Creating Venues to Perform

Video Transcript

"Now having talked about picking the right kind of venue to perform in, there are times when you don't need a venue at all. My particular brand of performance art is something that I can do anywhere. I can turn it on at any time in any conversation. So I was thinking about it, it was a long time ago, and I was thinking, 'Hey, I don't have to have a club book me in order to be able to play there. What I need is just an audience.' So I said, 'Hey, I can go down to the corner of 6th Street in Austin, the kind of the party district in Austin, I can just go out on the corner and start performing out there. And people are going to come and be interested and I'll draw a crowd.' So I did that. I started going out. Now I chose, see this is a different kind of choosing a venue. I did have a venue, it just wasn't a, maybe a legitimate one, right? I went down, I chose a specific corner, I chose a specific time, on Friday nights and I did it repeatedly. I did it every week. I kept going down there and performing. Now did weird stuff happen? Yeah. Did interesting stuff happen? Yeah. Did good stuff happen? Yeah. Well, that was all in keeping in line with what my message was and what I was all about as a performer. I was all about being able to give art to anybody who would listen. Inspiring anybody who would come in contact with me. What a great way to do that. I didn't need very much gear to take with me, cause all I needed was my voice and my body to be performing all over the place, right? So there are sometimes where if you're a performer, you may not need to choose a specific venue to perform for. Just know you may not be getting paid a lot for that, but it's something, it's a great tool to promote yourself and also to develop your performance chops."