While writing my last comment on the karoake subject, I suddenly realised that there might be quite a difference between the USA and the rest of the world in which or what kind of places arr.keyboardists perform mainly as SOLO act!

From my own experience in the Netherlands, which is certainly not meant to be representative.
(Other dutch might have different opinions.)

1. Mostly private parties
2. Restaurants (very often ethnic!)
3. Local pubs/clubs
4. Public envirements (shopping malls etc..)

Fred

for me, churches, christian conferences, and christian meetings.

Pubs Parties weddings I played for a 100 year old's birthday a few years ago --her relations asked me to stop after half hour as "Mammy is tired" it turned out that 100 yr old Mammy was not at all happy as she wished to dance on. She died a 102 yrs of age still doing the house work and havin fun. I love wild pubs nights and lively and fun songs dont like sad songs we have enought of that.-- hate the fights though they are rare. Pierce

I do a lot of nursing homes, some assisted living centers, and a few retirement homes. Of these, I do about 8-11 gigs a week. Most are just an hour, a few are two hours. I also do therapeutic music activities for a rich local school district around 3-4 hours a week. I just finished a brochure, and I'm using it to target senior programs at Park Districts.
I also use my arranger for songwriting, but this is my hobby and not my profession.

Larry

Oops there are a lot of professionalists.

Music playing in a band is only my hobby. In Germany we have during summertime a lot of public festivals specially in Bavaria where I live (you know "October Fest" but much smaller). Always you have a big tent there where you can sit in, drink beer, hear live music (from Bavarian Folk up to heavy metal) and eat something. Therefore we have a wide spread spectrum of songs to play and sing, like "Country Roads" to "Highway to Hell". We can play up to ten hours and have a medium sized PA for a audience of 1500 persons. If we have a bigger job we rent something.
Next year we try to play trucker festivals (sometimes up to 10000 and more people in the audience) and the "RockHouse Cafe" tent which is on a very big public festival and has a capacity of 5000 persons.

Beside that we play weddings, parties, dance galas or next year during January and February Carnival events. There you need standard dance songs and something like a Vienna Waltz.
Round about 40 til 50 gigs per year.

Greetings from Germany

Gerhard