Tremendous advice, thank you! The only thing I'm questioning, after a lot of research, is if I should get a camera with a full frame sensor and graduate from one with a crop.
I still have a cropped sensor. Different people will have different advice on a full frame as well as mirrorless. Read up on the pros and cons based on what you want to do with your camera. Below is my personal opinion, but I've NEVER taken a photography class or anything and just like to figure out stuff on my own and take pictures of anything I find interesting, which is quite a range. So I am by no means any kind of expert, just passing on what I've learned in my own experience.
I'm just a hobbyist and have found it more reasonable for me to buy a fast prime, 10-24mm wide angle, and a 20-140mm VC (Vibration Control aka Image Stabilization) zoom lens, all used, for a total of about $1k versus spending over that much just for a full frame sensor body. Also, I have a Nikon so all my lenses are DX and if I upgraded to a full frame, I'd have to replace most lenses or would have black/blank areas in each corner. If your lenses are just for cropped sensor, going to a full sensor means your lens won't project an image onto the full sensor. Again, that's the for dummies version and might not be 100% accurate, but it's what I've heard. I'm sure a full sensor is much better and probably worth the investment, but only if you have money to spare and don't have several cropped sensor-only lenses that you'd have to replace.
Another thing to keep in mind about lenses is that 35mm is roughly what human eyesight is (that's why it's been a standard) but when you have a cropped sensor, I think that makes the magnification APPEAR to be 1.6x what's on the lens so effectively your images look as if they were taken at 56mm and not the number on the lens. I don't really understand how all that works, but I know that's an issue when you want to use wideangle lenses and don't get the results you expect. I think that's why my results with the 50mm f/1.8 wasn't what I was expecting as my results seemed more zoomed in and to capture scare actors in zones I had to stand further away than I expected and that leads to more people walking in between you and your subject. In hindsight, I should have gone with the 35mm for about the same price. But, as a plus, if you take long range photos of wildlife or anything like that, a cropped lens lets your very affordable 300mm deliver results closer to a 500mm lens that would cost double if not triple. That might just be me making lemonade out of lemons.
Lastly, and most importantly, if you buy the fastest lens you can find and the best full frame camera and go to HHN and just start snapping away, you're results aren't going to be amazing. If a little leager buys the same baseball bat Mike Trout uses, he's not going to hit as well he does. You have to learn how to use your equiptment through trial and error. The better gear you have, the better POTENTIAL for amazing photographs. There's a reason why product photographers get paid very handsomly for product photo shoots and Joe Schmoe can't just buy a $10k camera and $5k lens and take the photos themselves. Whatever gear you get, go out and try it BEFORE HHN to get used to it. During a pandemic, that's hard, but go out to a local area with night life and try taking some photos. Bring a friend to pretend to be a scare actor and have them walk around in a mostly dark area, then near a streetlight, etc. If you are near a big city where people don't care about their pictures being taken, take advantage of it. If your town has a fair, community event in a park, a church bizaar, or something else taking place at night, go experiment with it. Trail and error is the best education. If you find some photos turn out great and you don't know why, look at the EXIF data on it. That might give you some sweet spots for ISO, aperture, shutter settings that you can utilize.
Of course, if you have a real time histogram that can be really helpful...but I'm not smart enough to use mine and instead just try to get the pictures to come out decent, and of course in RAW format, and then fix them in PhotoShop/Lightroom.