How Much Money Can I Make Playing Solo Gigs?

Transcript Of This Video
(00:06):
Now we come to the part of the course that everyone wants to know about. How much money can I make playing music full time? The truth is, there is a lot of money spent every year on entertainment throughout America. There are a lot of people who make a living performing solo, but they really don’t want you to know about it because they think, they believe that you’ll become a competitor to them and therefore make it harder for them to earn that money. The figures I’m getting ready to share with you are real figures. They’re numbers that I have personally, uh, seen in my career throughout when I was the busiest I was performing. And even today, these are real numbers that people are making, but they’re very quiet about it. It’s a kind of a secret little club. George Carlin once said, it’s a club and we ain’t in it <laugh>.
(01:06):
So there is a, a group of individuals who understand how to leverage their talent, package it and sell it, and they quietly make the kind of figures I’m getting ready to share with you. So we’ll go through these, uh, one category at a time and talk about the potential, your earning capacity potential if you do these things. Now, this is not a magic wand that you just wave over everything and it works. You have to do the work that’s outlined in the, in the, um, of course booked solid, playing solo for good pay. There are step-by-step things that you need to do to build an act that will earn this kind of money. It’s doable, it’s not impossible, and honestly it’s not that hard. You don’t have to be the greatest, most talented individual at playing or singing. You just have to know how to package what you do in its most favorable and presentable way, and that’s what the course teaches you.
(02:04):
So let’s talk about the first category, and I call them residency gigs. These are your weekly shows and we’re talking about how much you can make potentially per year performing solo, full-time residency gigs. Those are the ones that you go to the same, uh, restaurant, let’s say on every Monday night. You appear at this little Italian restaurant every Tuesday night. You may be at the Irish Pub every Wednesday night and you build a following that way. And as we spoke of before, these are the most fantastic showcase gigs. There are. These are the gigs that get you the big paying private shows. You’re in front of people and if they like what you do, and they will like it, if you follow this course, then they’re going to ask for your card and ask about booking you for a private event. So residency gigs are in restaurants and pubs and really any place that you play on a weekly basis.
(03:03):
So the income opportunity for a residency gig on average, and these are averages, again, I’m speaking of some may be lower, some may be more. On average, you can count on earning 300 to $500 at a residency gig for a three hour show. That’s once a week. So you calculate that Monday night, you’re gonna earn $300 and more than that with tips. Sometimes the tips won’t be as as much. I’ll typically earn 50 to a hundred dollars in tips, and that’s on, on top of the 300, but we won’t even count that. We’re just gonna count the base pay. So that’s residency gigs. The next solid type of income you could count on if you decided to play them are retirement centers. We talked about these, these are, uh, exploding, uh, all over the country as the baby boomers age and end up in retirement centers.
(03:56):
They have money because it’s the most affluent, uh, demographic ever, the baby boomers and they can afford to be in these very expensive, um, retirement centers. Well, the thing the retirement center has to do is provide them entertainment. Alright? That’s a necessity. It’s not an optional, it’s necessity for these retirement centers. So that’s a super opportunity. Now with a retirement center, you can play multiple shows a day. Let’s say you have 10 retirement centers that you play once a month. You may play one on the first Monday of every month. It’s the same one, and you may do that one at 10:00 AM then you may do a separate one at 2:00 PM same day. So those are two gigs that’s, that’s doable. Those are the normal times they do entertainment. 10:00 AM mid-morning and 2:00 PM after lunch, before dinner. So you could do two of those a day if you wanted to.
(04:54):
The pay for those ranges between $125 per hour to $300 per hour. Those are all different depending on where it’s located, how large the facility is and what you are doing there. But you can count on 125. I’ve made as much as $500 per hour doing some upscale retirement centers in, uh, large cities, but let’s say 125 to 300 on average. The next category is private events. Now, private events can be birthday parties, they can be weddings, they can be corporate, anything that’s private that the public is not necessarily, uh, invited to. So let’s talk about some private events. For birthday parties, you can count on earning between 500 and $800 for a three to four hour show, usually three hours. The the buyer will want four hours, and if they do, you know, let ’em have four hours, but you can count on five to $800 for that event.
(06:05):
Anniversary parties, people’s wedding anniversaries, especially the older they are, the more they spend on the wedding anniversary. For instance, if you’re doing a 50th wedding anniversary, the kids are, their kids are getting together and doing this, and they’re all gonna pitch in. So those pay very, very well and people usually don’t, don’t start having anniversary parties until after probably the 20th or 25th, but I played them from, from all different years. On an anniversary party, you can count on, uh, earning between 600 and $900 for the event for three to four hours. That’s what you should charge. And again, these are not numbers I just pulled outta my head somewhere. These are working numbers that I’ve used and tweaked throughout the years to see exactly what’s the top end and what the low end is. Hundreds and hundreds. In fact, I’m, I’m grabbing a stack of checks that <laugh>, these are all checks made out to me from probably the last six months or so.
(07:05):
That’s what they are. They’re real, they’re not fake. In fact, I need to shred ’em and I will, right? As soon as I get off this, I tend to let ’em stack up in case there’s an an issue. I’d do online deposit and if there’s an issue, you have to go back and deal with the check. Aside from the point anniversary parties are a, a very good source of income class reunions. Uh, there ha they happen every weekend somewhere. <laugh> the school is having a class, high school class reunion and you can earn between 600 and $900 for those on average for a four hour show. They typically want the first hour to be mingling. They’re going to talk, it’s what they call a cocktail hour, and then the second hour maybe dinner and then the last two hours will be dancing. Okay? There’s usually not a lot of dancing at these class reunions, but they want you there playing their music from their high school.
(07:58):
Nostalgia, very important. So six to $900 for class reunions. Weddings, they are, uh, they pay very well. There is more involved with doing a wedding. As you’ll learn in the the full course, how to actually do all the pre-planning with the bride, how to do everything that’s necessary. You will earn an average of 1200 to $1,600 for a wedding as if you do the whole thing. Uh, and again, we’ll get into detail as to what the whole thing is in the full course, 12 to 1600 for the day. You understand that’s a day rate and when you’re booking it, you’ll, it’ll be a day rate because you’ll be involved all day. The weddings are typically in the afternoon between two and four or five, and then a reception to follow. So that takes your whole day up. So those are day rates, 1200 to 1600 on average.
(08:49):
Next, next, let’s talk about corporate events. They happen every day. There are grand openings, there are open houses, there are corporate luncheons, any number of things where they want live entertainment and they want solo entertainment. They don’t want a band. A band is too much. They need one person in the corner making music and entertaining. These are very lucrative corporate events. You can plan on earning six to, well, all the way up to $1,500 for a solo act depending on the event. And these are anywhere from one hour to four hours. Any, again, 600, uh, low to 1500 for a long, longer event. And that’s what you can earn fairs and festivals. Next category. These are, I’ve played them for many years and I teach you how to get involved with that industry and what are the trade shows you need to go to in the organizations to join to get booked.
(09:54):
But a Farrah Festival, you can count on earning between 900 and $1,200 per day for, uh, multiple performances. You’ll typically do four one hour shows or 4 45 minute shows spread out throughout the day depending, and every fairer festival is different, but that’s basic. The basic income you can count on is 900 to 1200 per day. Now what that means for what you’re going to do, the techniques I’m going to show you, will allow you to perform multiple days. You don’t have to be just on a Friday or just on a Saturday. You can perform on a Thursday, Friday, and Saturday every day of the event because you are going to have a unique act when you learn all the things that you’re going to learn and each day is going to pay you that a thousand dollars average. So you have a $3,000 weekend, these things add up.
(10:44):
Again, they’re not numbers I just pulled out of the sky. These are, these are real numbers as you’ll learn as you continue to do this. So let’s add up what I just said and take an average and let’s see what you could honestly earn as a professional solo performer if you did this full time. First of all, let’s look at residency gigs. Let’s say you have four residency gigs. I have five per week, but let’s say you have four, and let’s say each one of them pays you an average of $300 for three hours, maybe four hours, whatever. But you got four residency gigs at $300 per gig for those. Each week is going to equal $1,200 per week from just residency gigs. You see what I’m saying here? That’s your base salary. And each residency gig is a showcase for people to hire you for the big private gig.
(11:42):
So let’s just say you do four, alright? 1200 per week times 50 weeks. Guess how much that ends up being at the end of the year? $60,000. Just your residencies, that’s your base. On top of that, let’s say you do 10 weddings throughout the entire year. Now that’s a low number, but I’m just making the math easy. So you’ll kind of see the potential if you only booked throughout the entire 12 months, 10 weddings at an average of $1,200 each. And that’s about the going rate for uh, someone who can do live music and do the DJ all in one. The same things we’re going to talk about incorporating the blended act. You’re gonna make $1,200 on average per wedding. Let’s say you do 10 of those. That ends up being $12,000 per year on top of the 60 that you’ve already got with your base. Now let’s add 10 festival shows. Just 10 festival shows. Like I said, each festival, if you do this right, you’ll pay play three days at the festival. So you’re only talking about three festivals of three or four days each to get your 10 festival shows at a thousand dollars a day.
(13:02):
10 of those equals 10 grand. That’s 10,000 on top of the 60 on top of the 12. Now you add 10. Now let’s go to retirement centers. Let’s say you play 10 retirement centers per month. Right now, I think I do eight. If you do 10 of them, add an average of that $150 that each, that’s not expensive. They can afford it all day long. That’s just an average. If you do 10 retirement centers at $150 each, that’s $1,500 per month times 12. That’s an additional $18,000 each year on top of the 60, on top of the 12 on top of the 10, add 18 to that. The last category we’ll talk about is let’s say you do 10 corporate gigs a year. It is not a month. This is a year. If you just do 10 corporate gigs in a year at an average of $800 a piece, which is kind of low for a lot of the corporate gigs, I’ve done the banquets and things, but let’s say you do 10 of them at $800 for the, for whole year, that’s $8,000 per year on top of all the other.
(14:18):
Let’s add it all together and see what the potential yearly income for a solo performer. If you add 60,000, 12,000, 10,000, 18,000 and 8,000 together, your potential yearly income playing music is $108,000. That’s right. Six figures playing gigs. Now this is all doable because I’ve done it and a lot of other people have done it too. So this gives you some idea what to shoot for. Now, will you start out making this money on day one? No. You have to build a brand like I’ve spoken about, but you’ve got a shortcut and a blueprint to do that. But if you follow the steps that I’ve done to be able to do this and these numbers I’m talking about, then you’ll be able to do it also and you’ll do it quickly and you’ll have a good time building that act that’s gonna put smiles on people’s faces and at the same time, put money in your family’s bank account.
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