Creative and performing arts schools are increasingly facing the challenge of developing curricula to address an employability agenda in higher education. Arts entrepreneurship education is thought to address this need because it supports the unique nature of the work circumstances of creative and performing arts graduates. As an emerging area of research, arts entrepreneurship education faces the challenge of not only being relevant and important to creative and performing arts education but of being robust enough to contribute to a “paradigm shift” (Beckman, 2011, p. 29). With this in mind, this article attempts to clarify a recurring theme of arts entrepreneurship education, this being the development of an “entrepreneurial mindset.”

We argue that if an entrepreneurial mindset is to be considered an essential aspect of arts entrepreneurship education, educators need to have a good understanding of what it means and how it might be taught. We examine data from four interviews with arts educators who have responsibility for teaching arts entrepreneurship in creative and performing arts schools. Their experiences enable us to clarify the meaning of an “entrepreneurial mindset” in a creative and performing arts context in higher education and to make suggestions about teaching and learning.

The two authors are members of punk rock trio the Eruptörs. Both also teach in higher education – one in popular music, and the other in management and marketing. Writing from experience in the Eruptörs, we present a case study of the band, and draw on theoretical perspectives from our respective, intersecting fields to explore the Eruptörs’ entrepreneurship, collaborations, networks, and creativities in the “DIY” underground punk rock scene. The paper provides cross-disciplinary insights into internal and external cultures of the Eruptörs. Proposing this as a teaching case, the authors conclude that students, scholars, and practitioners in music education, popular music studies, and related disciplines and fields involving entrepreneurship could benefit from engaging in reflexive and entrepreneurial practice which explores and incorporates ideas, models, and syntheses discussed in this paper.