Why do I keep turning down gig offers?

For starters, performing isn't my profession. I'm a composer, writer/editor and director. Plus I'm not really attracted to the lifestyle of the travelling musician. I mean, I'm fully aware that I'm good enough and could easily tour Australia, the UK and US (alongside other countries). However, the bottom's fallen out of that. I think a lot of my young friends in rock are essentially flushing money down the toilet by trying that old path of getting well-known in NZ, then attempting to crack into Australia or the States. It's a digital world now, and my success in cultivating a fan base in the pacific rim suggests that it's possible to do so (though it's not monetisable). - It's the same in musicals or classical music: there's still some money involved in those, but I'm fairly sure that my travel costs would eat up most of the money. I can't imagine anything worse than going on a tour and ending up broker than I was before, yet I bet that's quite common.

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The local offers are basically based on a false perception that my popularity would somehow translate to bums in the seats.

Sadly, that's not true. I've never had a decent turnout for a gig, and it strikes me as particularly ridiculous that all these classical people essentially want me to be the token Māori composer that allows them to demonstrate their racial tolerance.

It's easy to tolerate a white guy with some vague whakapapa. That's obviously tokenism.

Says it all that they desperately want me to add taonga pūoro to Pan's Preludes in order to maximise their ethnic novelty points. Plus a lot of it feels like people offering me pity gigs or charity gigs because they're finally aware that I'm not some sick paedophile and feel guilty that they believed that. How about some actual fucking compensation? - I'm not saying that Don and Harry are offering me a pity gig. I think they're genuine, and genuinely interested in my concept album.

For me, that's the best outcome: people like those songs, and I think that it's reasonable to bet on them becoming a hit with a full band and some promotion. I'm fairly sure that if I sang my hits as part of a tour or a festival, then nobody would seriously consider funding my Shipwrecked on Islands musical. While one only has to look at ALW's career to see that a concept album can become a huge hit that can pressure people into making a film or play based on that album.