One of the fun things about performing at fairs is that you work with a bunch of other entertainers. In the green room someone was talking about a friend of theirs that has a very artsy act, but it isn’t getting much work with it. We were trying to come up with advice to be relayed to the artsy person, and here’s what we came up with.
They need a commercial show to support the act, it’s hard to get enough work to pay the bills with just an act (artsy or not). Making a living now with just an act is really hard, there aren’t as many variety shows, etc and enough of them to fill up a calendar. That’s where having a show comes in. There’s a lot more opportunities to do a full show than there are just an act.
If you look into it, while someone like Jeff McBride is known for several acts, he also has a full show to support those acts. Now let’s look at art, someone like Andy Warhol did a lot of commercial art which brought in money to pay the bills until he could make enough doing the art-art.
While it’s not bad to work on a passion project, you do need something that will reliably pay the bills. That’s why you also need a commercial show!
-Louie
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