datamusicata

Today is Tuesday, the 2nd of October, in two days we'll have been in existence exactly twelve weeks and we're just cresting 60,000 hits.   Thank you so much for joining me in this experiment of exchange.     I am in Spokane, Washington today, working on our new home, which we can't move into yet, so we're renting it out.   But be that as it may, let's talk about my house concert in Bend, Oregon last Saturday night.

The Holmes home (say that six times fast) was elegant, spacious and beautiful, and they tell me that they considered whether it would be a good place for house concerts when they bought it.   Marble counter tops in the kitchen, tile floors, vaulted ceilings, impeccable design (integrity of design throughout the house) and wonderful art made their home at once a show place and a place to feel welcomed and warm.   They are music lovers on a grand scale and have dedicated a place in their home just for concerts.

There is a sound system, a stage, theatre seating, and the vaulted ceilings in that room provide a wonderful organic echo.   It felt wonderful to have my voice ringing in such a situation.    Speaking of which, they started their series about eighteen months ago, so they are fairly new to the house concert scene, tho they do do a lot of concerts.   I will speak more about that in a moment.   They have a e mailing list of about 400 people.

Now there is a formula that has held very true for my mailing list and I suspect it holds true for all mailing lists.   You need to have at least twenty people for every person that you expect to show up, or to respond to your email solicitation, be it for a new CD or a concert.   Twenty to one is the number to remember.   If you are going to do house concerts keep this in mind.  This number goes out the window when you put fame or notoriety into the equation.   I'm just talking simple numbers based on mailings.

On the morning of the concert, Susan called me at my hotel in Portland and said that they only had two reservations.   Portland is two and a half hours from Bend, so she was letting me know that I didn't have to do it if I didn't want to.   I said, that as a professional, I had no choice but to show up and do the best show I knew how.   Which is what I did.  

At showtime, we had 15 people and several more came in after I began for a total of 19 people.   Remember my twenty to one rule.  It proved true once again.   It was a wonderful experience doing the show even tho my normal requirement for a house concert is 40 people.   They were warm, responsive and bright people, so the show was just fun to do.

It was then that I found out that they were doing one house concert a week.   Think about it.   This puts an enormous strain on your mailing list folks.   Every week another person or group to support as an audient.   Not to mention the fact that it wouldn't take too long for the Holmes' to be burned out on the process.   And there is the possiblity that the city government will view this as a business enterprise and demand a license and taxes for you to have live music in your home.  So here are some more house concert promoter tips.

Do no more than 10 scheduled shows a year, 9 is probably better.  And schedule them on the same night, say the first Sunday of the month.  This is not to say that you can't do unscheduled concerts if someone is coming thru that you have just been dying to present.   But by presenting shows on a specific calendar day, like the first Sunday, you get fixed in people's minds.   Your list will always know when a show is going to be, and provided you are presenting quality, professional performing artists, they will begin to show up whether they know the artist or not.   You will have begun to create a brand for your series.   Your audience will trust you and they will show up in larger numbers than the 20 to 1 rule.

And create a dialog with your nearest NPR station.  They are enormously supportive of the arts and if given enough time, will have the artist that you are bringing in on one of their programs and they will play the CD of that artist.  This will not only help the artist but give your series more validity.

Thirdly create a dialog with a local journalist and make certain that they are invited to the performance.  

Fourthly, keep an updated media list of these aforementioned people; the radio stations, the newpapers, the journalists, the internet stations, everything and everyone that might help bring some notoriety to your series.  

And lastly, when you book an artist, give them the updated list and make certain that they recognize their responsibility in contacting these same people that you are contacting.    This builds the series for you and also ensures that the artist, who has come all this way for no guarantee will have  reasonable recompense for their efforts.  We do this for a living, so we need a certain amount per evening to continue to do it.   That's the reason why I usually demand a forty person audience.   I've got plane fares, rental cars, gasoline, hotels, and food to take care of for every day that I'm out here.   And presently, it costs about six times as much as it did five years ago.  

Hope this helps everyone concerned.   I'll try to post again, tho my access is spotty up here.  Tomorrow I am off to Orcas Island for the Friday show in Eastsound.