Acrobat - No Auditions Necessary

[MaryMarsh]

For a change of pace I took a young adult sim from one of my extant families and had her become an acrobat. She was already maxed out in Athletics and was at level-3 in Charisma, so I had her do nothing but play for tips until she was level-10 as an acrobat. Once she was at that level I moved her to the Big Performance Park, Flying V Coffeehouse, and then the Kareoke club to play for tips. In each of these instances she never conversed with a proprietor, but was nonetheless offered gigs.

Having already played a singer, I'm fair thee well convinced the most efficient means of reaching stardom for any performer is to engage them in some other occupation before commencing their performing career -- I think this is especially effective for acrobats, where they're able to earn a decent living while leveling up their athletic skills. I've also found that Charisma is complimentary as a secondary skill while performing for tips and doing venue-based performances.

My longterm plan for this sim was to move her into acting after she'd maxed out in acrobatics, charisma, and celebrity (the latter being moved along rapidly through performing and talking to members of the audience). As a result, she achieved super stardom rather easily. I'm going to move her to performing as a singer next and expect her to have a very easy time of it. Her traits have been Lucky, Star Quality, Natural Born Performer, Charismatic, and Good Sense of Humor throughout, and I don't plan on altering these as she transitions.

[ratchie]

My acrobat Sim could not get a gig to save her life until she was at level eight in her career even after auditioning for gigs at the coffee house and karoke bar. Once she got to level ten in her career she gets phone calls all the time offering her gigs.


Rachel

[Orange Iguana]

I once tried to buy Entrepreneurial Mindset and powerlevel Athletics to 10 to see if it was like Architectural Designer and let you skip to level 10 Acrobat. It got me to level 8-9 unfortunately, but seeing as how performing are hidden skills, it's really not recommended to skip to level 10 if you plan on taking the career seriously.

[MaryMarsh]

I once tried to buy Entrepreneurial Mindset and powerlevel Athletics to 10 to see if it was like Architectural Designer and let you skip to level 10 Acrobat. It got me to level 8-9 unfortunately, but seeing as how performing are hidden skills, it's really not recommended to skip to level 10 if you plan on taking the career seriously.

Agreed wholeheartedly. I rather enjoy having my sims perform for tips to level up to 10 (without trying to do any gigs). Performing for tips is way easier than doing shows and, as I allluded to, there are ancilliary benefits to other skills/challenges, such as charisma and celebrity. Sims that gather for tips performances are ideal targets for telling jokes (for the 100-joke charisma challenge) and for making friends or learning traits for the charisma/trait challenge. Also, it's easy enough to pick the celebrities out of the crowd and target them for interaction to raise celebrity level. Since I want my performers to be exceedingly well grounded before they begin doing gigs (a matter of personal preference I guess), I wouldn't even thing of trying to skip performer levels.

Edit: I finally got around to transitioning my sim from guitar player to singer -- after picking up that profession I leveled her up entirely by doing sing-o-grams and performing for tips (did sing-o-grams only through level-5, then focused solely on performing for tips). Her very first gig was at the Hoi Poloi large venue and she put on a legendary show. I completely by-passed the smaller venues. For a 5-star celeb, superstar actor, legendary rocker, and level-10 acrobat it simply seemed most fitting to skip the small venues  Coincidentally, I had her play guitar for tips following the show and she took in an additional 2.5K within an hour or so.