House Concert Fast Facts

Andrew wrote

We got started in house concerts because when we moved into an old house, the deck in the backyard seemed just like a stage, so we invited a musician friend to come play. Soon it turned into bi-weekly shows with a website, email list, and lots of new friends. Now we average almost 100 persons per show. We were contacted recently by the original owners of the house who heard about our house concerts. It turns out they were musicians and they built the deck to host house concerts way back in the 70's. Can I say we were inspired by the ghosts of house concerts past?

Posted November 01, 2008

Christy Claxton wrote

On the pay thing... I count the number of people in attendance; including volunteers. I multiply that number by 10. If the amount of money in my pocket doesn't equal the sum of my equation, I personally add the cash.

Posted September 15, 2008

Wayne Slater-Lunsford (WayneSL) wrote

The first concert was probably a house concert:
"Hey, Ogg- come over to my cave tonight. Guff will bring the sabertooth skull and he and Skar are gonna beat the daylights out of that mammoth skin again!"
My Inner Folk Child was reborn in 1990 at a house concert hosted by Clark & Elaine Weissman. That got me hooked on the California Traditional Music Society, live performance and song circles.
Living rooms, garages, coffeehouses, bars, mountain meadows and sailboats are the womb of real musical magic. YouTube, commercial radio and network television are just ways for people to sample the reality that music is something people do to touch each other's souls. Two-way eye contact, the harmony sung by the front row, and a bear hug after a song are what keeps music alive, and house concerts are the purest channel for that kind of energy.
I've always done house concerts, though I never heard that name until recently. Keep the faith!

Posted April 11, 2008

Todd Muller wrote

I got started doing house concerts because I have so many songwriter friends that I only get to see at Kerrville, and wanted them to come visit us in Mass. especially while I was building our cordwood masonry home. It's a lot of work, and many musicians are also carpenters!!!!! Most of them said" if i had a gig to help pay my travel expenses I would come." So I built my living room with that in mind. And now we get to have them visit, and we are proud to be bringing such great, and mostly unheard of music to our area. And it's a very cool participation in our community.
We also had an issue with our planning board. We use a TOWNFOLK email list to promote our shows. One of the members of the board read the invitation, and thought we were having concerts with loud music, and serving food. Once we explained what a house concert is, they realized, and actually voted that it's nothing to be concerned with. As a result my wife is on the board, and the publicity was great.

Posted April 11, 2008

Cindy wrote

In response to Steve McClintock's cd sales question: I usually handle all the donation money and sales for our artists, so that they're free to mingle or whatever. I'm a bit anal, so I make a chart before the show listing the titles of all the cd's for sale and as I sell one, I make a check beside that title. I don't think we've ever had an artist adjust the price based on the crowd but others may know of such instances.

Posted April 10, 2008