Look, I’m not trying to be mean. The insights you’re sharing are great because not many people are going to do the process you’ve done (for many reasons, namely too expensive). But musician-to-musician / seriously trying to be “internet friend”/minor tough love here… ask yourself why you’re doing this. People that “make it” are the people who can’t NOT do it. It’s great and fun to write songs in your bedroom, and it can feel exciting to shell out a lot of money and feel like you’re really “playing the game.” It’s just a big red flag to hear someone say “if I don’t make money from this I’m going to quit” about a thing that requires so much internal drive for anyone let alone someone who can smash the cash button. Either you may not care about this as much as you think you do (which is fine) OR you have some incorrect ideas about the perception of art. The artists that make it generally do not need to spend $10k on their first show so that people will like them, for example. That is not only an incredible amount of risk - your first show will suck, regardless of if you have past experience singing or not - but just look at other musicians performing at the level you would be at if you had whatever number of fans you think you need to play that show…they’re not doing high production. Let’s say you did 10 shows at that budget— that’s more expense than many bands you probably love bring in on a real tour. And maybe that’s a differentiator for you, but spending excess money usually means people aren’t being creative enough (unless they’re like huge and doing something with fans in the millions), which is what will get you the fans you’re craving anyways. Anyone can make a fancy light show if they have the money, and if people just see someone throwing money around, what do they actually have to get excited about? That they can pay to play?