A house concert is a truly special event for all involved. Hosts get to share the music and artists they love with their friends, family and community. Guests get to experience music in a totally unique way. The artists get to share their art in a close, intimate setting and make new friends. Everyone wins. It’s wonderful. And fun. In fact, it’s wonderfun.
The Flow of the Event
Here’s what the typical house concert looks like:
1. The Makeup
We will arrive between one and two hours before the guests start showing up in order to set up our equipment.
2. The Mingle
Once your guests start to arrive, we’ll get to meet them, hang out and maybe even enjoy some light snacks and beverages together for about an hour.
3. The Music
This is our favorite part. All the guests will sit and gather together and we will blow their minds with music for an hour to an hour and a half. After this, the host will make an announcement to encourage the guests to donate however much they’d like (see more on this below).
4. More Mingling
After pouring out our hearts through song, if we were friends before, we are family now. Let’s hang out, hug and have some fun. :)
The Role of the Host
We like to keep this as easy as 1-2-3—so much so that here are steps 1, 2 and 3:
1. Provide a Location
All we need is electricity and a comfortable space for us and your guests. If you’d like, you could also provide food and drinks for your guests, but this is completely optional. Feel free to either provide some light snacks and beverages, grill up some grub, have your guests bring something to share, or not have food available at all.
2. Send Invitations
We find that it’s best to have a minimum of 20 guests. Not everyone you invite will be able to make it, so please invite twice as many people as you hope will actually come. Let them know in the invitation that this will be a donation-based concert, but please do not put a requested donation amount.
3. Encourage Donations
Once we finish playing our set, you, the host, will make a brief announcement to encourage donations. We will meet with you and prep you in advance to make sure we’re on the same page with what this will look like. If you’re uncomfortable with this, no problem! Please just let us know and we’ll work out a flat fee structure instead.
A QUICK NOTE ON DONATIONS:
House concerts are donation-based for a couple reasons. First, we do this for a living. Making house concerts donation-based allows people to invest and participate in our music by supporting it to whatever extent they would like. More importantly, we want to share our music with people, whether they can afford it or not. We make music because we love it and believe it will make a positive impact on those who encounter it.
