I'd be interested to hear from NYC zornlisters on this. Do you take full advantage of your location and make it Gigsville every night? I think if I tried to, I'd be bankrupt within three months.
One of the things I had to learn quickly as I arrived in NYC for grad school is that I had to resign myself to the fact that I'd miss some great event every day. I'd say I see 2 or 3 events per month (and most of those are contemporary classical recitals.) One of the frustrations is trying to round up friends to do any particular event. You email them and say "so-and-so is playing at blabbity blahs this Saturday, you interested?" and they think "Crap, I already have my heart set on doing totally-different-thing on Thursday." The scene certainly couldn't handle it if all downtown music fans showed up for every event. We can't all fit into Tonic at once! (Probably just the NYC-area Z-listers would fill it up nicely.) That is my loser homebody grad-student perspective, anyway. -Dave Smey Brooklyn, NY Atonal ear-training freeware at http://dsmey.home.mindspring.com