house concerts and 21st century touring

“My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins” — author unknown

When I first started concertsinyourhome.com, several people pointed out to me that so and so had an article written about their house concert series and got shut down. They were concerned that CIYH would be doing a disservice to house concert presenters by increasing their chances of getting in trouble.

House concerts have been going on for decades, hosted by hundreds and hundreds of presenters. And yes, a handful have been asked to stop, or questioned to make sure they were operating within the law.

If you search for “house concert lawsuits” on google you will more than 25,000 results. However, 99% of those results are about the same ONE case in Pittsburgh, which only became a case because this host had the resources (and the determination) to stand up for her right to have some people in her living room to listen to music, and pitch in for the performer.

The fact is, the vast majority of house concert presenters never run afoul of the law, despite the fact that some are VERY public about what they do. They have nice websites, and welcome outsiders to their events, and yes, regularly have their series featured in the local press.

As for our efforts to publicize house concerts, and to make them more popular with all kinds of music-lovers, it’s important to note that all (220 as of July 2007) hosts on our site have given us their information voluntarily. Hosts who receive publicity usually approve or even encourage that attention to get extra people to their concerts.

There is no cause for panic, but that doesn’t mean presenters shouldn’t be careful. Every presenter should assess their risks, and be familiar with their local laws. If you live in a tightly-controlled HOA development, you’ll have to be more diligent than a homeowner who lives in the woods.

There are two key habits that will help keep people of your back. Number one, invite your neighbors and be friendly with them. If you already have a contentious relationship with the people next door or across the street, hosting house concerts on a regular basis would give them an easy way to cause you trouble.

Number two is to make accommodations for parking. Again, this deals with your neighbors, but parking congestion is an easy excuse for authorities to get involved. See if one or more of your attending neighbors can let a few cars park in their driveway, or make clear signs for your visitors to follow when they enter the neighborhood.

Noise might be a consideration, but most house concerts start and end early, are “unplugged” or at low volume, and usually occur indoors, which makes them unlikely to disturb anyone’s ears. (At least not anyone outside )

Every host must take responsibility for the amount of exposure they attract. If you are very susceptible to complaints, perhaps you shouldn’t list or promote your events on the internet. If your house concert series is tremendously successful, and you always sell out your performances, and you don’t want any performers to contact you, that would be another fine reason not to list your series on a site like concertsinyourhome.com.

However, we’ve found that most house concert presenters want help, want exposure, and enjoy finding new artists they might not have discovered without us. We’ve discovered that most house concert series who have shut down, did not do so because of authorities, but because they couldn’t find enough audience members to make their series work.

It’s quite possible that our site could help a few hosts keep their series alive, even if by only adding a few extra audience members to their shows.

It’s also important to consider that our site (and the artists we promote) could eventually create hundreds of new house concerts, and possibly thousands of meaningful, profitable concerts for deserving artists.

Concertsinyourhome.com is, and will continue to be, a net gain for artists and music fans.

All over the country, true “listening rooms” are becoming the exception and not the rule. Artists find themselves playing with televisions over their heads, with a half-empty room of distracted people.

I’m humbled by the grass-roots nature that developed house concerts, and continues to support hundreds of deserving artists nationwide. I also notice that many of those at the start of this wonderful trend are embracing technology, and new tools the internet offers, in order to promote their events.

They know house concerts are simply too good to keep secret.

Fran Snyder