house concerts and 21st century touring

From Jeff:

I just finished up my month-long reach out to our host members. I thoroughly enjoyed my many conversations with you.

You shared with me an abundance of useful observations and concerns. Let me drill down on them here and offer some thoughts.

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Fill the room.

A tough nut to crack for many of us. But I’m convinced there are practical ways to conquer this, if we’re willing to do just two (very related) things.

• Put email on Pause. Pick up the phone. Make connections. Resume email.
• Be open to some proven, creative ways to fill more seats. Email me and I’ll send you a little something called “8 Ways to Always Fill the Room.” Numerous hosts have expressed enthusiasm for the ideas in this piece.

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Minimize the cancellations.

You might never be free from cancellations. But there are ways to minimize them, especially the no-shows.

1. Ask for a financial commitment from your RSVP guests, where they agree to either attend, or send someone else in their place, or write a check to the artist
2. Send email reminders about the concert as you get closer to the day of the event. Include a message from the artist or an update on their career to further trigger interest.
3. If you run out of available seats, get that word out to your RSVP guests, and gently hammer home that there are people on a waiting list who will miss the show if those with reservations simply don’t show up.

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Love our artists = reply to their booking inquiries.

Thank You for responding to artist inquiries.

As for those who aren’t so consistent about their replies to booking inquiries, we need your help. Some CIYH artists tell us that the reply rate feels almost non-existent, ranging from 5% to 15%. And this makes artists feel invisible.

Part of the problem resides with the how some artists communicate. But the rest of the problem resides with the many non-responders among us.

I learned that we non-responders fall into five groups:

1. we no longer offer concerts but we didn’t remove our CIYH profile

2. we are not booking at this time but we didn’t update our CIYH profile to say so
3. we choose to ignore artist inquiries as a matter of philosophy. Hey, Silence = No!
4. we don’t have the heart to say “No”
5. we don’t have the time to keep up with the inquiries.

Any of these sound familiar? Happily, there’s a solution to each.

If you’re not in a position to do anything productive with artist inquiries, change your profile (I can help you). If you don’t have time to keep up with inquiries, pull together simple template responses that signal No or Maybe.

There are several easy/effective ways to say “No Thanks” to an artist. Here’s one that is firm but not offensive.

“Thanks for your interest in [SERIES NAME]. We’ve reviewed your [mp3, video, EPK]. Nice [material, songs, stuff] but we feel that our audience is not a good fit for your music. We wish you well with your touring. Take care.”

The important thing is to reply with a Yes or No or Maybe in some form. Host silence is poison to artists. Artists are thick skinned, but they aren’t mind readers. “No” is valuable information that they need and want to hear from you. Really. For artists, “No” always beats Silence.

If you get an impersonal email blast from an artist, or if the artist doesn’t follow your artist instructions, or doesn’t dovetail with your genre preference — it’s OK to ignore it. Otherwise, we want to reply to each artist inquiry within one week. Fran and I feel this is a reasonable expectation of our member hosts who accept inquiries from our member artists.

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Artists can be better at doing their part.

Fran is talking to artists about three things we’ve observed that result in non-responses from hosts. We will remind artists to

1. read (and honor) a host’s profile page before they send an inquiry
2. refrain from impersonal form emails
3. resist the temptation to reply with “Why Not?”

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So what’s up with this “Booking light thingy?”

From the beginning, CIYH has always given hosts the power to invite, filter or stop artist inquiries. Artists see a red, yellow, or green-colored booking light when they search for hosts on our site. That light instantly tells them whether we’re open to receiving artist inquiries. And you can set or reset that light in your Edit Profile area at the top of the Host Info section. In case it’s been awhile.

• Green = I’ve got dates to fill. I want to hear from artists
• Yellow = It’s challenging to get a show here. I offer concerts infrequently, or I know who I want for most of my shows, but I’m willing to hear from artists who could be amazing and a great fit for our series.
• Red = I’m not booking at this time.

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Host recommendations of extraordinary artists.

If an artist really wows you and your audience, we can post a recommendation from you on their profile page. Just write up two or three sentences, and then email it to me.

Here’s a protocol thing regarding recommendations. We’ll ask artists not to solicit them from you. This is potentially awkward and you can feel free to refer artists to me. Then I’ll solicit the recommendation.

Fundraising? Really? Yes, really. A house concert series can be a great vehicle to raise money for worthy causes and organizations. There’s a very cool, very proven method outlined in “8 Ways to Always Fill the Room.” Just ask me.

As always, hosts, thanks for all you do to be a music Giver in your community and to help artists earn a living wage from offering their extraordinary talents.

Contact Jeff Robertson here.
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1 Comment »

Hi Ralph,

How was the show with Bat McGrath?

Hi Fran,

The show was very good, Bat is a wonderful man and a fine performer. We had him back this fall for a main stage gig.

However, there is quite a story involved. Bat was interested in exploring house concerts, so he called me (I had done sound for him at a concert a while back) and asked if I was interested - of course I was. We set a date and did our normal spreading-of-the-word. The week before the concert, Jeff Spivak (the newspaper’s entertainment critic) did a feature article on house concerts in the area and we were prominently mentioned. When I got home there were 3 emails and 2 voice mails from the city demanding I contact their law department.

I did and talked to a woman who told me it was illegal to have house concerts in the city of Rochester. (Apparently they had passed a law the last summer when a hip-hop house party got out of control and 3 people were killed in the gunplay.) I responded by mentioning Freedom of Assembly and Freedom of Speech. Then she tried several other tactics.

• They were worried about my safety with all the money exchanging hands. Answer: At a Folk Concert?
• The city has noise ordinances. Answer: All acoustic, no amps.
• Parking Problems. Answer: Same as any party in any house.
• Running a business in a residential area. Answer: We derive no income from this activity.

We agreed to disagree and I told her that we were going to have the concert no matter what. I e-mailed Bat and he called a friend who is a reporter at Channel 13, figuring a little publicity wouldn’t hurt. So the morning of the show Channel 13 interviews the assistant mayor and effectively asks “What are you going to do about this guy who is breaking the law?” I don’t watch TV but we tuned in to see the interview and I wondered if we were about to host our first “jail cell concert” when the cops showed up to haul us away.

Anyway, Channel 13 shows up and interviews me before the concert, and tapes the first couple of songs. The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle made arrangements to podcast the first set. No police showed up and it was an anticlimax, nothing more than an enjoyable evening of music. I assume the city logged the call from their lawyer and forgot about it after covering their asses.

It did give me a great story to tell at parties, however.

Ralph

Note to hosts: We do not recommend this kind of publicity for obvious reasons. House concerts are “private parties” in a residence, attended by invitation only. If you promote your events through Facebook, a website, or even flyers or more public means, do not include your address. You don’t want unannounced strangers arriving at your home. Require an RSVP by email, and give yourself the option to screen people before giving them a detailed invitation.

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One of the key elements of successful house concerts is a growing email list!

You already know I’m nuts about these house concert cartoons that Roy Schneider is drawing for us. I took the most recent one and created a fun mailing list form that you can download for FREE.

However, I would love it if you made a $3 donation to Roy, or checked out his great music.

Two PDFs available.

• Download the version with our CIYH banner at the bottom.
• Download the version without the CIYH banner.

See our previous House Concert Cartoons.

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