house concerts and 21st century touring

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We’ve had a pretty great experience with ConcertsInYourHome this past
year! House concerts are fast becoming our favorite way to perform! We’ve booked a bunch of shows, made a lot of great new friends, and it’s been an excellent overall experience! We just played the Jammin’ Jules House Concert on Sunday and had a FANTASTIC time!! We’re looking
forward to another year! ~~ Alfred James Band

Message from Fran : Click for video from Paris!

I’m in France for the month of September, and the first few days in Paris have been rejuvenating. There’s nothing like the shock of a new location and language (I speak French, but not nearly enough) to get your mind out of the same rut your body was in. Yes, I’m having fun, but I’m constantly attacking this keyboard with new ideas to continue to expand and improve what we do with ListeningRoomNetwork and ConcertsInYourHome. We want artists to thrive, and fans to be inspired to provide or participate in the experience we all love - a moving performance in a listening room.

If you have any friends in France (I’ll be visiting lots of places) who might be interested in helping us form a circuit of house concerts… I’d love to meet them.

Recommendations:

Oh my, how we’ve tortured ourselves about the best way to provide an easy and helpful recommendations system for ConcertsInYourHome. For years, hosts have told us how valuable it is to get recommendations from other hosts about artists they are considering. And it’s also a great feeling when an artist gets a heartfelt testimonial from a recent show.

So it’s here. For hosts. If you’ve listed some shows in our calendars at CIYH, you’ll now see a list of “pending reviews” next time you login. You can provide positive comments for the artist’s profile (a recommendation) as well as private notes for me and Jeff if you encountered some problems that should be addressed. These notes and recommendations are the best way to build trust within our community.

Soon, we’ll provide the same opportunity for artists to give us feedback about hosts. Let’s support, and look out for each other.

Check out the great recommendations we’ve been receiving!

House Concerts Panel at SXSW - Wanna help make it happen?

We see a lot of people giving advice about house concerts these days, and many of them don’t understand the traditions, the community, and the potential risks when these events are done without care. We’d like to offer some inspiration as well as sanity.

One of our hosts, Paul Schreiber, has invited me to do a house concert panel with him at the SouthbySouthwest Conference in March. If you’d like to see that happen, we could use your help with a vote. (It’s not necessary to opt-in for their newsletter when you create a login to vote.)

Thanks so much for helping with this:
panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas

You need a sxsw.com account to comment/vote:
panelpicker.sxsw.com/users/register

New CIYH Hosts: (artist members can search “member since 2011-08″ using the advanced search.)

19 New Hosts!
We welcome
Bill and Tatiana and Shannon all from CA
Nan from CO
Carolyn from FL
Selina from HI
Francesca from Italy
Cheryl from MI
Rob and Miriam both from NJ
David and Lynda both from NY
Linda from OH
Debra/Paul from PA
Mary from OK
Erin from TN
Melissa and Sarah both from TX
Chris from the UK

CIYH hosts can elect to do DinnerAndSong events instead of, or in addition to house concerts.

As hosts, we are hopeful all of our DNS events are as successful as the last one. We encourage others reading this to join the DNS family, as it is so rewarding.” (J. Borger)

New CIYH Artists:

(Welcome Aboard!)

Abby Mae, Brooke Annibale, Jim Savarino, Joe Marson, Mitchell and Harris, Paul Tabachneck, Ryan Tennis, Scott and Michelle Dalziel

Our Audio 6-Packs (free downloads) are back! This month, download 2 tracks from each of our featured artists. Lovely music!

Look for these new artists here!

Renewed Artists:

(Signed on for another great year!) Alfred James, David Nigel Lloyd, Jan Krist & Jim Bizer, Lipbone Redding, Lorri Solomon, Marc Black, Michael Reno Harrell, Patti Casey and Tom MacKenzie, T. Edwin Doss, Troubaduo

Schwag of the Month:

The DinnerAndSong designs for t-shirts just keep coming! This one is a direct plea to entice everyone around us to discover the goodness of DinnerAndSong events simply for the asking. So feast your eyes on this new ask me about my next DinnerAndSong shirt.
Of course we have a bumpersticker to match. Sure, it may be cheesy to wear matching things, but don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone that you have a crush on your bumper!

Host Reward Winners!

Congratulations to Shanie Holman and Rebecca Richards. Each host wins a $50 gear voucher from D’Addario and Planet Waves. We’ll look at the CIYH calendars each month and randomly pick two winners from our active hosts. Login and post your events! (It takes about 90 seconds.)

Tips for Artists and Hosts:

• The Most Effective (free) Tools for Artists to Book House Concerts
• Sponsor an Artist to Join ConcertsInYourHome
• Agent Memberships at ConcertsInYourHome

Our new blog, for hosts only.

• Seat reservation cards
• Another 30 years?
• How artists promote your show on their website is important
• Your profile’s Booking Info – looked at it lately?
• Make yourself known at other local listening rooms

Artists and Hosts log in here

Please share this newsletter with people you like. – fran

Thanks to D’Addario and Planet Waves for their kind support of this community.