Getting Senior Center/ Assisted Living Facility Gigs

[SciNote]

I've started playing a couple gigs, and I now want to find other places to play to get more regular gig work.  I live in Florida, USA, and there are quite a few senior and assisted living centers near me.  My question is, what would be the best way to contact the activities directors of these facilities?  Should I call them first, or should I show up in person first?  On the one hand, I'm thinking that these activities directors are often very busy, and therefore would not appreciate an unscheduled visit to look for work.  But on the other hand, I'm thinking that actually showing up at the facility, dressed as I would dress for a gig, shows more commitment to the job than just picking up a phone.  What do you all think?

Thank you for any input.

EDIT: I should add that these first couple gigs I've done were set up initially through a friend, but that would not be the case with gigs at other facilities.

[RayClem]

Are you volunteering to play at the senior facility for free, or do you expect to get paid?  The homes generally welcome an opportunity to bring in volunteers to perform and interact with the residents. Although I have not done that as an individual performer, I have done it on several occasions as part of church groups or other non-profits.

From what I understand, such facilities generally operate on a tight budget. In the past, nursing homes were often owned by wealthy individuals who operated them as a service to the elderly with little desire to make a profit. However, many facilities today are owned by corporate entities who own multiple facilities and they are driven by profit motive. Thus, if your desire is to get paid for your performances, you might not be well received.

I would suggest that you volunteer to play at one facility and record your performance on camera. Then edit the recording to pick out a few key moments. The overall length should be no more than 5 minutes. Then see if you can find the name of the activities director at various facilities. They are the ones most likely to be interested in your proposal. Contact them by phone and indicate you can provide them with a short video of what you are offering. Even if the facility director has to make the final decision, without the activities director on board, you won't get very far.

[Divemaster]

I think just turning up at any business premises for any kind of self promotional pitch, without a prior appointment is just plain rude. It just won't happen.

I Might be old fashioned, but just assuming that other people's time is unimportant, and they will just drop everything to see you, dressed up or not, is pretty naive.

Do your research, find out all you can about your prospective client. Why do they need you? Why do you want to play for them?

Send in a musical resumé with a video or a personalised usb of your music. You just might get lucky. Just being realistic here.

Good Luck.

[SciNote]

I think just turning up at any business premises for any kind of self promotional pitch, without a prior appointment is just plain rude. It just won't happen.

I Might be old fashioned, but just assuming that other people's time is unimportant, and they will just drop everything to see you, dressed up or not, is pretty naive.
...

While I understand your point, and this is why I'm posing this question here, that was a kind of harsh -- borderline "plain rude" -- way to present that information, in my opinion.

Of course I don't expect everyone to drop everything just because I'm at the door, unannounced.  But there would likely be a receptionist who would then give guidance, maybe direct me to a website, and perhaps be able to relay a message to those in charge.  Again, I was only concerned that if I called the facilities looking for information on available entertainment opportunities, that it might not show enough dedication, as anyone can just look up phone numbers on Google and make phone calls.

Why do they need me?  They need to find entertainment for their residents.  Why do I want to play for them?  Experience and a paycheck.  While I wouldn't present the information that bluntly, I would think that would be the understood reasons why anyone would be looking for that kind of work and why the facilities would hire any entertainer.

The idea of a USB of a sampling of my music sounds like a good idea -- it gives people a direct sample of what my music would sound like.

And the idea of volunteering, at least initially, sounds valid -- as long as they wouldn't get the idea that this is as far as I would want it to go.  But the overall idea is to get paid -- not a fortune -- as the previous gigs I played I asked for and got paid $50 for one hour of playing.

[Divemaster]

I'm puzzled why you feel offended...although for the life of me I can't think why?

I'm just being honest about it. The advice was well intentioned.

I wish you luck.... I won't comment further.

[DrakeM]

Get dressed up and drop off a business card. On your card have a link to some of your music. Have a link on it to your Youtube channel or create a BAND (BUSINESS) Facebook page and use that. You might post songs in a BOX account folder and link the card to the folder for people to access the songs.

If they won't see you that day, keep going back weekly until they will. Wear them out. 

If you want paid then go to a bar or restaurant and play for 3 hours.

I play for free now but found that most care facilities were paying $100 for one hour. I thought that was ridiculous and told them I would do it for $50 and the other center I only took $25 ( a relative was living there). After the covid shut down was over I picked 3 locations and play 1 hour gigs at them twice a month for free. I don't want more gigs. 

Hey, I am retired, and it is called playing music. 
For me it keeps me busy and not a problem with worrying about getting paid or canceling if I need to or want to.

And yes, I know these locations are paying others to come in to perform but all 3 tell me the residence enjoy my shows the best. That's good enough for me. 

[SciNote]

I'm puzzled why you feel offended...although for the life of me I can't think why?

I'm just being honest about it. The advice was well intentioned.

I wish you luck.... I won't comment further.

Since you asked, I will answer.

Re-read your original post.  If you had said something like, "These activities directors are very busy, so that if you just show up unannounced, they may consider it an intrusion, or even rude", then that would've been fine.  Notice that in my example, I said, "THEY may consider...".  But you didn't say that.  You directly said that one of the ideas that I was considering is "rude", and then essentially said that even having that idea is "naive."  In other words, you basically called me "rude" and "naive."

I would hope you could see why that would offend anyone.

[mikf]

Divemaster lives in the UK and probably doesn't really understand the senior living set-up in the USA. I am Scottish, played many care homes in Scotland, and now live half the year in both countries. And the care home scene in the UK is very different.
Generally speaking, calling in without an appointment at these senior living facilities, certainly in the Houston Tx area is no big deal, other than that the person you need to see may not be immediately available. But probably someone will tell you when they will be around. And it might well be the best way.
If you are highly experienced and had a track record - like Gary (travelineasy) you can do a lot by phone or email because you would have references, and can provide links to videos etc. But that is not the case for SciNote. So I agree with what he proposes, just drop in informally.
They may be businesses but they are seldom that formal. If the right person is around I believe most will talk to you. I don't think you need to be dressed or ready to do a gig there and then, just keep it as a casual enquiry. You could describe what you do, and offer to do a short gig for free at a time to suit them to let them see how the residents react to your show.
On the other side of the coin though, I am not convinced that playing instrumentals on an arranger is hugely attractive to these places. Much better if you sing, and if you don't, then consider teaming up with an experienced singer. Many of the nicer senior homes have a nice Piano though, and they usually love hearing that played if you have that capability.
I have no intention of going back to doing gigs, but if I did, I would either team with a good singer, or even more likely, just pick out the ones with a nice piano and play that. No carrying equipment, and if you play the right stuff they love it. Not the rather stuffy kind of piano player who carries piles of sheet music, and plays note for note, but the kind that talk about the songs, make it interesting and respond to their requests on the fly.
The reason I know this is because a few years ago, I did think of doing it. I thought that I needed some public performing again to provide an incentive to sharpen up my playing, which had got pretty bad.
I just dropped in to a couple of nice facilities near my home, asked to see someone about playing for the residents. They asked what kind of stuff, so I said I'll  show you, sat at their piano and started playing. Within minutes I had a small audience, and I didn't have to do any selling, the residents were telling the staff member to get me back. I think I could have lined up several gigs a week without driving more than a few miles from my house. But my wife put the kybosh on it, ......you must be kidding she said, we've been there done that, and left that stuff behind.
So I made an executive decision and decided she was right.
Mike

[Michael Trigoboff]

So I made an executive decision and decided she was right.

Unclear who the executive was... 

[Divemaster]

Divemaster does indeed live in the UK. A place I love and am proud to call home. I have travelled to New York 9 times, but never set foot on American soil. You see, I worked onboard a cruise liner. Canberra

Divemaster was, not so many years ago, in his final working years, a qualified, now retired, Senior level carer, having specialised in the care of patients with Alzheimers, Parkinsons, Huntingdons, Dementia,  Brain Injury and Mental Health.

Divemaster has two family members who have, respectively, Cerebral Palsy  lives in Inverness, Scotland) and my daughter has Charcott Marie Tooth disease. Both incurable.

Divemaster has lost 2 of his own children. He knows deep everlasting pain.

Divemaster worked in Care Homes for 8 years, and knows how it works. He.has often entertained the residents on beaten up pianos, knackered organs and even tambourines and keyboards. Never at any charge.
The biggest reward you can wish for is a smile.  These 'service users' (a moronic ill described term I loathe) are human beings many of whom have forgotten how to even exist normally.

They cry, a lot. They find it as hard as climbing mountains to communicate, but that flicker of a smile can always be got with the right approach.

Divemaster is now going for his breakfast. Then he's going to see a guy about his own deteriorating medical health.... For which he has a pre booked appointment!

Reflect on why it's important to make appointments...... Sometimes people are actually working to make other less fortunate folks a little bit more comfortable in their fading years. Patients take priority as we say. Just arriving and expecting to be seen........ No.

Keith.

[mikf]

Divemaster, Like I said the senior living scene in parts of the USA are completely different to the UK. They vary greatly, but some can house many seniors who require little or no nursing care. Some are almost like mini villages where residents actually lease or buy apartments within a complex, some have a range of people requiring full care to pretty self sufficient. Some have public and reception areas with Grand Pianos that look more like a 4 or 5 star hotel than a care home. At least that is true around the Houston area.
They nearly all have administration staff who look after leases, accounting, insurance issues, etc and may have fairly minimum day to day involvement in direct patient care. State laws sometimes require them to have a person whose primary role is to provide patient leisure activities and entertainment. They may also have state regulations requiring them to provide a certain level of entertainment, and walking in can sometimes actually save them work of researching available  entertainers to meet their commitment.
Dropping in and asking to see them may not always work, that will be up to the individual, but it would not be considered inappropriate.
Mike

[Divemaster]

Interesting that Mike. Totally different.
Thanks. 😊

[mikf]

Unclear who the executive was... 

Michael, Let's be clear, I make the big decisions in my house. I let my wife make the small decisions like what house we should buy, how much we should spend on a car, where the children go to school. I make all the really big decisions like should we invade raise international trade tariffs, are we spending enough on medical research, will we maintain military presence in .......well you know what I mean
Mike

[Michael Trigoboff]

Michael, Let's be clear, I make the big decisions in my house. I let my wife make the small decisions like what house we should buy, how much we should spend on a car, where the children go to school. I make all the really big decisions like should we invade raise international trade tariffs, are we spending enough on medical research, will we maintain military presence in .......well you know what I mean

This is apparently a universal thought. I first encountered it as a cartoon in a magazine that no longer exists, sometime in the 1950s.

[travlin-easy]

Somewhere on this forum, I wrote an entire article on how to do exactly what you wish to do, and it will take me some time to find it. I made a very, very good living entertaining at the assisted living centers, nursing homes, retirement communities, and senior centers, a lot more money than anyone makes performing the nite club and restaurant circuit. I had more work than anyone could imagine, I charged top dollar, and during the last five years I performed, I averaged 450 jobs a  year.

True, each of these facilities has a budget, just like any department of any company and they have to comply with that budget. I too had a budget, of which I had to comply in order to stay in business. So, it's a matter of meeting of the minds on the pay scale. Keep in mind, though, when you play for free, you immediately become know around town as the guy who will play for free, which gives all the guys who do this for a living a  bad name.

One of the best techniques I used was to look up the facilities on the Internet using Google. This gave their name, address and telephone number, which I placed in a data base. Next, I called the facility, and told the receptionist "Hello, this is Gary Diamond from Travlin' Easy Productions and I just needed to verify some information for your facility. Is the address I have here correct?" At which point I would read their address from the Google information I obtained. Then I would ask, "How many residents are there, and do you you usually have regular activities? And finally, "And what the the name of your activities director?" To which they never hesitated to supply.

Now I had the name of the facility, their mailing address, telephone number, number of residents and the name of the person to contact. It only took a couple days to compile a massive number of locations to look into, more than 100 within 20 miles of Baltimore.

Then I put together a professional information package, one that included my photo on the cover, a basic song list of about 4,00 songs, a CD with about a dozen songs on it, and during the last few years, a USB drive with a dozen songs as well, a cover letter with exerts from letters and cards from other ADs, and finally, my business card in an insert with all the contact information.

These packages cost me about $2 each, back then, but probably double the price with today's inflation. That's chump change when you think of it. My basic rate was $125 an hour, so that $2 investment really paid off.

I would wait about a week after mailing the packages, then call the facilities and ask for the AD, and when he or she answer the telephone, I would tell them that I was calling to make sure they got the package I mailed to them.  Most received it OK, but some were considered as junk mail by the person sorting the mail and ended up in the trash (those things happen.) At this point, I would try to set up a meeting the the ADs, and when I arrived, I had a custom made wall calendar and engraved ball point pens I obtained from National Pen Company https://www.pens.com/us/ . They had some great products and were relatively inexpensive. This allowed me to sit down with them and set up performance dates several months in advance. After the first few years, I was able to book the entire year in advance, which I usually did each October. The calendars had all the holidays marked, and you would be amazed at how fast some of those ADs jumped on those dates. This often resulted in doubles and triples on those dates, which made for a long, but very profitable day.

Now I am retired, a lot of my body parts have gone bad and I don't play the keyboard very often, even here at home. I am going blind, lost the use of my lower body, lungs are shot to ****, so I can no longer sing, and I don't know why I am still above ground at this point. I've lived an exciting life, for the most part, and their is not much I can think of that I would change. Most of my time now is spent taking care of my invalid wife of 61 years and doing some hobby woodwork, making tables and other neat stuff with exotic wood.

Good luck, and I sincerely hope this helps you accomplish your goals,

Gary

[mikf]

Gary, your marketing was very slick, but let's not underestimate your main asset. In his prime Gary could really sing, chose highly listenable material, and I'll bet one listen listen to those CDs told them this was a winner. Unfortunately most of us don't have that
Mike

[SciNote]

I appreciate all of the input.  And to be clear, I did not say that my primary idea was to drop in to a senior center unannounced and demand to speak to the CEO.  I was just asking if stopping by to at least show a genuine interest and get information was at least one possible option.

I'll definitely have to put together some demo material, as that sounds like a good idea.  I guess my only concern here, especially if done through a business-oriented Facebook page, as someone suggested, would be the distribution of copyrighted material.  Any concerns or precautions here?  I'm also thinking that I would provide, say, 30 second samples of the songs, not the entire songs -- figuring why give away what I'm trying to sell, at least to an extent.  But of course, if they just wanted to listen to recorded music, then they could easily do that with CD's or even YouTube.

And Mike, when you said, "Some are almost like mini villages where residents actually lease or buy apartments within a complex...", that was pretty funny because the place I recently did a gig literally has the word "Village" in its name, and some of the residents do, indeed, lease or buy apartments there.  And they do have pianos there -- something I will consider!  It was a bit of an effort to carry two keyboards, a two-part stand, an amp, two satellite speakers, and a box of cables from my car to the playing area.  At least they did have wheeled carts right at the front I was able to use.  Since what I play are already two-handed arrangements, tweaking them for piano would not be too difficult in most cases.  Just have to adjust for the fact that notes fade out when you hold down the keys of a piano, and that there would be no background drums or jumping to different types of sounds.  I did play piano at a local hospital as a volunteer for about five years.

[mikf]

SciNote, there's a lot to learn from Gary, but I wouldn't  worry at all about the walk in thing. I did it and they seemed delighted to talk to me. Of course you would not want to drive 50 miles just to find there is no one there, but if they are local, why not.
Mike

[DrakeM]

Here where I live there is an organization called "Creative Aging of Cincinnati". They provide the service that connects any care center to the entertains. The care center pays one yearly fee and then can select and book any of the active registered acts on their site.  The more acts the care center uses each month, so does the fee charged. You don't really need to knock on any doors. 

You may have such an organization in your area as well. So when you are speaking with the admins you visit, just ask them how they are currently booking their entertainers.

The senior center admin I play at twice a month suggested I sign up years ago. I just play for the fun of it and want no hassles. I ran a band for years already and that was fun when I was YOUNG.

Regards
Drake

[SciNote]

All very good ideas.

Just a question concerning providing samples of what I play.  This would technically be distributing copyrighted material.  Any concern about that?  Any steps I should take?

I'm guessing providing a set of about 20-30 samples of songs, maybe 30 second samples, would be good?

I know that providing a USB flash drive with the music was mentioned, as well as a business Facebook page.  How would the Facebook page work?  Would there be a code or something that I would provide to prospective employers to access the recordings, so that not just anyone on Facebook could access them?

[Toril S]

I live in Trondheim, Norway. Senior homes were always happy to receice people who wanted to entertain. I am just an amateur, and used to have several such appointments a year. I really liked it, and I greatly miss it. For, there has been a wind of change here. Before they welcomed amateurs with open arms, pros were far abowe their budget. Now, they are getting a lot of money from the town, and want only pros. So here I sit, with a lot of music gadgets, and no gigs...

[DrakeM]

Passing a USB with your music on it to someone of your cover songs is not illegal. Selling it would be.

You create a Facebook (FB) page for yourself, like normally anyone would. Then you can create a BAND page. The BAND FB page uses a different login name.
I put the same things on my FB page as I have on my BAND page. I never wanted the regular FB page but you have to create it to get the BAND page.   

I then set up a YouTube account and post the songs there and then link the videos to my FB Band page. I believe you can also upload you videos directly to your FB band page.

Drake

[DrakeM]

Here is an easier way to post your songs and look more professional.

This is my SOUNDCLOUD account link.
https://soundcloud.com/drake-marker-405934249

It is a free account and I was able to post 50 songs using all the free storage that you get.

Then you just post the site link on your business card.

You may also take it one step further and create a TINY URL link to your SOUNDCLOUD page here:
https://tinyurl.com/app

You do not have to create an account to make your personal link. Just paste in your page URL link and then in the ENTER ALIAS block, you enter the name you want to use. If it has not already been used by someone, it's yours (forever). If it is already used you get a Notice in RED that it has been taken already (try again).

Drake

[DrakeM]

If you need business cards here is a good place to start:

https://www.vistaprint.com/business-cards/standard/templates/custom/inexpensive

100 cards for $17.99 and you can use one of their designs ... or make your own from scratch and upload it for them to use.

I actually used another business card site that allowed you make business cards with more options to use and I designed my card there. I took a screen shot of it and then uploaded it at Vistaprint. Get creative. 

Drake

[DrakeM]

I live in Trondheim, Norway. Senior homes were always happy to receice people who wanted to entertain. I am just an amateur, and used to have several such appointments a year. I really liked it, and I greatly miss it. For, there has been a wind of change here. Before they welcomed amateurs with open arms, pros were far abowe their budget. Now, they are getting a lot of money from the town, and want only pros. So here I sit, with a lot of music gadgets, and no gigs...

Free government handouts ..." bless their Heart" as they say around these parts.

[Toril S]

Yes, we are lucky in Norway. The seniors get pro entertainment, but I miss playing for them...They always wanted me to come back, so I am sitting on my Bose L1 compact waiting for their money to run out so as they will need a less expensive musician again...😀

[mikf]

The health care system in many parts of Europe and the USA are so different that people without direct experience of each have difficulty understanding them. Splitting my time between the USA and the UK means I hav3 almost a unique detailed understanding of both systems. I will not get into the pros and cons, or arguments about which system is best, except to say that none are perfect.
Long term care and senior sheltered accommodation are often part of the health care system in these countries. People in the UK for example pay heavy taxes for them all their lives and expect them to be available when they need them. They certainly are not free handouts, any more than roads or schools are not free handouts in the USA.
Entertainment in care facilities in Europe would typically be considered as charitable endeavors. And all the pros will have 'donated' time to them over the years, - as indeed I have many times. Some local governments might try to help increase the quality of these facilities by making block grants for things not strictly covered, like entertainment. but that is not too common. So most comes from people like Toril giving their time.
Mike