Gigging
Gigging is a great way for bands to earn income quickly, by playing concerts.
Concerts are held at Venues, ranging in size from small, local bars hosting just a handful of random people out for a drink, all the way up to mega-stadiums packed to the rafters with screaming fans. Concert Venues each have a cost associated with them, as well as a payout (determined by a variety of factors), and can either be generic Venues "owned" by the game, or specialized & fully upgraded NFT Venues owned & professionally managed by other players.
Rent
Concerts can only be performed at the band level (see Busking for live performances at the individual Blockstar level), and each band must pay rent, upfront, for the use of a Concert Venue. The bigger the venue, and the more upgraded it is, the higher the rent will be.
There is no guarantee that by booking a larger venue a band will be able to sell it out - or even break even on the rental cost. A totally unknown band, with low Musical Skills, no Fame and an inability to Promote the event is going to bomb, and might not even be able to make money at the lowest Level 1 local bar!
Players should be wary of overreaching on concert venues, especially early on in a band's career. Venue rent is nonrefundable, and it is very easy to lose money Gigging.
Game-Owned Venues
Especially early on in the game, players will need to / want to lean on generic game-owned Venues to go Gigging. Each game-owned Venue is unspecialized to any particular genre of music, and will inherently earn less income than a player-owned Venue (especially if specialized). However, the benefit of performing at a game-owned Venue is that the rent is likely to be cheaper than the cost of the % cut given up at a player-owned Venue, and allows for the player to experiment in order to figure out how good their bands really are, and how strong their Chemistry really is. Blockstars also earn Fame from going Gigging.
Player-Owned Venues
If a Venue is player-owned then that player gets to set their own rent, decide on a specialization (e.g. a player-owned Venue could specialize in Classical music) and offer extra incentives to bands. For example, a player-owned Venue could offer an incentive to bands for concert tours lasting multiple days, in the form of bonuses for sold-out concerts - or offering to eat the losses for unsold seats.
Rent paid in $ROL at player-owned Venues is paid out in full to the Venue owner, who pays tax on the income as am anti-inflationary measure.
Cover Songs vs Original Songs
Bands can perform either Cover Songs, or Original Songs, when performing a concert. Cover Songs are available to bands before they have written, recorded or released a single song themselves. This allows bands to get out there, earn some Fame, make some quick earnings and figure out the Chemistry of the band members.
Original Songs are songs Written (but not necessarily Recorded or Released) by the band. The quality of the songs will be determined by the factors outlined in Making Music - but it is possible to boost the quality of an unreleased song through Gigging, by creating a demand for the studio version of that song.
Each of the game systems interacts with every other game system, and it will be up to players to figure out how they all interrelate, optimally, to their individual gameplay style.
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