Comments for house concerts and 21st century touring

Comment on The House Concert Survey by house concerts and 21st century touring » CIYH Newsletter #7, April 2008 Recap

Wed, 07 May 2008 23:54:45 +0000

[…] Have you seen the house concert survey lately? Fascinating stuff (for me at least) This post is an intro to it… […]

Comment on Can a Simple Banner on your Website Lead to Gigs? by house concerts and 21st century touring » Do you Digg this site?

house concerts and 21st century touring » Do you Digg this site? — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 23:33:59 +0000

[…] What do artists get paid? Revealing house concert survey? House Concerts article in Present Magazine […]

Comment on Americana Unplugged - O.K. finds a way by Mary Bearden

Mary Bearden — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 07:34:32 +0000

Dear Larry,

My hubby has asked for a copy of your song, “Sioux City”. He thinks it will help him in the hospital while recovering from cancer surgery later this month. I agree….there’s nothing so uplifting.

All the best,

Mary Bearden
(formerly Mary Alexander)
Willis, TX
nbeardeb1@gmail.com
4/15/08

Comment on Your house concert pitch, do you have one? by David Gans

David Gans — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 07:10:49 +0000

I’m doin’ it, Fran! A friend of mine invited me to do a house concert in Tallahassee the weekend before MagnoliaFest, and shortly after that a concert promoter I have worked for in the past asked me if I’d like to do one in Atlanta at that time. And when a friend asked me when I’d be coming back to Jacksonville, I asked if he’d be willing to host a house concert and he said yes. So come October, I’ll be doing three of ‘em in three days, and then I’ll chill for a couple of days and head for the festival.

Everybody seems to like the idea of taking beer sales out of the formula. Better sound systems, a more intimate and pleasant setting for the music, and probably about the same number of people in the audience as I would have had in that grubby dive anyway.

Comment on Is it Still Smart to Press 1000 CDs? by graham

graham — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:30:20 +0000

i am a young folk artist (early 20s) i mostly grew up in the punk and independent rock scene. i’ll tell you for sure that the only way we make any money anymore is by doing house concerts. clubs will not host are music, unless they are non-profit art spaces.

we usually have to deal with giving our music out for free. people in our generation are always going to find a way to get it for free. even if it is just the streams on myspace, there are “rippers” that record from your computer’s sound card. so to try to eliminate that, there are still people that will pay for mp3s (which almost seems silly to most of us) you can either do that with something like snocap (like myspace uses) or some format like that band radiohead did (pay what you want)

we usually end up having to tour with short runs of cdrs and sometimes still tapes. the better bands in our age bracket might sometimes do the vinyl with mp3 download. but a lot of the time it is just cdrs editions ranging from 25-250+ (larger numbers meaning “re-issuing/burning” more copies)

a lot of artists on tour now will do split-cdrs because it is unique to the situation that they are touring with a friend, etc and the kids really like that. it is a unique collector’s item, and these are usually limited editions of 25-50 copies, just for tour.

we usually end up having to sell other things as well, especially t-shirts, pins, zines of poetry/rants, etc

by the way everything usually is intensively hand made. a lot of us, using photocopiers, sewing, cloth cases, silkscreening, spraypaint, white printable cdrs (they look better), stamps, stickers, etc there is a huge emphasis on beautiful handmade packaging, cause if not kids will just get your stuff for free on myspace, or a p2p

we’re still really struggling to figure out how we can make more money, we need to figure out still a stronger business model. i think more prominent donation taking, instead of pass the hat model, but the economy is so bad that most people can’t afford any to pay 5 bucks for a show, especially if the show is byob

hope this is a help to any of you older folks, maybe it can be an insight.

Comment on Americana Unplugged - O.K. finds a way by Joan Enguita

Joan Enguita — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 03:32:19 +0000

Yeah, benefits always bring attention you may not have gotten otherwise. I love these ideas and will see if we can incorporate some of them into our own house concert series here in Lancaster, California. Our town used to be a small one about 20 years ago but has grown dramatically as a suburb of Los Angeles, as the freeway got enlarged again and again. Very cool! Just shows that giving ideas time to blossom and not giving up, well, it just shows it works! Congrats!

Comment on What Does “Freebo” Mean? by Arlene Boumel

Arlene Boumel — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:59:05 +0000

One of my favorites, also. And a genuinely nice guy, too. He has performed in my home and at our (South Florida) Folk Festival. I always look forward to his visits to South Florida.
Best,
Arlene

Comment on How to Get House Concert Bookings (artists): Part One by Rachel Sedacca

Rachel Sedacca — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:28:49 +0000

Fran,
Thanks so much for everything you do. As an artist, I’m finding concertsinyourhome.com a great resource while booking national tours and am happy to say I am playing at several of our newer venues on my NW Fall tour to promote my new album “Patience Pays”.

The circle grows…

Still planning on making it your way, all good things in all good time.

See you in Phoenix?
Rachel Sedacca

Comment on What Does “Freebo” Mean? by Steve Mason

Steve Mason — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:52:32 +0000

Fran - great story! I enjoyed sitting in on one of Freebo’s performance classes at Far West. Being someone who’s also done quite a bit of teaching, I really appreciated his accessible, impactful approach. So much so that I’m off to a songwriting workshop of his at Dusty Strings in Seattle tomorrow. Keep up the great work, Steve

Comment on Americana Unplugged - O.K. finds a way by Miss Lana

Miss Lana — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 23:42:39 +0000

What a wonderful story. It does my heart (and soul) good to hear success stories such as this when it comes to music venues. House concerts are the new rage, and I want to thank you for bringing quality music and also supporting local causes to a small community with your creativity and determination. Kudos to you!