On the "what kinda folk performer are ya?" angle--

Our flyers and PR now include this phrase in smaller type, under our band name:

~ Your Old-Fashioned Sing-Along Band ~

It's cleared up a lot of confusion and short-cutted a lot of explaining.

It has also pointed us to our most potentially-productive niche market-- no one else here is doing anything for children and their desperate-for-activities parents. To that end, our spring Event will be a house concert on the lawn.... a children's singalong.

Another thing-- our band has this reality to face: Our music is not the product. OUR producet is, in fact, not really music at all. OUR product is THE OPPORUTNITY TO HAVE A GOOD TIME. That means, now that I am moving into the entrepreneur part of my mind as far as our music is concerned, that the WHOLE event is the medium for the delivery of the product.... it means I have to think less like an autoharp player, and more like a producer... I have to stage us within the right events, and plan them myself if they are not out there to be hired for. (Luckily for me, they are NOT out there, in this area.)

And that gives me ALL the percentage cuts-- I am the performer, the organizer, the venue owner, the agent, etc. (Except for the money I pay band mates.)

Example: That means that our lawn event will include a food concession (give me my cut), games (give me my cut), children's music tapes and songbooks (at my markup), and so forth.... and that we will not do it at 1 PM, we will do it at FOUR o'clock, because then we can sell hot dogs!

The biggest block in my thinking, it turns out, had been not seeing that our home is the venue-- I had been trying to build things up to where our church would be the venue. The church is available LATER if we need something that big, but until I develop a following for ALL the folk activities I am starting from our house (jams, lessons, house concerts, doing press kits, etc.), people will NOT come to them at the church... Here, people do not go to things at a church they don't belong to, until it seems normal to them to go there.... they have to know US first.

If you can imagine a home being in somewhat permanent Mudcat-gathering mode, that's how it seems... only people PAY for their good time.

~Susan