If your show tomorrow night got cancelled, what would you do instead to be effective? Who would you reach? How would you make the most of it?
Is the thing you would do instead of the show something that is actually more beneficial than the show…even if the show hadn’t been cancelled?
Maybe you should cancel the show. Well, maybe you should keep your end of the deal because at this point you’re committed and the show is tomorrow and you don’t want to be a jerk.
Better said…maybe don’t book that show next time.
You need to gauge the value of putting on your show.
(The value of your show is hopefully always very high…but the value of putting on the show is something completely different)
Also worth noting…artists view shows as a big deal, so to cancel (or not book it) and replace it with something else, that ‘something else’ would also need to be a big deal, big value.
So whatever comes to mind that would or could sub in as a show-replacement…do more of that too.
If everything goes right during the show, you will leave the audience in a huge lull when you get off stage.
A subtle (or not so subtle) yearning and wishing that you could have stayed forever.
A true gift to your audience.
The higher the high is at the end of your show right before you leave the stage, the bigger the deficiency when you exit and leave the audience. And that pendulum swing is a powerful moment.
I don’t think you feel as good as you want to when you walk off stage.
I think you act like you feel great but really you have a lot of mixed emotions and thoughts about what just happened…about what you just did on stage.
Was it good? Was I good? Did they like me? Maybe I should have…? Maybe I shouldn’t have…? Why did the audience…? Why didn’t the audience…? Do I even care? Is it ok to care? Where’s the beer and bbq?
You want to believe the show was good because that’s what you just spent your time doing…So you act like you believe it was. You hide the second guessing and the subtle (or very apparent) let down of the show.
I’ve been there a million times, and you have too. Now is just the first time we’re telling each other.
I think you want your show to be great.
And it isn’t.
Or maybe it is but you don’t truly believe it is.
In both cases, when you walk off stage night after night after night, there’s a lot of internal questioning and doubting going on when you walk off stage.
Oh yes you experience the post-show adrenaline buzz and all the pats on the back, and it’s all smiles and good times for a minute. But that voice is still doubting and wondering, and getting louder.
I want you to walk off stage every night thinking, feeling, knowing and believing “I did it”.
I’m going to say that again…
I want you to walk off stage every night in the most bold and humble way, thinking, feeling, knowing and believing I DID IT.
Most of your self doubt and fake confidence about your live show has come from a lack of definition for the word “it”.
So I can help you with that. I want to help you and I’m willing to help you. I’m the guy.
Email me. Call me. Send me a postcard, drop me a line.
It’s about to be winter which usually means a lot less touring. A perfect time to re-tool and re-define.
I hope your walk off stage will become a victorious one, fulfilling and meaningful.
p.s. I’ve observed and experienced this post-show internal confusion in artists playing bar gigs, clubs, theaters and arenas. It has absolutely nothing to do with the size of the crowd or the size of the paycheck.
Well, it’s not really going to be a problem with podcasts themselves, but rather the hosts and the content.
I’ll use an example:
I like Butch Walker. I think he’s incredibly talented, interesting, and entertaining both in his live show and in interviews.
So when podcasts really started to pick up steam, I would search Butch Walker in the podcast app and listen.
The first time I listened to Butch Walker get interviewed on a podcast…it was the first time…so the interviewer had created this great piece of content by simply asking Butch “How did you get to where you are today”.
With Butch’s response being a very entertaining version of “I started over there, then this happened, then that happened and now I’m here.”
Ok. Awesome. That was really fun. Never heard Butch do that type of interview before. I really enjoyed that…so I’d like to enjoy another podcast where Butch Walker is getting interviewed for an hour.
I click on the next podcast that Butch is a guest on.
It turns out the person who started this next podcast had the same idea for their podcast as the first person. ‘I’ll get musicians on here and have them tell their awesome stories about how they got from there to here’.
And that wasn’t a bad idea for a podcast, but I just heard that podcast. But since I’d only heard that type podcast ONCE before, I thoroughly enjoy the second one too.
Then I click on the third podcast down…and that person had the same idea for a podcast TOO! So now I’m on round three of Butch getting asked pretty much the same questions. Still not bad but now its starting to losing some luster…
You see where this is going for the podcast world…what has happened and what is happening and what will happen.
We’re going to need better podcasters. Podcasters who have different ideas, a more focused reason for doing a podcast. Podcasters who will bring artists in (or whoever) and have a podcast beyond “how did you get to where you are today?”
(And I will say again, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that type of podcast. It’s just that there’s lots of those podcasts and more new ones all the time just like it.)
