Curtains Up!

Cathy and her mother met me at a February bridal fair. Cathy decided right then and there that she wanted to have me perform for her wedding. Her mother paid my deposit, and I thought, “These folks are getting everything in line.”

But an interesting thing can happen as the wedding day approaches: Nervousness and overwhelm can lead to disorganization.

About a month before the wedding day, I spoke with Cathy about her music selections. In that conversation, she frantically mentioned to me that her minister would be going on vacation on her wedding day and suddenly didn’t have anyone to perform the ceremony for her. (Argh! Without a celebrant, there is no wedding!). So, I recommended she speak with Reverend David Beronio, as I knew that he traveled to Genoa, Nevada to officiate ceremonies.

She booked Reverend Dave after about a week of deciding. He confirmed this fact with me by phone, telling me, “Yes, I’ll be doing Cathy’s 3:30 pm ceremony.” Uh oh. My contract said the ceremony started a half hour later at 4 pm. I phoned Cathy to find out that she had indeed changed the ceremony time to fit into her photographer’s tight schedule. Cathy forgot to tell me. (Argh! I would have shown up with no time to set up before the ceremony began!).

Finally, things seemed to be on the right track. Cathy sent me her music list in time. These were her music choices (for more information on these songs, check out my repertoire list:

Pre-Ceremony Seating Music: Celtic and Classical Selections
Mother’s Seating Music Plus Processional Music for 3 Bridesmaids and 2 Flower Girls: “Canon in D”
Bride’s Entrance: “Here Comes the Bride”
Music played softly behind Ceremony: “All the Way” (popularized by Frank Sinatra)
Recessional: “Angelical Hymn”
Post-Ceremony Music Played During Photo Session:
1. “Glory of Love”
2. “Moon River”
3. “Grow Old With Me”
4. “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”
5. “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”

I arrived at the wedding site on schedule, at the beautiful outside lawn at the Genoa Lakes Golf Club in Genoa, Nevada. I checked in with Marie, the wedding coordinator at the Golf Club, after I had set up. She was inside Antoci’s Restaurant, busy setting up for the reception and told me that no one had arrived yet.

So, I waited and waited outside. Reverend Dave arrived and reviewed his cues with me. Still no one appeared outside, and it was 3:15, my scheduled time to start playing for the seating of the guests. So, I followed Rev. Dave inside to find out when guests would be seated and whether the ceremony was on time. I discovered that the bride was still absent, so the guests were instructed to wait inside so that they would not have to wait in the hot sun.

Soon it was 3:30, then 3:45, and still no guests outside. Finally, the bride arrived at 4 pm, a full 30 minutes late, causing the following potential problems:

1. The minister had another wedding to perform elsewhere at 5 pm.
2. The photographer had another group to photograph at 5 pm.
3. I was booked to perform until 4:15, otherwise, I’d need to ask for overtime pay (I also travel with a “roadie” or an assistant, who was on the clock as well. I’d need to pay him for his overtime, too).

Reverend Dave got things underway quickly. The ceremony ended at 4:25 pm, and Marie quietly warned the bridal party that I might be owed overtime pay. I approached the bride and groom to congratulate them. Cathy apologized profusely for her tardiness and her mother asked me how much extra money she owed. I explained that she didn’t owe me anything, but if she wanted me to play during the photo session, as I was originally planning to do, she would need to pay me for overtime. Cathy and her mother decided to fore go that music due to the extra cost.

Unfortunately, the only music Cathy heard was her entrance music, the music during the ceremony, and the recessional tune.

Tips for Brides:

The number one way to insure that your wedding goes smoothly is to be on time—not just being on time for your arrival at your ceremony site, but also being on time with all your pre-wedding plans.

As you hire your wedding vendors, they will tell you when they will need specific information. Write down these due dates and tasks in a wedding calendar and refer to it on a regular basis as your wedding day approaches. Here are examples of information to include in your calendar:

1. Due dates and amounts of final payments for each of your wedding services.
2. Wedding license particulars
3. Final date to get your music list to your musicians (so they’ll have time to practice).
4. Date to have all RSVPs back from guests (so that you’ll have a final guest count)
5. Date to get your final guest count to the banquet manager (so that they will know how much food to prepare)

And there are more dates and tasks to include, depending upon what services you have hired for your wedding.

Keep a record of the email addresses and phone numbers for all your wedding vendors. This way, if you need to change your wedding date or time, or if your ceremony location has suddenly changed due to unexpected weather, you won’t leave anyone out. (I once performed at a wedding where the bride decided to have the ceremony time start a full hour earlier. She informed everyone of this fact except the minister! Needless to say, the ceremony did not start earlier, as she had planned).

On your wedding day, avoid being “fashionably late” to your ceremony. I am speaking about not planning to be on time. I’m not talking about true emergencies that are certainly unplanned, such as a flat tire on the way to the ceremony—These excuses are usually forgiven by guests and vendors.

A ceremony that begins late or runs much longer than you anticipated can have great repercussions for the rest of your wedding:

1. Your fiancé can have second thoughts about tying the knot and it’s not the best way to start your relationship with his family.
2. Guests may be unhappy that they were made to sit in the hot sun or freezing temperatures before the ceremony began.
3. Your wedding vendors may have other commitments after their contracted time to perform their services for you. Your celebrant, your musicians, your photographer, and your videographer may need to leave for another wedding and cannot work overtime for you.
4. If your wedding vendors can stay and do not have other commitments to be elsewhere, you will likely owe them overtime pay (and this can be quite expensive, when you multiply this by all the vendors involved).
5. If your ceremony ends late, this can also adversely affect your reception–Your food may be cold or overcooked, and you may owe your reception vendors overtime pay as well.

Being organized and on time with your wedding details, and being on time to your wedding, will keep your budget intact.

If you prefer to hand these details over to someone else, look into hiring your own wedding coordinator. In the long run, they can save you time and money, allowing you to relax on and before your big day. (Check out the Association of Bridal Consultants for more information).

Tips for Musicians:

Brides have a lot on their minds. Understandably, balancing their own dreams for their wedding day with the wishes of the their family members and future in-laws make some brides feel nervous and overwhelmed. And sometimes, the demands of a job or schoolwork make it difficult to keep up with wedding agendas.

There is one sure-fire way to make sure you have all the information you need prior to the wedding: Phone the bride one week before her wedding day and review all your contracted details with her, including the date, time, location, song selections, details about set-up, parking permits, loading zones, and more. The most important bit of info to review is when final payment is due, if you are still owed a balance. And if you are contracted to perform for another wedding after the bride’s wedding, inform her that her wedding cannot run late because you cannot offer overtime.

I would estimate that for me, about 20% of the time, the bride neglects to tell me some important bit of information until this conversation. That important bit has included anything from a time or location change to having 130 guests arriving instead of 30 (suddenly necessitating amplification from me).

Yes, some plans change on the day of the wedding. If the wedding is outdoors and the weather is inclement, you’ll want to be in touch with someone in the wedding party to determine if the location has moved. Of course, checking in with the celebrant, the wedding coordinator, and the banquet manager upon arrival will keep you informed of any changes that might have been decided during the wedding rehearsal.

And if the bride arrives late, you may go into overtime (or sometimes, it’s the celebrant or a close family member who is late). If you are due overtime pay according to your contract, then ask for it. Asking for overtime pay is a bummer, because you are putting a damper on the couple’s happy day, but you have every right to ask for it. Your hired roadies and other ensemble members will be expecting the extra pay for the extra time, too. If you don’t mention your overtime rate in your performance contract, then it’s time to add it.

Many more tips are available from my book “The Musician’s Guide to Brides” available wherever Hal Leonard Books are sold: music and bookstores, and through online retailers including sheetmusicplus.com, amazon.com, and of course, at my website at www.celticharpmusic.com.

I’m looking forward to reading your stories, comments, and feedback.

Anne

Anne Roos
Celtic Harp Music by Anne Roos

(And contact me at anne@celticharpmusic.com for personal consultation and mentoring—Make a living while gigging)

Visit Anne’s Gig Salad PromoKit

The Gig Salad team rocks, there’s no question about it. I had a ton of fun coaching this season. Thanks to coaches Danny, Jason and John for being awesome, and to our fantastic parents and of course the kids who worked hard to be their best. What a fun season.

-Steve

To all of our esteemed impersonators, tribute artists, and tribute bands: Gig Salad will be in Vegas for the impersonators convention this weekend. Please stop by… we have some exciting news and some cool stuff to share with you!

Mark

We like to tackle lots of big things at once. Here are some things that are launching:

New Membership Levels: We’re adding 2 new membership levels to Gig Salad: Free and Premium. The members who sign up for free will only get their name and city posted, and a button to contact them. Premium members will get the Agent-Friendly website features, more category selections, more space for audio/video, 2 extra Gig Soup leads to follow up with daily, as well as a featured spot on the main category pages. If you currently have purchased the agent-friendly feature, you will be automatically moved up to the premium level when it launches. If you do not, you will continue to enjoy all of the same features you currently have.

Brand Spankin’ New Control Panel: We’ve overhauled the control panel to make things much easier for you to navigate. Please contact us at help@gigsalad.com if things are confusing– we’re confident the new control panel will make things a lot easier for everyone.

Let us know what you think of everything!

Steve & Mark

With the present economy, e-mail scams are rampant, and wedding businesses, particularly musicians, are often the target.

Most brides and potential clients will include the question “How much?” in their initial email inquiries. They will include your name in the email greeting and may include some additional info about the time, date, and location of the gig. These are all good signs that the bride is genuinely interested in learning about your availability and talents.

However, on rare occasions, you will receive questionable inquiries. Actually, they are not inquiries at all—they are from scammers. As Steve Tetrault of GigSalad.com explains, “Their ultimate goal is to get you to receive a deposit check for an amount that is greater than what it should be, then ask you for the difference. Their check turns out to be fraudulent and they walk away with a few thousand bucks from you.”

Pretty scary stuff, but true.

Here are seven warning signs that you’ve received a fake email inquiry:

1. The email message is not addressed to anyone in particular. It will start off with “Hello”, or “Greetings”, instead of “Dear Anne”. This means that it was probably a mass mailing. Another test: Look at the “To:” field and the “Reply To:” field or the “From:” field in the header of the email. If these are all the same email addresses, the email was a mass mailing, not intended just for your eyes only.

2. The inquiry is riddled with exceptionally poor spellings, grammar, and punctuation. Yes, some brides can’t spell worth beans, but if you try to read the sentences out loud and find the urge to change the order of nouns and verbs, you don’t have an inquiry. You have s*pam.

3. The email makes requests that do not apply to the services you offer. If you are a string quartet, and the email is asking for a wedding DJ, it is too big a mistake to take seriously.

4. The email is giving you bogus information. I once received an email that said the ceremony and reception would last from 11 am until 7 pm and that my services would be needed for that length of time. Really????

5. The scammer gives you a lot of extraneous info, such as a mailing address and phone number, only to say to contact them by email. They’re trying to convince you that they’re for real. Don’t fall for it. If an address is provided, go to MapQuest.com or YahooMaps or another map site and see if the address is a fake. You can also try calling a given phone number to see if it actually works.

6. Any email messages from overseas, claiming that they are willing to pay for your travel expenses and accommodations to perform in a foreign country. Weddings are local events, and brides, event coordinators, and booking agents are most interested in booking local talent. It’s pretty unlikely that a client who is not an established fan of yours (already on your email list) will pay you thousands of dollars, put you up in a hotel, provide your meals, and take care of your expenses to travel any distance to perform.

7. Any email from a client or event planner who is itching to pay you upfront, without any previous correspondence or conversations with you. People aren’t that eager to part with their money for any musician, and they like to do a bit of shopping around, asking questions, before they commit to spending money.

If you receive one of these wedding scam emails:

1. Don’t reply. Once you reply, the scammer thinks he has you hooked, and now that he knows he has a legit email address, he may pass your address along to all his scammer friends, too.

2. Report it as s*pam. If you received the email through an online wedding or music directory, alert them. They’ll want to put a halt to it and report it to the correct authorities. Don’t blame these online directories, because they are victims as much as you are.

3. Depending upon what is contained in the body of the email, take things a step further. You can report it to the online FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (ic3.gov), SpamCop.net, your own Internet Service Provider, and a host of other online agencies that exist to eradicate s*pam.

The above tips, and many more, are found in my book “The Musician’s Guide to Brides”. This book is written primarily for wedding musicians, but it’s also filled with savvy information about marketing, advertising, and promoting your business as a working musician. It’s available wherever Hal Leonard Books are sold: music and bookstores, and through online retailers including sheetmusicplus.com, amazon.com, and at my website at www.celticharpmusic.com.

How have you dealt with con artists? Please share your comments and insights below to help others avoid these pitfalls, too.

Cheers,
Anne
—
Anne Roos
Celtic Harp Music by Anne Roos
http://www.celticharpmusic.com

Gig Salad proudly supports local organizations around Wilmington, NC (home of our web development and marketing headquarters) such as The Thalian Association for the Performing Arts and Winter Park Optimist Baseball. This spring we are sponsoring a tee ball team. Our kids are outstanding players and great sportsmen, and are doing the Gig Salad name proud!

I received a call from Monica from the Tuxtown tuxedo rental shop. Excitedly, she told me that she would be launching a full-service wedding boutique in a few weeks and wanted me to perform at the grand opening! The date was Valentine’s Day, a day she hoped to attract many couples that are headed to the altar.

Monica’s new store, the Wedding Emporium, is located in the Carson Mall in Carson City, Nevada. I was looking forward to performing inside her new one-stop shop for tuxedos, bridal gowns, and photography. But when I arrived, Monica said, “There’s a stage set up in the middle of the shopping mall. I think it would be much better for you to perform there, where everyone will see you, instead of inside my shop.”

It wasn’t what I expected–A lone harpist on a big stage inside of a mall? That was okay for the jazz band, which was packing up when I approached the stage, but wouldn’t I get lost up there? Would anyone see or hear the harp? Would anyone be paying attention?

As it turned out, the shopping mall was fairly quiet, even with complimentary chocolate-covered strawberries handed out to patrons who roamed about on this Valentine’s Day. For a harpist, quiet is a good thing. The harp music reverberated throughout the mall, and people gathered to take seats in front of the stage as I played a mix of Celtic music and modern popular love songs.

Shoppers approached the edge of the stage and asked for requests, and I sold CDs that they wanted autographed. Even Monica could hear me performing as the harp music wafted into her store. When I finished playing, she bought CDs to sell to her own customers and took a large stack of brochures to pass on to brides-to-be.

Originally, I had an odd picture in my head of being ignored on a big stage in the middle of a mall, for I am a solo musician, not a band. Happily, I was wrong.

Tips for Retail Store Owners:

These are hard economic times, and that means you may need to be a bit creative about getting shoppers into your store. Many shop owners attract customers by discounting prices on selected items by 50% or more. Instead, what if you invested in a musician to draw a crowd?

In the above story, Monica didn’t slash prices at all, but even on a quiet shopping day, brides were parading into her store. Of course, she sent a press release to the local paper. She also handed out fliers to other colleagues in her wedding networking group, Weddings of the West. She cooperated with other stores in the mall, too, and they all got the word out.

You could host your own musical events. I have seen a Hawaiian luau band playing in Trader Joe’s grocery stores, pianists performing in music stores, string quartets in hotel lobbies, and jazz trios playing inside mall food courts. Take a cue from the folks at Disneyland—they have live music at all their eateries and even outside of shops where people are milling about. Music serves to make patrons linger, and if they linger, they are more apt to buy.

Tips for Musicians:

Don’t be afraid to take on a different gig than you’re used to playing. If you have never played in a department store, in a shopping mall, in a music store, in a bridal shop, or even inside a grocery store, maybe it’s time to give it a try.

Sure, you may need to offer a discount off of your regular performance fees to land these gigs, but if you have CDs to sell, you will make it up in sales. Plus, you just never know who may pick up your business card and give you a call later for a much more lucrative gig. At the very least, you’ll get some free promotion.

Go where you are apt to meet future clients. If you primarily play at weddings, approach bridal salons, jewelry stores, cake shops, etc., and see about performing in these retail outlets to gain exposure to brides who may want to hire you. If you primarily teach music lessons, approach full-service music stores to demonstrate how wonderful their sale instruments can sound with proper practice (you might even win yourself a spot teaching in that store, too). If you have your CDs commercially available, you can also perform in bookstores that are willing to stock your CDs. Actually, performing anywhere that people can sit down and take a listen to you can attract new fans, customers, and clients.

Many more tips are available from my book “The Musician’s Guide to Brides”. This book is written primarily for wedding musicians, but it’s also filled with advice about marketing, advertising, and promoting your business as a working musician. It’s available wherever Hal Leonard Books are sold: music and bookstores, and through online retailers including sheetmusicplus.com, amazon.com, and of course, at my website at www.celticharpmusic.com.

I’m looking forward to reading your feedback about performing in retail stores.

Cheers,
Anne

Anne Roos
Celtic Harp Music by Anne Roos

Anne’s Gig Salad PromoKit
(And contact me at anne@celticharpmusic.com for personal consultation and mentoring—Make a living while gigging)

The UPK, or Universal PromoKit, is the latest addition to Gig Salad. It gives our members the ability to instantly create up to 21 agent friendly websites that are targeted to specific booking agents. Each website will be found at a unique link, and any combination of these 21 websites can either function as a personal website, a generic agent-friendly site with no contact information, or as an agent-specific website, containing specific agents’ contact info on them. There are several designs to choose from, and we are adding more.

The members who have responded to us about it have been really excited. REALLY excited… in a way that we didn’t quite expect. It should go without saying that we’re excited too!

Please feel free to use the trial version of the Universal PromoKit, and upgrade if it makes sense for you. Either way, we would LOVE to hear your feedback, as we really do want this product to do exactly what you need it to do.

To give it a try, just login to your PromoKit and click the Universal PromoKit tab. Then come back here and tell us what you think, and if there are improvements or enhancements you’d like to see to make it work for you.

peace, love and gigs,
Steve & Mark

I visited Minden Elementary School in Minden, Nevada to give a presentation to 4th-6th grade students. But before attending, I supplied Ms. B, the teacher who invited me, with a complete lesson plan. It included what I was planning to teach: an introduction to the Celtic harp in Renaissance England and Ireland, along with a full discussion of the culture and music from that period.

I dressed in full Renaissance period costume (appropriate for a middle-class musician from that time), and I brought plenty of sheet music with me, just in case I ran out of what I planned to play.

When I arrived, three boys helped me bring my equipment into the multi-purpose room where the assembly would be held. Ms. B even assigned a young lady by the name of Kai, to make an introduction to the students before I began my presentation.

There were some 200 students gathered. After explaining about the culture and dress of the 1500s, I performed the following tunes, with plenty of explanation in between:

1. Early Music—3 French Dances
2. Written by King Henry VIII—“Pastyme With Good Company”
3. Can they name this tune?–“Greensleeves”
4. O’Carolan’s music:
“Shebeg & Shemore”
“Planxty George”
“Carolan’s Draught”
5. Renaissance Dances:
“My Lady Carey’s Dompe”
“Galliard”
“Epping Forest”–waltz
“Abbots Bromley Horn Dance” and “The Green Man”—Double jigs
“Considine’s Grove”—Hornpipe
“Princess Royal”–Hornpipe
6. Can they tell the difference between which is an air and which is a march?
“Carrickfergus” and “Brian Boru’s March”
Encore:
“The Water Kelpie”

I instructed the children to hold their questions to the end of the assembly, and there was a question/answer period the last ten or fifteen minutes before my hour was up.

Next, I was lead into the library, where I did an additional presentation for Ms. B’s and Ms. Moyer’s 6th grade classes. The students had prepared questions for me to answer as part of their “Music and Arts Lecture Series”. They wanted to know what it was like to be a working musician, and they asked questions like “Why did you want to play the harp?”, “Where are harps made?”, “Where do you perform?”, and “Do you feel unique because you play the harp?”. I finished off the round of thoughtful questions with a few more tunes.

Next, cookies, chips, and lemonade were served in the library and they had “Meet and Greet”. The kids thanked me and excused themselves to get snacks. They mixed and mingled like adults at a cocktail party! The students were all so well-behaved, and it was a joy to perform for them.

View some great photos in the photo gallery on my website.

Tips for School Teachers and Principals:

Bringing in musical talent for performances and educational presentations does not have to be a budget-breaker. By utilizing the local talent in your community, you won’t need to provide them with accommodations or food. Furthermore, musicians are usually booked up on evenings and weekends, so their schedules are more open on weekdays and may pass along a discount to you.

Zero in on exactly what they will be teaching and how that information or performance will fit into your present curriculum. It is common to ask for a lesson plan and references. However, if you require musicians to jump through too many hoops to be considered (submitting lengthy applications, panel interviews, extensive press kits, etc.), some musicians my simply decide against applying in the first place.

Once you have invited a musician for an assembly, prepare the students for the visit. A great idea is to have the students prepare questions to ask the musician ahead of the visit, as in the above example. And afterward, the children can write essays about what they learned from the visit. Of course, children who have behavior issues should be warned or simply weeded out of the classes who attend the assembly.

Take photos and movies of the presentation to share on school websites and with parents. Make it a big event. Show that you support the arts in your community. And keep in touch with the musicians afterward–They love to hear how their presentations were received.

Tips for Musicians:

If you are great with kids and have something to teach and share about your instrument and your music, consider offering school presentations as a wonderful way to supplement your income and do something special for your local community. In fact, there are many musicians who travel to perform for schools far and wide—performing for kids is their specialty.

The first step to performing in schools is to contact your local school districts and find out what their requirements are. Some will simply instruct you to contact individual school principals to see about their interest, needs and budget. Larger school districts may have an arts program in place. In these cases, there will be an application/interview process before you are even considered.

Hone in on what you can offer to kids. Do a Google search on “lesson plans” and use those outlines and examples to create some lessons that tie in with your musical performance. Schools will want to know what you’ll be teaching, and sample lesson plans provide the format for conveying this information to them.

Finally, include a discount for local schools. We need the arts in our communities, and children need to see people up-close-and-personal performing for them.

Many more tips are available from my book “The Musician’s Guide to Brides”. This book is written primarily for wedding musicians, but it’s also filled with advice about marketing, advertising, and promoting your business as a working musician. It’s available wherever Hal Leonard Books are sold: music and bookstores, and through online retailers including sheetmusicplus.com, amazon.com, and of course, at my website at www.celticharpmusic.com.

I’m looking forward to reading your feedback about performing at school events.

Cheers,
Anne
—
Anne Roos
Celtic Harp Music by Anne Roos
www.celticharpmusic.com
GigSalad.com/anne

We’ve been busy here adding features that create value for our members. A recent addition: You can now receive your lead notifications by text message. The great news is that it costs nothing extra for you to receive these notifications (other than what your cell phone carrier charges you for incoming text messages). Just go to “settings” and input your carrier and cell phone number and we’ll take care of the rest.