Why Musicians Love Playing Gigs 🎸

I have been gigging in some kind of professional capacity (getting paid for my performances) for over 20 years. Most of my performances have given me some kind of income, a few have been done for free, usually for a charity, and a few others have paid me very well.

It is always nice to be paid well to play music and I've heard many musicians say "I play the music for free, but I get paid for everything else! " (like setting up, tearing down, music education, equipment, gas for driving to the gigs, insurance, marketing, etc.).

As performing musicians, a lot of us know that our craft is often undervalued by non-musicians and sometimes, we are paid much less than we should be paid.

So then, the question we must then ask ourselves as musicians is "What does success mean for me?"

You might think your best shows are the ones that bring in the most money…

But that’s not necessarily true, is it?

In this video, I want to walk you through some of my favorite gigs from the last year, specifically May 2024 to May 2025. Many of these gigs were fun, some paid me well, and some barely paid me anything, but these were my favorites for a reason.

Let's talk about the kind of gigs that really matter—the ones that leave us feeling inspired, connected, and creatively fulfilled. These are the shows our audience remembers—and the ones that remind us why we started performing in the first place.