Great weekend, work wise... feeling the love!

Great weekend, work wise... feeling the love!

Current mood:accomplished

What a great weekend...I worked my tail off, but the rewards were great, the weather stayed nice and I got a little change of scenery. Most importantly, I was definitely feeling the love from the public. Sometimes you get a little burned out, or maybe think people may be getting tired of your act...but weekends like this are just the elixir....

First, Friday was incredible...we had a capacity crowd with no hassles or incidents...everyone was having a blast, and when the dust cleared, I was informed that we broke all revenue records for that night, so they were very pleased! We ended up taking the party to someones house in the area until about 2:45, and that was a lot of fun as well!

Saturday I did a corporate gig in Jacksonville. That was a pretty long commute, but it was worth it. I was on the 35th floor of the Modis building in the River Club, over looking the city from all angles. Great view, and awesome sunset. That went very smoothly, and was not high maintenance as I expected it to be. It was a corporate banquet and awards ceremony, with dancing to follow. They also had a silent auction for some donated items. I was encouraged to bid on items if I liked, as the proceeds were all going to a local charity. They had high ticket items such as cruises and a week in Cape Cod, and stuff as small as stuffed animals or manicure sets. There were also cash cards from Lowes, Home Depot and a local chain of gas stations.

I was amazed that the cash cards were not reaching the face value of their issue...$50 cards with $20 bids...so whenever I found those, I kept bidding. They had a $100 gas card and $200 gas card. I think there was a communication breakdown on the $200 card as I believe the donator was from a window washing company and their card was on top of the gas cards, so I think the quick readers may have thought it was a $200 window cleaning card, LOL! So, long story short, the $100 gas card went for $75, and I got the $200 gas card for $100. Free gas, yay me. That just added to the perk of the commute, not to mention the nice bottle of wine they gave me, and a take home box with filet and shrimp, asparagus and potatoes... With a 2 hour drive home, that never saw my zip code, LOL!

Sunday was my second day at the new gig, and the first day not encumbered with a Super Bowl! My peeps came out IN DROVES! We slammed that place...not sure how many people exactly were there, but the singers list hovered around 40 singers!! I consider a show with 20 singers to be very successful. Forty is just phenomenal, and the ratio of observers to singers was great, so there was plenty of support for the singers via dancers and clappers.

An interesting observation is the age group. I have a very diverse following, specific to venues many times, and this new gig is an upstart and could have gone either way, but it appears the older clientele are taking it over!! (When I say older, I mean like 50 and up...the more seasoned customer...there are younger folks there as well though!) That is fine with me, since as a rule they will eat and are relatively low maintenance customers for the venue, but they are probably not as heavy drinkers as some of my younger clientele...I just cant wait until we diversify and get more of the young crowd in there and start really showing them some bar revenues on top of the solid food revenue! Red wine and beer are nice, but Jager Bombs and tequila shots add up really fast, LOL! I really think when I promised them I would bring a crowd, they had no idea how many people really would be there. They are all smiles and are showing me a large amount of appreciation for taking a very sleepy night and turning it into what may be the best night of the week for them. That is a rep I am proud of. I like knowing that the venues I work at have had their record revenue intakes set on nights when I am performing.

Thanks to all of you local folks for your support, kindness and friendship!