[Dixielandjazz] Playing for the Old

[LARRY'S Signs and Large Format Printing]

There is only one place in St. Louis that I know of that spends in the
neighborhood of $600 for entertainment but it's always mid week when there
isn't anything else to do.  I charge between $175 and $250 for a 1 hour show
at a retirement home.  I charge more for the myriad special days like Mardi
Gras, NYears eve etc.  I have many times played 3 gigs on the same day.

Remember though that there is a lot of freebee competition out there.
Quality is not an issue, its bodies.  For years I played with the Shrine
band here.  The sound was poor to fair but we had some really cute jackets
and hats and the band was about 20 pcs and best of all only asked for a
donation which was usually $100 to nothing.  It only stands to reason that
free and large will attract the customers.

The reason that I do well is that we are somewhat flashy (learned that from
the Shrine band).  I like lots of colors in my stands and outfits.  We are
in a whole different league than the freebee guys.  Most importantly we are
available whenever they want us.  This is not true for the volunteer groups.
A lot of them are all available on the same nights and almost never on
holidays or weekends.  This opens opportunity.  I perform with a freebee
group and make contacts with the entertainment directors which has paid off
and at the same time I have a rehearsal group that I can keep my chops up.

Having said all that there are lots of places that do hire music providing
it is reasonable.  I make money at it because I can hire guys everyday to
work for me at $50 although I pay more than that. They think it's great
because with other groups they make $30-35.   That leaves $125-200 for me.
That's as much as any band in town pays for a sideman and I work more or
less on quantity.  I booked 3 Cinco de mayo gigs for this week and a
Gaslight square night (Thursday)  All are gigs that before computers were
out of my reach.  My philosophy is if you can't beat em join them.  The
point is that if you want to play OKOM and perform you might want to adapt
to new technology.  The cost to me initially was about $1500 for a great
sound system and $1500 for a laptop and a couple of hundred for accessories.
Today it's a lot cheaper.  Laptops don't cost that much and any fair to good
sound system is OK.

My sound system consists of 2 15" JBL Eon powered monitors and  a laptop.
Most of the time I only use one of them unless the room is large or
outdoors.

I wouldn't be in this business if I had to depend on the places that spends
$6-700 a night.  I do pick up those gigs from time to time as well as more
expensive ones but then I'm competiting with the established groups.

There are several kinds of retirement homes often erroneously called nursing
homes.  Nursing homes don't hire a lot of entertainment especially the ones
that have large numbers of medicade patients (Altzheimers)  They don't hire
because their patients are terminal and are out of it.  The next groups do
hire music.  Assisted living homes.  These can be very large and have 200
units or more. and within this group there are several levels.  You probably
won't get much out of the places where the government pays 75% of the rent.
There are many churches that have nice to fancy assisted living communities.
The Lutherans have several around here and I work for them occasionally.
The last group are retirement communities or housing complexes catering to
the elderly who don't need assisted living.  There are many of these around
and some very upscale.  I work a couple of gigs a year, again during the
week, for investment clubs that hire me for their annual parties.  These
gigs were obtained by word of mouth.  The final group are municipalities.
There are approximately 150 different municipalities in St. Louis County.
Of them many have senior activities and clubs and the community picks up the
major part of the bill.  I do several Christmas parties and occasionally
other gigs for them.

By the way Senior Citizen groups always cry poverty which just isn't so.
(exception, subsidized housing) If you are selling what they want they will
buy.  For them you go to the JC's or Masons or any other civic group and
have them pick up the tab for their seniors.  While I have never worked that
angle it's always a possibility.

I have a couple of these homes that the entertainment directors really like
me and pass my name out to others.  I picked up a new one that starts this
month by that means.

My recommendation to Lily was that she get several kids together, work up
about 20 tunes and go out and book the act.  The old people would eat up the
idea that kids were playing their kind of music and $100-200 wouldn't be
difficult to get.  What could be better?  Kids can't work the bars like we
did when we were 15.  What better place for talented kids to make $20-$50
for an hour after school, improve their skills and have a good time too.
It's better than standing behind a counter at some burger emporium.

Too many guys just simply fail to keep up with what's happening.  Yes there
is a lot of Karaoke and $50 acts out there.  What I have done is put
together an act like Karaoke for horn players and I'm making money at it and
I believe others can too.  The thing that keeps me in business and keeps a
lot of others out is that I have to put the time into collecting, entering
and arranging the tunes.  You just can't buy this stuff off the shelf and I
don't give my collection away.  I have been seriously offered hundreds of
dollars for my collection but why sprout more competition than there
already is.

I have talked abut retirement homes but there is a lot of other venues like
restaurants and bars that hire singles and duos.  Find a good singer and
have at it.

It boils down to how much you want to make, how you want to make it and how
much effort you want to expend.  It's on a sliding scale.  Little effort =
few jobs not much money;  Lots of effort = better jobs and more money.

Larry Walton
St. Louis
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <TCASHWIGG at aol.com>
To: <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 07, 2005 1:28 PM
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Playing for the Old


> In a message dated 5/7/05 8:09:32 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
> barbonestreet at earthlink.net writes:
>
> >
> > Wow, the NY Times now recognizes the musical market at Retirement Homes.
As
> > Larry in St. Louis has posted, these facilities are a great niche market
for
> > OKOM if you do not want to play for the young. Here this guy is, a
single,
> > earning $300 to $700 per show, plus sometimes room and board, traveling
to
> > make the gigs.
> >
> > We do about 25 a year locally from $650 to $2600 per show with anywhere
from
> > a quartet to a 6 piece band.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Steve Barbone
> >
> >
>
> You guys back East must have some pretty big Retirement homes with lots of
> wealthy folks living in them to pay that kind of money.
>
> I have a friend who is a retired nurse and owns two small retirement homes
> and gets $3,000.00 a month for the care of each patient with four to six
in each
> home.  She specializes in Altzheimers patients and even though her husband
is
> singer and has a group, they have no entertainment program for their
homes.
>
> For the ones I have had experience within N. California, in previous years
> booking acts, it was almost impossible to get more than $300.00 from one
of
> them, and most pay $50 -- $150.00 for a solo act like a Karaoke singer, or
singer
> guitarist.  I have also seen five and six piece acts go there for that, or
> simply fall for the we only use volunteers performance.
>
> Many of the homes here are small older houses with a couple of extra rooms
> added on and house two seniors to a room in many cases with maybe 6 to 12
in
> each home.
>
> The larger retirement community homes that are more like apartments still
do
> not pay much above $300.00 and most have an entertainment/activities
director
> making more money than what they pay out for entertainment all year long.
:))
>  The more Free entreatment the director can suck in the longer he/she
keeps
> their job.
>
>
>
> I have not booked or tried to book any groups in that circuit for many
years,
> just not worth the effort.
>
> About 10 years ago I booked a circuit of them for a friend of mine just to
> break him into the circuit, got him $300.00 a gig once a month in each
home.  I
> just saw him and he is still doing some of them, but has been cut to
$100.00
> and $50.00 a gig because of the line of karaoke singers and solo acts
> undercutting him.
>
> Out here we also have lots of Churches taking singers and such from their
> churches to Minister to the Aged again for free, much to the delight of
the
> "Entertainment Director" on the payroll.
>
> Living in the Land of the Free has different faces and meanings to
different
> segments of our society unfortunately.
>
> Don't put me in no home, send me on a Round the World Cruise,
> The food is better, there is Free Entertainment, folks to serve your every
> need, and if you break a leg they will upgrade you to a suite for the rest
of
> your life, free medical with a doctor on board, and best of all if you die
they
> will just dump you overboard and save you a bundle of Funeral money too.
:))
> It is also cheaper than living in a retirement home and just rotting away
in
> your room till you go.  Now you know why there are sooooo many old folks
on
> those cruise ships.
>
> By the way the musicians on them don't make any more money than many OKOM
> bands either and some of them even far less, they also are not allowed to
> fraternize with the paying customers, and their cabins are usually right
next to the
> engine room in the bowels of the ship.  Pay scale for most is about
$450.00 a
> week less taxes.  Most could make better money flipping Burgers, but then
> again that would not be SHOW BIZ.
>
>
> Cheers,
>
>
> Tom Wiggins
> When they do put me in a home I hope it's the one where Barbone Street
gets
> $2,600.00 at least I will get some good music. :))
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