Get Great Gigs

How to Stay Connected with Your Presenters Can Be A Challenge: 

Michael Carducci, magician and enterprise software developer, struggled to stay connected with prospective buyers. He solved this problem for himself and performers world-wide, as you’ll discover in our interview.

Finding your unique audience and keeping in touch with them is a career obstacle many performing artists struggle with daily. My interview with Michael Carducci addresses his challenges as someone with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and how he used his ADD to his advantage.

He put his unique talents designing software products for large businesses to use to benefit his own bookings as a magician. But he didn't stop there. His work has helped performing artists world-wide solve that, "How to stay connected with your buyers problem."

Michael shares how he found his unique niche, his software development story, along with some great advice for performing artists on how to nurture their contacts to book more gigs and turn potentially lost gigs into return gigs.

If you struggle with staying connected to presenters, bookers and buyers, if you are challenged by the parts of your life that you are just not that good at and it effects your business success, if you want to spend more time working on the things you are great at and if you would like to see how an artist just like you overcame his own challenges, then join me for my interview with Michael Carducci.

One Final Note: During this COVID-19 Pandemic, Get Great Gigs Podcast

Is helping music people one T shirt at a time with our other project, “I’m Smiling at You Behind My Mask.” With so many music people having lost income from cancelled gigs, a portion of every T Shirt sold benefits MusiCares, a Recording Academy charity to help music people in need.
 Go to 360smiling.com to learn how you can participate and join our Global Smile Chorus. This week, here is Gary Stockdale, with his rendition of my song, “I’m Smiling at You Behind My Mask.” 

Erica Wheeler is a keynote speaker, a workshop experience and community engagement leader and yes, an award-winning singer/songwriter. She tapped into her passion for place to discover her niche. Erica transformed her music career into a niche market focused career. Discover how this singer/songwriter went back to the things in her life she was passionate about and found new, appreciative audiences. She created a brand new market for her presentations, workshops, and retreats.

Discovering your own unique niche helps provide loyal audiences performance opportunities. Erica dove back into her college major along with the themes behind her own songwriting to discover a life-long passion for the environment and the places we hold dear to create her own service/product and find an untapped audience for it.

In this episode I offer a PDF exercise to help you discover your own unique niche audience. visit the show notes at GetGreatGigs.com/005 to download the PDF.

One Final Note: During this COVID-19 Pandemic, Get Great Gigs Podcast

Is helping music people one T shirt at a time with our other project, “I’m Smiling at You Behind My Mask.” With so many music people having lost income from cancelled gigs, a portion of every T Shirt sold benefits MusiCares, a Recording Academy charity to help music people in need.
 Go to 360smiling.com to learn how you can participate and join our Global Smile Chorus. This week, here is Johnette Downing and Scott Billington, with their rendition of my song, “I’m Smiling at You Behind My Mask.”
 
 

APCA Helps Performers Get College Gigs and Much More:

Some of the more lucrative gigs for performing artists are found on college campuses. Learn why from Eric Lambert, the Executive Director of the Association for the Promotion of Campus Activities.  

As a major promoter of college conferences, I checked back with Eric to get an update to our original interview and see how his organization was responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Then Eric walks us through the various membership opportunities, conference time frames and locations and showcasing benefits and how they are adapting to the current crisis and how they move forward.  

He also talked about all the varieties of presenters served by APCA. I was surprised to discover that cruise ship buyers attend the conferences opening another performance opportunity for artists. Also, event planners, festivals and venues attend in addition to college campus activity buyers.

So many artists find great performance opportunities on college campuses. Eric and I will be talking about how APCA is providing artists, agents, students and campus professionals affordable entertainment experiences perfect for college campus activities.

One Final Note: During this COVID-19 Pandemic, Get Great Gigs Podcast

Is helping music people one T shirt at a time with our other project, “I’m Smiling at You Behind My Mask.” With so many music people having lost income from cancelled gigs, a portion of every T Shirt sold benefits MusiCares, a Recording Academy charity to help music people in need.
 Go to 360smiling.com to learn how you can participate and join our Global Smile Chorus. This week, here is Claudia Russell and Bruce Kaplan, with their rendition of my song, “I’m Smiling at You Behind My Mask.”

Conference Strategies

Streaming and Live

In this episode I will help you navigate one of the major career boosting events that can put you in front of potential bookers, even in this Covid-19 environment. I’m talking about Booking Conferences and Trade Shows. 

As a former agent and manager, I looked for ways for bookers, buyers and presenters to become aware of my artists. One of the most profoundly effective ways to get noticed within your specific industry genre was to attend booking conferences and trade shows. 

So many of the conferences that were scheduled to take place in the coming months have been rescheduling their dates and some skipping this year altogether. And there are others that are holding firm on their dates but shifting to an online streaming conference. You may even find this to be true with some festivals as well.

So, in this episode, I’ll share my best strategies for navigating the conference scene so you can network with those in the industry with ease, confidence and professionalism. I’ll help you think about how to prepare your materials so you may take advantage of those conferences that offer streaming opportunities and still be ready for a live conference situation.

In the show notes you’ll find a PDF to download that lists several major conferences that happen in the U.S. and around the world. I’ll do another episode on some of the regional conferences that take place at other times of the year. I’ll also be interviewing some of the organizers of these major conferences in the weeks to come to see how they are managing this time period.

For now, this episode shares some insights into participating in conferences that can save you money, assure that you meet various deadlines and help you navigate all that the conference has to offer that fits with your career goals even in these COVID-19 times.

One Final Note: During this COVID-19 Pandemic, Get Great Gigs Podcast

Is helping music people one T shirt at a time with our other project, “I’m Smiling at You Behind My Mask.” With so many music people having lost income from cancelled gigs, a portion of every T Shirt sold benefits MusiCares, a Recording Academy charity to help music people in need.
 Go to 360smiling.com to learn how you can participate and join our Global Smile Chorus. This week, here is Zach Brock, jazz violinist, with his rendition of my song, “I’m Smiling at You Behind My Mask.” 

David Wimble Interview

 The Creation of the Indie Bible and the Useful Suite of Directories:

Searching for venues to play can be daunting. Creating an efficient tour is sometimes harder. Finding media review outlets to play and promote your music can be overwhelming. 

Thinking Beyond: 
 A New Road Map to Get Great Gigs

We all need some direction, a place to start, a focal point, a reminder of our artistic purpose and how to re-imagine our booking conversations. Get Great Gigs Podcast will help.