There isn't much point in doing one, as they're all in rabbit holes (at least for me!) so instead I just go to the current hotspot and start a jam session and invite the rest of the band to "join jam session", people will give you tips as you play, however the songs your band will play while jamming is limited to the songs the Sim with the lowest music skill knows, giving less variety and thus, smaller tips. hope this helps!
do all my band members have to be registered self-employed?
None of them do. I got gigs and I didn't even realize you had the option of registering as a self-employed band. In one of my games, I only controlled one sim in the band and they had a regular job. In another game, I had all 4 band members in one house, and all had part-time jobs. I got gigs in both games.
I think you may want to play a longer game if you're playing a band. It seems like part of the problem may be that you can only get 1 gig a week, or at least that's what I saw in my games. If you're playing at the regular game length, you might get old and die before you get more than 1 or 2 gigs.
Please believe me when I tell you that the Band Gig ops are broken.
Without Mods, or playing with four Sims in your household with only the skill for the instrument you play, it will still take months of playing them, moving them from new game to new game to ever get it done.
The only reason that sometimes works is because by having all 4 band members under your control it multiplies your chances X4.
The op is a SKILL op, so is in the centre slot, and is not affected by celeb ops, and it does not come as a job op, even if you have registered as a Band at the city hall.
I have been playing bands since LN came out, and have tried it all.
Our best chance at an official fix is to ask for a patch to fix it.
I have just made a thread in Ideas and Feed back asking for the fix, and requesting that those who would also like the Band Gigs to work, to please sign, asking for the fix.
I've been playing with the same 2 sims since the very start (over a year ago) and have had the proper expansions since 8 months (maybe more). Both of my sims started out with meaningless random jobs (ballot counter and the other working at a restaurant). Both started by learning guitar since it was what was available before that.
Anyway, things progressed, I gave one of them the musician career and the other the vocalist career and then both having that as their goal career. They have been in a band since the day the option was available to me.
Now they are both "masters" in their fields and have achieved their lifetime rewards. They have both played for tips multiple times (one of them - the one in music career - has never been able to get a single tip in his entire time being alive. He plays and plays and in front of tons of people and no tips, ever. The other got loads of tips the first day he tried.
They have NEVER gotten a gig offer and I didn't get any of the "offers" for nearly 3 physical real-life weeks of game play. Finally it gave me something after I installed the vacations pack about the one who writes in his spare time to take his book to Egypt.
They had two other bandmates at one point, but both died in random attacks since then, so it's just the pair of them.
Top level celebs, great with people, tons of friends... and I can get them all the separate gigs I'd ever want to. (It should be noted I can see/hear/participate in the gigs by the vocalist but not the ones by the musician. He goes in a building and plays and I have to remain outside the building the whole time.)
And yes, I've tried resetting the musician sim a few times. Moved him in and out of the house and everything random the forums across the internet suggest I try.
So, in conclusion... "bands" never work for me. I can do things for them individually and sort of pretend they're a band in my magical headspace. But in truth... they have never played a gig and refuse to even jam with one another. (And I've also tried having them disband and then reform again to no avail.) It's sad really.
I've looked through all the places and tried ever available "perform concert" and it only includes the single musician dude. The vocalist can "audition" for gigs, but again it's just him, not the whole band.
Im not sure if it will work for everyone but My Band gets more Gigs than I can keep up with, I started with one sim living alone who had managed to invest in property and build up a ton of money to live on, then mastered the piano, next made friends with a drummer and had him move in. They formed the Band then moved in two more members by making friends, make as many celebrity friends as possible and become friends with all the bartenders, these are the guys who give you gigs. My Sims do not work, they make money through property investment in bridgeport and by gardening and collecting. They have over a million dollars. They are all level five stars and this happened pretty fast, make sure all your members are virtuoso's and music minded, also i dont let them do much other than band related things. read the paper and find the hot spot clubs and go jam for free, play at the butterfly park, all the parks and in front of the cinema, you dont have to have phones on, they will pop up when they come in. Get each member as high as possible in one instrument or else its choas when diffrent members get the gigs and you have one who cant play something like piano and one who plays three diffrent things, then they dont know what to do, lol. So good luck, this worked well for me. I do not have the option in bridgeport to register a band so im not sure about that, never did that, and also it takes a lot of gigs before people show up, i still only get maybe two or three people watching.
one more note,I play with aging off through options, but it still did not take me long to start getting three and four gigs a week. Right now I have two in one night I am going to go work on,lol.
Make sure your band is in the Late Night town. Maybe Starlight Shores, I don't have that expansion pack yet. Anyways, you don't need exactly four members. You can even have two! It should be a cheat to where you could spawn gigs. If you are in Late night, go to the bar by the park (I forgot the name) and enable the cheats. ctrl + click the bar and it should be an option to spawn a gig. also, make sure you are free for the opportunity.
Comments
I think you may want to play a longer game if you're playing a band. It seems like part of the problem may be that you can only get 1 gig a week, or at least that's what I saw in my games. If you're playing at the regular game length, you might get old and die before you get more than 1 or 2 gigs.
make sure it's a community lot named either Dive bar, Fusion Lounge, Vampire Lounge, Exclusive lounge, sports bar, or local watering hole.
Then Make sure on the lot you have a professional bar.
Then make sure you have a stage set with every instrument.
These are what the lessons say you have to have intact to get gigs.
Hope I helped. :-o
Without Mods, or playing with four Sims in your household with only the skill for the instrument you play, it will still take months of playing them, moving them from new game to new game to ever get it done.
The only reason that sometimes works is because by having all 4 band members under your control it multiplies your chances X4.
The op is a SKILL op, so is in the centre slot, and is not affected by celeb ops, and it does not come as a job op, even if you have registered as a Band at the city hall.
I have been playing bands since LN came out, and have tried it all.
Our best chance at an official fix is to ask for a patch to fix it.
I have just made a thread in Ideas and Feed back asking for the fix, and requesting that those who would also like the Band Gigs to work, to please sign, asking for the fix.
I've been playing with the same 2 sims since the very start (over a year ago) and have had the proper expansions since 8 months (maybe more). Both of my sims started out with meaningless random jobs (ballot counter and the other working at a restaurant). Both started by learning guitar since it was what was available before that.
Anyway, things progressed, I gave one of them the musician career and the other the vocalist career and then both having that as their goal career. They have been in a band since the day the option was available to me.
Now they are both "masters" in their fields and have achieved their lifetime rewards. They have both played for tips multiple times (one of them - the one in music career - has never been able to get a single tip in his entire time being alive. He plays and plays and in front of tons of people and no tips, ever. The other got loads of tips the first day he tried.
They have NEVER gotten a gig offer and I didn't get any of the "offers" for nearly 3 physical real-life weeks of game play. Finally it gave me something after I installed the vacations pack about the one who writes in his spare time to take his book to Egypt.
They had two other bandmates at one point, but both died in random attacks since then, so it's just the pair of them.
Top level celebs, great with people, tons of friends... and I can get them all the separate gigs I'd ever want to. (It should be noted I can see/hear/participate in the gigs by the vocalist but not the ones by the musician. He goes in a building and plays and I have to remain outside the building the whole time.)
And yes, I've tried resetting the musician sim a few times. Moved him in and out of the house and everything random the forums across the internet suggest I try.
So, in conclusion... "bands" never work for me. I can do things for them individually and sort of pretend they're a band in my magical headspace. But in truth... they have never played a gig and refuse to even jam with one another. (And I've also tried having them disband and then reform again to no avail.) It's sad really.
I've looked through all the places and tried ever available "perform concert" and it only includes the single musician dude. The vocalist can "audition" for gigs, but again it's just him, not the whole band.