Tip for Hosts: Spell it out for everybody.

House concerts are a fun hobby, but they clearly require some effort that feels more like work. It can be tedious to update websites, send out email invitations, coordinate plans, and all the other minutia that can creep into planning any event.

Because of the occasional pleasant (or amazing) surprise, many hosts have a very open policy for artists to contact them. Consequently, the most frustrating, and sometimes intimidating task is responding to all the artists who don’t fit your tastes, requirements, or schedule.

It is possible to greatly reduce this kind of work.

Like artists, house concert hosts are often very unaware of the mixed signals they send out, and how difficult it is to find information on their website. What seems completely logical as the text leaves your fingers often comes out as a jumbled mess to the eyes of your readers. Yes, people actually read that stuff you are putting up there. To a point.

Staff and Crew House Concert Shirts

  • Do you find yourself repeatedly answering the same questions?
  • Do you get too many artist submissions?
  • Do you get artist submissions from genres you would never consider?

Maybe your website (or your host listing at CIYH) is not as clear and specific as you think it is. Myspace pages can be especially cumbersome, but a little planning and tweaking can go a long way to making your hobby more fun and less work.

Maybe today is a good day to look at the message your are sending out.

For now, here’s a good example:

In the next post, well cover the most important information to make available, and some time-saving tips for communicating with artists.