ultimately prevailed because they had, I think there was a little bit of backstory to it.

They had sponsored last year's event but were not given the appropriate credit for it. And so as a result, they were offered first right of refusal for this specific one as well. And I don't know, I, I had mentioned that I was kind of pissed off in that episode where I talked about this and I was, and I still kind of am.

But I think ultimately it worked out fine because I still played the event, but this time the booking agency, who was actually somebody I had met through one of the other networking organizations in Denver, they, they'd met me, I met them, they knew what I did, and the person running it offered to pay me to Be there and play.

But in exchange I just wouldn't have my logos on the signs. Although I did have one sign that said my act name right near me, which was, was good.

So anyway, I got paid to do something I would have sponsored, which is fine. And then the gig went really, really well and the booking agent really loved what I did. They said that was fabulous.

They had the event staff. So this was hosted at the Sheridan downtown, which I have played before. There's a couple corporate events that I've done at this venue and the booking agent has been in business for like 25 years in Denver compared to my two.

So I'm just a baby compared to what, what they've been doing. The booking agent was there on site and actually went to the staff of the Sheridan and said hey, you have to come down and hear this electric violinist me. And brought them down and said yeah you do.

You guys like what you hear? And they loved it. And so now we're in negotiations for their holiday party in January, which is cool because I, I'd love to play some holiday parties. You know, booking agents have their value.

Like it would be incredibly nice to just have these gigs coming to me and I just say yes or no and then I don't have to do any of the, the contracting work or the organization work. Like that is nice. I, I get that.

I'm not anti booking agent. I think, you know, the difference here is like I know how to do the work that booking agents do and I have a willingness to do that work. And as a result, like, you know, I've been fine without them and I believe most musicians would be fine without them.

But some musicians don't want to do that work. And as a result, that's why the position of booking agent exists, is so that musicians don't have to do that where you can just focus on being a good musician. But anyway, that's a tangent.

So Thursday morning gig went really, really well and then I had a double header. So I actually stayed in downtown, did a couple meetings on my laptop in the lobby of the Sheridan because later that night I had a gig at the Four Seasons.

It was my first ever gig at the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Denver, which if you're not familiar with the Four Seasons hotels, those are high end hotels, probably like the highest end hotels.

A step Bub Marriott, etc. And there was a national Governor's association convention going on at the Four Season.

It wasn't exactly a convention, it was a, it was a meeting or a conference for the newly elected governors who were all elected this past November 5th to get together and basically learn how to be a governor.

So there was the governors and their spouses and their staff. And I actually sponsored this gig too. Not because I'm interested in funding political stuff, right.

I try to stay out of politics wherever possible. However, in Wisconsin, I played for two or three governors. Here in Colorado, I've played for a governor.

And these gigs are all super high end and they lead to things because you know who goes and attends events where politicians are at is people with money. And that's kind of why a lot of high end gigs come out of them. So the main reason why I sponsored this one was not really because it was governors.

It was because it was actually organized by a destination management company. I've talked about destination management companies in the past, but if you google it right now, you will see that there are DMCs, destination management companies near you.

And what they do is they're basically booking agents where if a corporation or government organization wants to host an event outside of their main city or even in their main city, they might hire a destination management company to take care of all the details.

Where are we having it? DMC probably booked the Four Seasons Hotel. What food are the governors eating there? The destination management company probably hired the caterer. What about bartenders? They hired the bartenders too.

What about photographer? Videographer? They hired the photographers and videographers. And then, you know, you could probably see where this is going. What about musicians? The destination management company also recommends and hires musicians.

And so I have played a couple gigs for other destination management companies in the past. This was one I had not yet really worked with, although my main contact I'd been friends with because of a connection through one of the networking organizations. But they haven't really hired me.

They hired me for one gig. And I just know that there's opportunity to do more together because I see photos of them working with some of the other friends I've made in that networking organization where they're at events, doing things together all the time. I was like, I want to do that.

And so this gig kind of fell in my lap because one of the venues that I had played with or played at in the past is the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

Actually emailed me and said, hey, we're hosting one of the events for this governor's thing and are you interested in playing? There's probably no compensation, but it would get you in front of some governors.

I was like, hey, I don't really have anything going on that night.

And I'll already be warmed up from a gig earlier in the morning, so why not? So I agreed to it, but then after I agreed to it, that's when they brought in the destination management company who said, actually we're switching the venue of this cocktail hour that you were going to play at to the Four Seasons.

So the poor Denver Museum of Nature and Science actually couldn't, couldn't showcase what they wanted to showcase. So I got to call them and just kind of do a little bit of damage control.

Not that that was my fault. Right. That was the DMC's decision.

But I don't know. They, they. The guy from the Museum of Nature and Science was kind of particular about showing me off and showing the best that the museum has to offer.

So I'm going to just call and make sure that we're, we're all still good. All right. And then so that was that.

Earlier in that week, I did two venue tours which, you know, if you listen to episode, I don't know, like maybe 50 or so back, I talk about starting my first ever venue tours in Denver. And this is going to be the way that I book all of my high end gigs. And turns out it was absolutely true.

That is exactly what's happening. I've made connections with lots of venues and event planners through these venue tours that I love to do. You have to do them in the right way though.

A lot of people don't realize exactly how to do them. And then so I'm still doing them. Even though I'm two years into the Denver scene, I feel like I've just barely scratched the surface of what Denver high end gigs have to offer for me.

So that's why I'm doing these venue tours. Yeah, last week I did two of them. One was at the Rally Hotel, which is a hotel right by Coors Field where the Colorado Rockies play.

And then the second one was at the Veron Market venue, which used to be an old Italian grocery store. Brought my instrument, played at both of them.

The person at the Rally Hotel gave me a really nice tour and connected me with some of the restaurant operations at the hotel so I could get another hotel like restaurant gig out of it.

Which I've got the Slate Hotel tonight, that's my, my gig tonight. And then the Veron Marketplace venue, I played for them as well because I perform at all these venue tours and they tend to work out really well. And then.

Sorry, I just have to check where am I going okay, cool. So, yeah, today I did a venue tour at the Denver Children's Museum, which I actually played a wedding there two weekends ago.

So you might be wondering, like, why do you do a venue tour if you've already performed a gig there? It's because I didn't have a chance to connect with the venues event sales manager.

Right. The venue tours are not about seeing the space. That's a big misconception.

They're about meeting the people who can actually recommend you and put you on their preferred vendor list. So that is why I went back and did another venue tour at a, a place that I already performed at. And then tonight I'm going to a NACE meeting.

So I'm a member of the national association for Catering and Events and I have not been as involved as I want to be, but this is me trying to make that happen again. There's so many networking organizations here in the Denver area. It's hard to stay on top of everything, especially in the busy season.

So I am going tonight as an attendee. I do have my violin in the car, but I'm not going to be performing it. But yeah, I'm excited to just go and enjoy being a member of the events industry without actually putting on an event.

And then actually after the meeting tonight, I'm Facebook friends with all of these people in the events industry. Like that should be another clue to you is like I become friends with these people that I'm meeting. It's not all just business.

And so I'm Facebook friends with one of them who works for a catering company and she posted that she has a bunch of extra tickets for the, the Denver Botanic Gardens.

They have like a holiday light show spectacular thing that they're doing. And so she had a couple extra tickets.

So I got a couple extra tickets for me and my wife and we are going to go and enjoy an event tonight. So busy, busy week. It is close to Thanksgiving.

I'm going to Arizona for Thanksgiving, visiting with some family. But I don't know, it'll be nice for things to slow down a little bit over the holidays. This shouldn't go, go, go non stop.

And yeah, I'm excited to not have to go, go, go all the time. All right, that's enough of me. I hope that this talk is not boring.

I hope that this inspires you and shows you all of the hard music business work that I do to make this happen.

Because it is possible for you to actually make a significant income with your music, but you actually have to do the business part of it to make that happen. So that's what I'm doing is the business part and yeah it's working.

So that's all I got for y'all today. By the way, if you want to start your venue tours, get a head start on that. You're going to have to open up your Gig Vault which is inside of BookLive.

Book Live is the app that hosts the Gig Vault has the contacts for all of the venues and event planners in your area and templates for what to say.

Go and grab your free 30 day trial at BookLive.com and as a special bonus if you get your 30 day trial this month, you will have access to weekly group coaching for free as part of your BookLive membership.

So go to BookLive.com and I will see you in our group coaching sessions. All right.

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. Remember "Your music will not market itself!". Adios.