house concerts and 21st century touring

They say “if you reach just one person…”
I say, “then you probably aren’t very good at what you do.”

8^)

You joined CIYH, so now what?
Waiting?

Are you going to ignore this opportunity to break free from relying on clubs and coffeehouses to pay your bills? When was the last time they paid you what your talent was worth?

House concerts are different. You don’t have to get 500 people to attend to have a great time and make a good payday. One fan, with a living room and 25 friends, and a little love for what you do. That’s all you need.

Inspire just one of your fans to try it…

Send an email to everyone you know. Something like…

Hi Felicity,

As an artist, I am very thankful to have some good friends and acquaintances who enjoy what I do. As you know, I’ve often played bars and coffeehouses, but I’m starting to turn the page.

All over the country, music fans and artists are discovering that they can have “house concerts,” which are an incredible, memorable way to share a concert experience. Artists (like me) perform in a living room (like yours) for a list of invited guests (20-30). Each guest donates $10 to the cause (me) and we create an event they will remember for a lifetime.

Check out this 2-minute video: http://concertsinyourhome.com/beahostintro.html

I’d really love to do this with you. If you think your living room is too small (it probably isn’t), you can team up with a friend or two that have more space. It’s very common to have a pot-luck dinner before hand so everyone get have some social time before the concert, and you don’t have to spend a bunch of money on food and drink.

I’m sure you’ll have questions, but feel free to browse a few of these actual house concert videos:

http://www.concertsinyourhome.com/House_Concert_Videos.html

Not exactly hi-fi, but lots of fun! I’ll bring my camcorder so we can put up a clip on this channel after the show!

I think you’ll love the idea - so please get back to me and we can start talking about it.

You look great in red,

Your artistic friend named “me”

—– end email

I really believe that house concerts are an important part of the future for successful artists, and I really hope you’ll take advantage of the opportunity.

Try the email above, with some variety or changes, once every 6 weeks, and send it to all your friends and fans. Most people need to see or hear something 5 times (I call it the law of “5″) before they react to it. Incidentally, most people will only pitch an idea once or twice - and wonder why they aren’t successful. Will that be you?

Best,

Fran Snyder
http://concertsinyourhome.com

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What Makes a Great House Concert Video?

First, a little math…

The transitive property:

If A=B, and B=C, then A=C

The transitive property of house concert videos:

If,
A picture = a thousand words, and
A video = 10,000 pictures, and
A house concert = fantastic time,

Then,
10,000 artists are fantastically insane because they don’t have a house concert video.

So what makes a great house concert video? Oddly enough, it’s not $10,000.

I’ve had a chance to look at many, and I’ve compiled a lot of them here:

Here’s what I like to see, in the order of importance:

0. A great performance of a great song - do not skip this step, that’s why it’s number 0.
1. The performers face and upper body- it’s a video.
2. Decent sound, understandable words - it’s a music video.
3. Some audience members displaying rapt attention or lively enthusiasm
4. NO audience members on camera who are not paying attention to the performer
5. A short, funny story to set up the song.
6. A short, interactive break within the song. (people cracking up, performer doing interesting aside)
7. A minimum of camera-movement. Blair Witch camera work not recommended.
8. A few, slow, zoom-ins or outs for perspective.

That’s about it. Very few house concert videos on YouTube achieve more than 3 or 4 of these. See how easy it could be to jump into the top of the stack? Look at our collection for ideas, then get busy. Once it’s on YouTube, email us the link and we’ll add it to the player…

Just don’t skip the first step!

What else makes a good video? Add your comments below…

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As if there weren’t enough reasons to love Levon Helm. This may be one of the best testimonials yet for the appeal of house concerts.

Read the article from the Poughkeepsie Journal.

In case you didn’t know… (wikipedia source)

Levon Helm, is an American rock musician most famous as the drummer for the rock group The Band. Helm is also known for his deeply soulful, country-style voice, and powerful drumming style highlighted on many of the The Band’s recordings, such as “The Weight”, “Up on Cripple Creek”, “King Harvest”, “Ophelia” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”.

Fall 2007 saw the release of Dirt Farmer, Helm’s first studio solo album since 1982 which has earned him a Grammy Award in the Traditional Folk Album category for 2007. Released to almost immediate critical acclaim, the album features Helm’s daughter Amy Helm and longtime Bob Dylan sideman Larry Campbell.

Read more articles about house concerts.

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