In this episode, Jared shares what goes into delivering a high-end solo performance—and why most musicians are drastically undercharging for their time, gear, and expertise. From setting up three PA systems to handling last-minute corporate inquiries and playing multiple locations in one wedding, he breaks down the true value of what musicians provide. You’ll learn the difference between low-end and high-end gigs, why pricing is often arbitrary, and how charging what you're worth leads to better client experiences (and better performances). If you’re tired of bar gigs and ready to elevate your career, this episode is for you.

"Most musicians think they have a talent problem—but what they really have is a marketing and sales system problem."

- 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.

I'm on my way to a gig at the Deer Creek Valley Ranch in Bailey, Colorado. It's about an hour away from where I live, and we are 20 minutes into this drive, and let's just chat and hang out for a little bit while I'm on the road.

It is a wedding, which I do play a lot of weddings, but I also play a ton of corporate events. In fact, crazy thing. So it is the weekend of July 18th. Today is Friday, July 18th.

I think I got that date correct because I played a gig yesterday and it was the 17th. Yesterday and the day before, all of a sudden my inbox started blowing up with three separate corporate events all looking to book me either this weekend or the following weekend.

It was crazy how like just three right in a row that just reached out. And I'm not sure why that happens.

You know, sometimes these corporate events just have budgets that they come in under budget and they realize, I've got some wiggle room.

I can hire an entertainer, an entertainer for the cocktail hour that we weren't going to have anything for. And so that's why you'll get these last minute things. And then they're super quick to book.

In fact, So I'm actually not available to play them, partially because I'm playing a gig tonight. Tomorrow I've got some family commitments and the rest of this weekend's kind of just jam-packed for me.

But I've got somebody else who plays for me here in the Denver area. And the corporate planner emailed me.

I had my assistant reply back that, let me just check with our other performer and then we'll get back to you. This happened within the span of 10 minutes. the other performer got back.

I sent an email to the corporate event planner with a contract and a quote, and boom, they signed it within five minutes of that email. So this booking all took place within like 15 minutes, which is crazy.

I love corporate events. They're just so much easier to work with. And if they don't have a budget, it's, that's it. You just, you're not gonna get the gig, but when they do have the budget, it's so easy to book on.

So anyway, that's not exactly what I was planning on chatting about today. What was I planning on chatting about today? Oh, yeah.

It was about the difference between these, these high-end gigs and a lot of low-end gigs that a lot of people are accustomed to.

It's crazy because when I started Dream City Strings back in 2016, I had no, like, frame of reference as to what was a fair rate for a musician to get paid.

And in fact, I remember charging for a quartet for four players for an hour for somebody's wedding, 600. And then I split the payment between the four members, like 150, 150 and so forth.

And I was like, this is good money for, for music. And it's just so wild how, like, my perspective on that has changed so much because 150 is not that good for an hour to play at somebody's wedding.

And sure, that was 2016, so 10 years ago now. I can't believe it's 10 years. I've been doing this 10 years. That's crazy.

But yeah, I mean, over the years, a couple of things have happened, one of which is cost of living has risen. So 150 does not go as far as it used to.

But two, I just started to realize, like, one, musicians deserve to be paid better. So even though I'm still booking for a Dream City, we are paying a lot more than we used to.

And then for my act here down in Denver, Extreme Strings, I just provide a lot more than what I used to for Dream City. So back when I was playing in Dream City, I was like, Playing acoustic violin or viola with a group.

And that was it. I would show up to the gig with my music stand, my instrument, and then my sheet music. And that was pretty much all that I needed to bring.

Sure, in addition to that, there's a bit of planning that goes into it. Like first off, the marketing that happens to get the gig into the sales conversation that needs to happen in order to get the contract signed.

Then I also was the one, and still am the one, to work with the couples to plan out all their music. So I was providing quite a bit. But here with Extreme Strings, I'm providing all of that.

Plus, I'm the only musician at the gig, which means that my responsibility is, is completely heightened. Like, if I, for Dream City, if a musician somehow couldn't make it to a gig, there were three others that could.

Essentially cover for them. Like, it's not going to be perfect, but the gig, the show still could go on with a solo act.

There is no covering for you unless you get a last minute sub, which if, like, you get sick or something, that's kind of hard to do last minute. So there's a lot more responsibility on me.

But then I realized, like, I'm basically bringing a sound system that a DJ or a full band would be. using for their gigs because like, as I do this more, I really have higher standards for myself and the sound quality that I provide.

And so as a result, I'm bringing my two QSC speakers and speaker stands for them. I'm bringing lots of XLR cable, which by the way, they don't teach you how to do any of this at music school.

I'm bringing my magic box, which my magic box is my mixer.

It's a Gator case that has a rack in it. and the rack has my mixer, which is a Behringer, I forget it now, a while ago I was so excited when I bought it and it was a game changer, now I just kind of take it for granted, which I shouldn't do.

It's got a Behringer mixer, X Air 12 I think. Then it also has a Shure BLX wireless instrument unit, that's how I connect to my electric violin. And then it also has a power conditioner on it.

So that I could plug all my speakers in whatever else I need to directly into my magic box. And it's got power, and I don't have to have, like, extension cords and surge protectors, things like that.

And so I'm bringing all that. I'm setting it all, all of it up. And the crazy part, like, I was thinking about this yesterday because I played a wedding yesterday that was in two locations.

Wound up being three because the first location got rained out. But I basically set up three PA systems and that is the value.

That's why I'm charging like at least 1500 to show up for an hour to play somebody's gig is because of how much I'm actually providing.

And the knowledge of how to set all that up quickly and set it up cleanly, 'cause that's another thing I prioritize is I don't like to see stray cables everywhere. So on my speaker stands, I've got those covered.

I tape down cables if I have to run them over a long stretch, which I did yesterday.

I actually had to, the cocktail hour for the gig I was playing yesterday, I was stationed inside in the corner of a room, and there were double doors leading outside, and there supposedly were going to be people hanging out outside, so I ran a speaker out there through the door, and taped down those cables to make sure, like, Nobody was gonna trip and the cables were protected if the door closed on them.

And so just having all of that means I'm providing a lot more. I'm working a lot harder and working a lot smarter too. So that is a big part of why I charge so much.

And I'm still getting five star reviews on every platform. And people still seem to think that for the value, like for the price they're paying, they're getting a lot of value, which to me means I can charge more.

But what if you're not charging as much as you deserve? Right? This is where a lot of musicians are, is they feel like they have to accept a certain amount of payment, which is actually true if you're in a type of gig that doesn't have this kind of price flexibility.

For example, bar and restaurant gigs, very difficult, if not impossible, to negotiate prices greater than what they're accustomed to pay.

That's just the reality of bar and restaurant gigs. Similar for festivals, like sure, there may be a little bit of wiggle room if you've got name recognition, but in general, they have a budget similar to corporate events that have budgets.

And if you ask for something higher, you're probably not going to get it from a festival. But with, you know, these kind of social events where these weddings, people pick a budget and they try to stick to it.

But how do they create that budget? It's kind of arbitrary. It's not like they have somebody from the finance department of their relationship saying, hey, for your wedding, you can only do 25 grand.

That's like kind of how corporate events and nonprofit events work. It's like, hey, for this event, we've got a hundred thousand dollar budget. You're free to spend it how you wish, and it's capped at 100, 000.

But if it's a wedding or another social event, the planners are typically the members of the couple and maybe their families.

And they do kind of look at what others typically spend on their wedding, and then they come up with an arbitrary number that feels comfortable for them based on their finances.

But the thing is, it is possible to get them to stretch their budget, especially if that's what you require. But again, that is a marketing and sales challenge.

So that's why we musicians really have to get good at marketing and sales. However, as I was saying before, if you are not getting paid what you are worth, that does manifest itself in your performance.

Like you'll show up to the gig knowing, ah, this is just another $100 bar gig. I'm not doing it for the money. And you know, a lot of people justify it and say, I'm not doing it for the money.

But then like they're annoyed that they're not getting enough money. Like if you're not doing it for the money, don't get annoyed that you're not getting a lot of money.

Or be okay that you're partially doing it for the money. Like I'm not necessarily playing gigs just for the money, but the money really does help me have the capacity and the flexibility to take care of my clients at the highest possible level.

Like, I've invested that money back into my PA system. I invest that money into compensating myself for the time I spend preparing for these gigs, having these conversations with them, and then showing up an hour early to set up three PA systems and not, like, complaining. Right?

Because there are a lot of musicians who would complain about having to set up three PA systems, but I'm getting paid enough work. It feels fine to me, like. This is what goes into what I do.

And yeah, I will be raising my rates, but like that's right now it still feels comfortable. So yeah, just getting paid what you're worth makes it so that you don't have to worry about like those feelings of resentment and then I don't have to worry about phoning it in at a gig like yesterday.

I didn't phone in a single note. Felt really good. People complimented it. The staff at the venue loved it. I believe I got on their preferred vendor list by playing there.

And the other vendors, like the DJ, said, like, you,'re so talented. Which always feels nice, but the reason why I was in the headspace to show off my talent was because I'm being fairly compensated.

So that's kind of some of my thoughts and ramblings about this. today's gig pays even more, which it should, because it's an hour away, as opposed to 30 minutes for yesterday's gig.

But I also get these beautiful views of the mountains as I'm driving. I'm looking at it right now. It's gorgeous. If you haven't been to Colorado, hit me up. Let's. Let's go. Let's make it a thing. Let's.

Let's just hang out, go to a concert at Red Rocks, and we could chat marketing. If anyone's interested in this, actually, I'm kind of interested in hosting. a workshop slash community gathering for our musicians.

So just shoot me an email, Jared@booklive.com and yep, that's kind of all I wanted to chat about today. I hope this was helpful.

I hope it shows you what's possible and if you are doing better than me, I want to hear about that so I can learn and improve because I'm always sharpening my saw and getting better at what I do.

So yeah, jared@booklive.com, that's my email. And that is all I got for you today. So thanks for tuning in to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast.

Remember, "Your music will not market itself!"

Bye everybody.