house concerts and 21st century touring

Hosts can benefit from this advice as well. You have a mailing list, don’t you?

Everything has to be remarkable these days. Even your mailing list form. Now I’m no genius (I only recently added the “house concert interest” section - duh!), but I often see someone sign up the mailing list, and then actually point out the funny stuff on it to the next person in line. That’s way more effective than hoping everyone will pick it up individually.

Here’s what I use…

I’ve developed this over many years, so I’ll point out what I think makes it effective.

1. It has pictures. Photos make any form more pleasing to the eye.
2. It is simple. Asking people for unnecessary information just makes it less likely that they’ll give you any information at all. The first name is all I need to personalize messages. I can fill out the “State and Venue” names at the top of the page. Granted, you might mis-file the occasional fan who is from out-of-state, but it’s a worthwhile trade-off to keep things simple.
3. It’s funny. (Not hilarious, but it gets chuckles, and plenty of “look at this” comments)
4. It points out CD prices, and RECOMMENDS a choice. The more product you have available, the more you must help people make a choice. It breaks my heart when someone doesn’t buy a CD simply because they couldn’t make up their mind. Ouch. If not here, provide this information on another sheet or sign. James Lee Stanley has more advice about this.
5. It has an example, the first blank is filled in. People don’t like to be the first one to sign a form. And people are better at following examples than instructions.
6. It doesn’t look like a petition. People don’t like to feel like a number. 15-20 names is all you should allow per page. I’m all for saving trees, but save your career first. Plant an elm when you get back from your tour.
7. And finally, it creates leads for future house concerts. “Hi Joe, you expressed interest in hosting a show last time I played Arlington. I’ll be touring that area in 3 months - how about October 12?” I think I got this idea from Michael Gulezian.

Now, you must have the discipline to add this information to your database as soon as you can, and thank them for joining (with an offer) before they forget who you are. Listbaby (part of hostbaby/cdbaby) is a simple way to do this, although there are better and more extravagant ways available.

Instead of a list, some people recommend printing out index or post cards and putting them on chairs and tables, but I think that has a tendency to get wasteful. What do you think?

Feel free to adopt this to your needs, and please comment below if you have other tips to improve mailing list forms.

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House Concerts and Genre Diversity

Artists often ask something like this,

Hi Fran,

We play “bluegrass waltzes with a horn section of blind aborigines” (that’s our genre) - do any house concerts book that kind of music?

Please let us know because we want to rock (um, waltz) the house concert scene.

Sincerely,

Australian Three-Step

So I just did a rough count in some of the more popular categories. Interesting numbers… a few surprises.

Genre(s) and the number of hosts who are interested in them. (7/22/08)

• Folk or acoustic - too many to count!
• Rock 45
• Blues 43
• Americana 40
• Bluegrass 34
• Country 28
• Singer-/songwriter 25
• Jazz 26
• Celtic 18
• Pop 15
• Classical 8

Where are the flamenco/klezmer/polka lovers?

Artists: You can get your own results on the “advanced search” page at concertsinyourhome.com
.

Another interesting survey we did a few months ago: House Concert Fast Facts
.

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See for yourself!

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