This is actually a bit nuanced. Many, maybe most solo recitals I’ve played have been without a performance fee and without an admission charge. (Again, I have a day job teaching, and performing at my school and elsewhere is considered part of my creative work and service.) Yet even so, I’ve often had to rely on personal connections, or nag, to persuade people to host concerts, at least at spiffy venues.
Why is that? A couple of things are in play. One is that performing, even for free, lies somewhere on a spectrum between a selfless sharing of God-given talent and an exercise in self-aggrandizement. A presenter receiving a cold call isn’t sure where on that spectrum an unfamiliar performer lies. And of course, even if a performer is not being paid,
Then—maybe more for audiences than presenters—there’s the Chivas Regal effect: the perception that you get what you pay for, and that when it comes to luxury items, where non-experts may feel insecure about making quality judgments, the inexpensive option can’t be very good.
So people’s enthusiasm for hosting Play Every Town concerts has to do with the intersection of the freeness and the story I’m telling. It’s not just that it’s free, but that I am doing a Generous and Good ambitious thing and not asking to be paid. I must be pretty good if I’m playing every town in the state...even though that’s a circular argument. The story serves as a substitute for name recognition. “Hmm, why is this person doing this for free?” is replaced by appreciation that I’m doing a grand thing and not charging for it.
On a similar note, this is framed as a Project that I am serving, not a personal concert tour. That makes it feel less like we’re asking presenters to do something for me personally. It’s “can you support this project?” not “please give me your space and attention”. Hopefully this will even convince fancier venues to waive normally hefty rental fees.
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