How Do I Land Jobs in the Freelance Event Gig Economy?
“On Sunday, February 13, 2022, all eyes were on the Los Angeles region as Super Bowl LVI took the stage at SoFi Stadium and the Los Angeles Rams raised the Lombardi Trophy,” as perfectly put by the Los Angeles Super Bowl Host Committee.
And I was there.
“How Do You Land Gigs Like This?”
The game in the place with private 12-person suites going for right under one-million dollars, seventy-thousand fans in the building and over 112 million people tuning in from elsewhere. And I was there. Thinking about the numbers and facts, taking a step back to look at the big picture, helps me realize it’s a tid bit of a big deal.
When I was there, on the grounds, in the space, I was simply serving at another event gig no different from the others. You arrive wearing black slacks, black socks, black non-slip shoes, and a black button-down shirt. You chat with others you recognize from previous event gig work. You say, “oh my goodness, what are you doing here?!,” as if you aren’t both here for the same reason. They say how so-and-so from whoopty-whoop connected them to this one, to which you respond you know that one, then y’all say in unison, “small world!”.
I haven’t seen you since… was it the MTV Awards?
Yeahhh! Wait, no.. not MTV.. I saw you there that year too, but it was something we worked together after that..
Ohhhhh, Grammys night last year!
Yeah, yeah, yeah! At a rooftop in Hollywood.. a private party for someone.. a female rap artist, was it?
Girl yes, remember none of y’all knew who Meg Thee Stallion was until I hit the TikTok audio with Beyonce.. “Classy. Boujie. Ratchet.”
That’s it!!
Y’all have small talk about what each other have been up to since, and surprise surprise, we’ve both been up to what we were up to the last time we had this dialogue… trying to survive in L.A., and maybe even do a bit of what we moved out here for, what has us working these event gigs anyway.
Related: “You Need a Job to Fund Your Job in L.A.”
If the entity that staffed us is smart, they’ll feed us a family meal before it’s time to start looking busy. If they’re not, I’ll start scoping the scene for where I’ll slip around corners, into areas with low-visibility, to eat the food we’re supposed to be serving the guests. I’m going to eat before these guests do, one way or the other. (If you decide to start working event gigs aroundLA, don’t follow my lead on that one.)
One rule repeated across event staffing agencies and catering companies is “no phones” and especially “no pictures”. I seldom follow this rule… Hey, I have a Los Angeles lifestyle blog to think about! | photo: @aroundLAwithTK
You gather for a staff meeting where you’re briefed on the run-of-show by an event production lead, then given a rundown of the menu by the chef or head of F&B. You get your assignment, whatever role you’ll be in for today, and you get in place to do it by the beginning of guest arrival.
It’s work. That’s all I’ve ever really thought of it as, until you all, my riders, brought it to my attention that it’s content too!
And, I guess it is kinda cool.
Though I ran down the repetitive rigmarole of bumping into co-workers from one gig on another gig in a sarcastic tone, I actually enjoy it! If I could make a livable income off running my mouth, I would. (I suppose I have a personal lifestyle blog where I talk to myself often for a reason). I like to talk, always have, it comes naturally to me, always has. I don’t even have to think about it. I like to engage, and it doesn’t drain me, it fuels me. There are people that have to “turn it on,” I don’t; I have to turn it off. I’ll be straight-faced, dragging a**, not in any rush to get out of the house to go to work.. Then, I’ll get to a gig, start interacting with people and be back to my lil’ giddy self, full of energy and smiles.
For that, I’m thankful.
Though in this very moment, I’d be THRILLED to never have to put on a black button-down and black non-slip shoes again, I’m grateful that I’ve been able to provide for myself in a flexible, ⁺stress-free, fun way. I’m thankful for where event gigs have gotten me. So, how did I get here?
How do you land cool event gigs aroundLA?
When people have asked me how I get the gigs I work — and boy, a whole lot of people surely do ask — I’ve said, “girrrrrl, it’ll take a whole blog post to explain.” And when I’ve told them I’ll write a blog post about how to get event gigs aroundLA, I meant it, I did, I promise I did. I’d write one and copy/paste the link to every person that asked. That was the plan at least. Then time passes and I never get around to it.
Writing my most recent blog post, about how a girl I met on one gig put me on another gig, brought this side hustle series back to the top of my to-do list.
I don’t want to be an unintentional gatekeeper, so on with this side hustle series!
The reason I can’t give a direct answer when someone poses the question, “how do you get fun, flexible gigs in Los Angeles?!”, is because there isn’t a direct answer. It depends on which gig we’re talking about.
The short answer to landing good event gigs in Los Angeles is: networking.
But I hate short answers. What about you? Am I thee only one that that bothers? For example, when you compliment a girl on how flawless her makeup is, you’ll want to know how she gets such a smooth application and how it stays in place throughout twerking to Back That Azz Up, and all she’ll say is “drink water.” [inserts side-eye emoji] B****, what else?! I wouldn’t have thee optimal liver function to be in here throwing back all these shots of Lobos 1707 if I didn’t drink water. I like specific answers. Girl tell me if you use primer gel as a base and a misting spray as a finish, shucks.
Networking? Let’s get into more detail about how networking may look to land good event gigs in Los Angeles.
As previously mentioned, how I get connected to gigs varies by the gig. We’ll use Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles as an example to illustrate how networking works in this event gig realm.
Before COVID-19 shut the world down in 2020, causing me and many others to be furloughed, I worked full-time at a high end department store in Beverly Hills. I started doing both luxury retail and private events upon moving to Los Angeles. (No exaggeration.. I stepped foot on L.A. soil right before Halloween, my start date at Neiman Marcus was November 8th, and my first private event gig was Thanksgiving Day.)
People have often asked how I end up working high-end, highly sought-after events aroundLA, and the short answer is simple: networking. | rider: Bella
While at Neiman’s, working private events on the side, it caught my attention when I saw modelesque white men walking in wearing in black button-down shirts with black non-slip shoes. Hmmm… looks familiar. They were serving hors d’oeuvres and champagne during an in-store event. I made conversation when they’d come into my area and remembered their faces. Some of the same faces would return in-store event after in-store event, and I eventually got acquainted enough with one of them to specifically ask, “who books y’all onto these anyway?” By this time, we were cool… okay, maybe not “cool”, definitely not going grab drinks after we get off, but he’d seen me at work on more than one occasion and interacted with me enough to know I was halfway decent and somewhat driven. We exchanged numbers and he texted me his contact list of people that send him out on jobs. He told me to reach out to them directly and to let them know he’d referred me.
Nobody wants to work with a person nobody knows.
Hearing the idea of working extravagant events, that pay a high hourly, and allow you to accept or decline shifts as you please, anybody would want to do it! But who’s really going to do it?!
Nobody wants their time wasted.
(Maybe that’s another reason why I grew less enthusiastic about referring people to jobs and having long, drawn-out conversations about the prospect of them getting/doing these jobs. I love my old co-worker from luxury retail, Shirley, but she had that for a bad habit. “Tkkkkkk, I need extra money too.” “Ouuu, I wanna do that!” “Girl, let me know when the next one is for real..” “No, I’m serious this time, T.K.” Each time, I’d place the keys in her hand, EACH TIME. And by “keys”, I mean direct points of contact, event dates and times, etc., all she had to do was contact the person and say, “yeah, put me down to work such and such”. I even went as far as submitting her to rosters. Do you think that little Korean princess ever went through with one event gig? That’s still my girl, but I darn sure stopped entertaining her fake interest in working event gigs with me. I use her as an example because I love her.. and she doesn’t read my blog posts anyway.)
People want to work with people they can trust to actually show up.
A person, that has a good work history, giving you a stamp of approval gives the staffing entity reason to believe you’re worth their time. If there are randoms on the Internet that nobody knows from a sack of potatoes, and then there are people in their inbox referred by a person that has worked for them before, who do you think the staffing person is picking?
It’s safer for the party planner to go with a trusted employee, or a trusted employee’s referral. And it’s safer for the trusted employee to actually trust the person they’re referring. Because let’s say the white model boy I met at NM, John, is a dependable team member for a particular chef, then he vouches for me and I never show up to that chef’s event… that chef doesn’t know me from the man on the moon, so it’s no sweat off my back. But he knows John, and now thanks to me, John looks dumb. And now thanks to me, the next person that John tries to refer is considered less because the chef is thinking, “you remember what happened with the last person John referred..”
It’s important to make a good impression when networking.
Had John ever truly worked with me? No. But he had seen me working. He’d interacted with me enough to get a feel of my willingness to work and dependability.
If there’s the slightest inclination that you’re going to not show up, or you’re going to show up and behave in a way that would’ve been better for you to not show up, no one is going to want to refer you to event gigs. Mess up your own money on your own time, don’t mess up mine.
Fast forward to Super Bowl in Los Angeles
How did we get from meeting a white model boy named John in NM one year to working the Super Bowl in Los Angeles years later?
Well, I got on the roster for a Los Angeles event staffing agency that John referred me to and soon began to be sent out by them to multiple events per month. Years later, I was out on an event and met a staffing coordinator whose name rang a bell, from a catering company that sounded familiar as well. I kept thinking about it, and before the event was over I said, “I knew it! I emailed you a few years ago and you never replied!” I showed him the email from deep in my archive and he was wow’d. He explained that he would’ve definitely hired me, had he gotten my email after the company loosened up and started accepting more than primarily white male models. He told me the event where we were was actually that company’s last event. It was dissolving and he was going to go on to do his own thing. We exchanged contacts and some months later, he texted me with an opportunity.
And that’s how I landed that gig. Haha. Now you see what I mean?
For the second part of the question, “what exactly do you do?”, we’ll have to answer that on the next blog post of this side hustle series.
As my fingers click these keys, it’s almost 2am and I’d started my day before eight o’clock in the morning, calling myself trying to record video content to eventually give YouTube a stab again. Whew child, a personal lifestyle blog getting written pieces almost-daily AND a YouTube channel getting videos weekly?! Who do I think I am?! What in the overly-ambitious is going on?! Whatever... I ain’t making no promises, just taking it day-by-day..
Follow @aroundLAwithTK on Instagram for notifications about new blog posts, and possible opportunities!! If you have any specific questions about what life is like in the City of Angels, tweet me!
⁺As an event gig worker, the work itself is stress-free. Event gig workers, whether a buffet attendant monitoring the buffet line, or a brand ambassador walking around in a branded uniform to add to the aesthetic, are usually just bodies. It’s typically mindless work; that is what’s stress-free about working event gigs. However, as event gigs are not guaranteed nor consistent, it can be VERY stressful to not know where your next dollar is coming from.
