I talked to another OMB from RI today and he told me he actually participated in a 'showcase' for assisted living/ nursing home entertainers, maybe a dozen or so singers/players, doing a ten minute audition for an audience of about 100 people, with representatives of well over 2 dozen places ...
he said a good number of performers were singers using just laptops for backing - BUT, he said they were very good, young, personable, and very interactive with the audience - he said one young male singer was really good and good looking and had a line of Activity Directors trying to book him ...
I realize that some of you, like Donny and Gary, have been doing this for YEARS as your only means of livelihood, and have developed a solid and well established base of clientele ... but there are guys like myself who only got into this after retiring from a '9 to 5' and have not had the years to develop those clients ...
So, the business as I've known it may be coming to an end,
but it has been a GREAT ride ...

Nothing is changing in fact it's getting better all the time with so many NEW facilities being built and they all have to have entertainment!!

Bottom line Tony....."BE MUCH BETTER THEN THEM"....nuff said!...

the work will follow and the phone will ring......If you have the talent & are NOT just another run of the mill so called entertainer nothing can stop you. Ask yourself Am I better then the rest out there? If the answer is no realize the reason and make yourself better then the rest of them at any cost if your serious about being a TOP Act on the circuit.
Personally I welcome all these wannabes,...like I always say, ..
"The More They Play, The More $$$ I Make" ......
Let YOUR Music & Voice be your calling card always & Mix it up. If you play there once and you don't get called back for more there is a reason behind it and most times it's your music and singing and the way you performed and the reaction of the audience when you were playing for them. BRING THEM THE WOW FACTOR EVERY SHOW!!!

That's true, Donny, but I have also recently seen situations where the audience LOVED it- they were singing, dancing, even some of the staff - but the people who do the hiring aren't even in the room !!!

That's not at all unusual, Tony. There have been several times when I'm performing and the staffers walk out of the room. I get pissed when they do that, and I tell them that I will NOT perform unless there is at least one staff person in the room, mainly for safety reasons.

Now, what I recommend, is to go around to the different facilities and check out the competition. You'll be amazed. There is not a lot of Tony quality performers out there, and believe me, if you do some legwork you can find all the work you can handle. I should know.

Gary

It doesn't matter because when the missing AD asks the residence how did you like the show they will respond to her he was GREAT or he stunk......like I said Tony this is hard diligent work that you have to LOVE to be successful.......if you don't it's not worth the effort...might as well stay home. Every day every show I make it better and better then anyone else. Say to yourself what can I do to make my act even MORE IMPROVED??? Go see people perform that are better then yourself and learn from them,.......it never ends......You GOTTA LOVE IT BABY!!

Donny.....you’re living in a dream world. You need to step outside your hemisphere there and see what reality is like in other areas instead of giving advice that would be appropriate to the music scene maybe 20 years ago.

It’s not about talent anymore. The two biggest factors working against you nowadays are budgets and kids impersonating Activity Directors.

Haven’t you noticed the world is being overtaken and run almost exclusively nowadays by adolescents in their 20’s? Hotshots who have no conception about the true meaning of entertainment, the same as they have no conception of what music was like in the old days when you heard melody and not just a pulsating beat!

Music is like food. You can go to Cheap Charlie’s Chowder House and get a bland, no-frills steak, but it’s food. Or you can go to the Paris Hilton and get one done by a professional chef who will make that steak into a work of art and will make you feel satisfied long after it’s been digested. Unfortunately, many AD’s go the Cheap Charlie route now ‘cause they haven’t the faintest idea a “Paris Hilton” even exists!

And, there ain’t no one going to argue the point about “budgets.” I have this one 15 year account. The AD told me 2 years ago that they want to keep me on, but they’ve been hit with a.....BUDGET, and that I will have to drop my price to $100 and go from 12 appearances a year to 4.....1 every 3 months. My other 13 year account also dwindled down from 12 spots a year (booked yearly in advance) to 4 a year and in 2015, because of budget limitations, she’s booking by the month and I was told “we’ll call you if we can fit you in anymore!”

My one solid account is “solid” because the AD’s are middle-aged, very professional, and very experienced. She told me clearly the reason I’m there over a decade is that I play well and I interact well with the residents and that’s clearly what they want. She went on to say they are flooded with entertainers trying to work their way in. They give them one chance and watch them carefully, and most are shown the door. And, BTW, after all these years, even I’m “watched carefully” and I respect them for that!

I sometimes wonder if you ever stepped out of that domain you live in down there and tried working in the real world, would you be so quick to give out advice like you do. Unless you’re a Justin Timberlake or a Jimmy Fallon, the Camelot days of big money are somewhat over.

Mark

People who are successful in any field are focussed on ways to continue to be successful and adapt and change where necessary . People who are failing to be successful seem to focus on reasons why they are not , refuse to adapt and change , stagnate and disappear . That's how it's always been and ever shall be .

Talent is very important but attitude is far more important

Mark....I respect your opinion but cannot agree at all.
Good Luck.

Mark, Nursing homes, assisted living centers and retirement communities are no different than any other business when it comes to finances. When the economy goes down the tube, they feel it just as much as any other service business. I had some that asked me to drop my prices per performance, and I told them the best thing to do was just cut the number of performances, thus they could stay within their budget. They agreed this was the best way to go.

Now, there are no 20 year olds performing the Nursing Home circuit - they don't even know it exists. They're all wannabe stars, have guitar will travel types - not quality entertainers that know how to run a business, let alone read an audience. They're the ones in the clubs and from my perspective, they can have them. I have an AD that has a five piece metal band. I went to see them at a local restaurant/club last week. They were way too loud, their PA sucked, their songs all sounded the same. No competition there.

Tony is a quality musician/entertainer. If he aggressively markets himself, he will find more work than he can handle. In my part of the world, there are new care facilities springing up every day. More often then not, one of the ADs I currently deal with will be going to one or more of those locations, as they tend to seek out experienced ADs for the new facilities.

So, if anyone is experiencing a decrease in the number of bookings due to budgetary constraints, this could all change with an improvement in the economy. Some folks feel the economy has improved, but in real terms, this is anything but a booming economy - just ask any business owner. Additionally, many of those new facilities that are under construction were in the planning and investment stages a decade ago, a time when the economy was much better. In some of the current locations, it's just a matter of cutting back on the number of performances, while at the same time expanding your performance base. Like I said on the outset, this just takes a bit of legwork and marketing on the part of the performer. It's a business like any other business, and should be treated as such.

Good luck,

Gary

I have to be blunt here, ..........Good post Gary,.....as you know from our business discussions from years ago, which have been implemented with GREAT Success year after year...
There are those performers who blame everything else about their so called "lack of work" on everything under the sun EXCEPT their own shortcomings with their music, singing, and performance skills, of which they don't even know they exist, AND REFUSE TO BELIEVE IT, or go out and listen, watch & learn from others, record your act and let other performers listen to it and give advice good or bad, step out of the box trying to MIX IT UP performing using other methods besides an arranger KB to suit the need, etc, .. not to mention the lack of needed CONSTANT AGGRESSIVENESS in obtaining & booking work in so many ways besides NH's which is only a very small part of this business. People are people no matter where in this big world you go,....they all need music for so many different affairs & functions I can go on & on but this is not the place to do it on a public forum.

Merry Christmas