What is a house show?

House shows are delightful events where, instead of speaking at a formal business venue I lead discussions in someone’s house.

That might mean in their living room, in their backyard, or even someplace that’s not literally a house, but which has that house-like vibe—their church, a community center, etc.
What’s the point of a house show?

They tend to take place in far more intimate spaces, and as a consequence, tend to be a vastly different experience.

They also generally include meet-and-greets before and after the event itself, and sometimes include potlucks, meals, and other add-ons, for fun.

Some hosts play it straight and make it as much like a standard event as possible, while others make it their own and tell everyone to bring their favorite drinks or their favorite dish, or to just bring an appetite so they can enjoy the host’s cooking.

 

How do ticket sales and other money-related things work?

Generally there are no ticket sales for house shows, and instead the performer relies on a pay what you can/want model from attendees.

It’s kind of assumed those who show up will donate something, usually in the neighborhood of $10-20 per person. But this flexibility allows folks who are short on cash to still attend and have a good time, allows those who want to give more than that to do so, and allows the event to be technically non-commercial, so no laws are broken by having such an event in a residential space.

Almost always, these events are not made widely known to the public: the host is someone who digs the performer’s work enough that they want to share it with their friends. So the host is in charge of getting people to show up, by inviting friends and friends-of-friends, which helps ensure that a certain number of people will be in attendance, while also ensuring there aren’t a lot of random strangers wandering around the host’s home.

In some cases hosts will be comfortable with some promotion, in which case I will promote the event, but not publish the address. Anyone who’s interested in attending, then, would have to contact me for that information, which provides a bit of a buffer so that randos from the internet don’t ruin an otherwise pleasant and cozy event.

There’s generally also some kind of merchandise available for sale: in the case of musicians, that means CDs and t-shirts, and in the case of authors who go on tour to speak about things, that means books.

One major benefit of this model is that all donations typically go straight to the performer. This means it’s a less financially certain option than performing at a more typical venue, where you tend to sell most of the tickets ahead of time and therefore have a relatively certain income for all the effort, but there are also fewer expenses involved with house shows—other than time and energy, the cost of putting on a house show is usually zero. Which is nice.

A variation on this model, called a Guarantee Show, is for hosts who want to treat their guests to a performance in their home by paying a set amount to the performer, agreed upon ahead of time. In some cases they’ll also pay outright in this way if they intend to gather up the funding from their friends in some other way: kind of like paying the dinner bill for everyone and getting paid back later, to keep things simple.

So instead of asking for donations at the event, the host can simply pay that amount to the performer outright, which accomplishes the same thing via a slightly different route: it’s still intimate and cozy and fun, it’s just monetized differently.

I’m open to both, but the donation route does seem to be the more common of the two. Folks who find this sort of setup compelling are generally happy to pay for such an experience, especially when they know their money is directly supporting the performer, rather than a bunch of middlemen.
What does the schedule look like for something like this?

If you wanted to have the performance start at 7pm, the night would probably look like this:

5pm—I would show up to meet you and prepare
6pm—Attendees would start arriving and everyone would be able to hob-knob, perhaps eat or drink, before the performance
7pm—The talk would begin, right on schedule
8:30—The talk and Q&A would end, and we’d all hang out and chat for as long as makes sense for everyone’s schedule

So there’s a chunk of time time beforehand for me to meet with you and get to know the space, and another chunk of time for people to arrive, and for everyone to hang out and enjoy each other’s company.

Then the talk begins, which in my case will be about 40-minutes long, followed by what usually ends up being another 40-minutes of Q&A.

After that, it’s usually smart to have a semi-official end-point for the night for people to keep in mind. But generally people hang out, enjoy some conversation, eat and drink; whatever makes sense for the space and expectations of the host.
Anything else I should know right now?

We can get deeper into details if this still sounds like something you’re interested in doing, but here are some general things to keep in mind:

• It’s important to have 20 or more adults at the minimum, as having fewer than that makes it less of an event and more of a possibly awkward almost-party, which changes the dynamic substantially. It also becomes a lot more difficult to justify the costs of touring once the number of people making donations drops below that level. More than 20 is wonderful—I’ve done a few house shows with closer to 200, and they were also great—but 20 is a pretty solid minimum to keep in mind.

• And note that I said “adults” above: in general, it’s not a good idea to have kids playing nearby during the event, just like with any other speaking even you might attend. It’s no big deal if they’re used to that kind of setting and old enough to pay attention for the duration, or if they’re in another part of the house where they can safely play without being audibly disruptive. But in general, kids playing nearby distracts from the presentation, which tends to knock the rhythm of the event off of its optimal path.

• As I mentioned, the event doesn’t need to take place at a house, but the idea here is to keep things as inexpensive as possible, so ideally the space is cheap or free to use. Also optimally it has room for everyone to sit in front of me, view unobstructed, without barriers between speaker and audience. It’s no problem if it’s mostly or all floor-seating, or if people bring their own chairs, but having people sequestered in different, even adjacent rooms, or having a bunch of tables or other furniture dividing everyone up tends to mess with the magic and lead to pockets of distraction. Think about how these types of talks are usually set up, with a bunch of people in front of the speaker, facing forward, in the same shared space, and you’ve got a good idea of what we’re aiming for—at least for the presentation portion of the night (anything goes before and after that portion).

• Based on my own experiences, and those of others who have done this a lot more than I have, it’s ideal to invite at least twice as many people as you hope to have show up, and to require RSVPs, rather than telling them to just show up if they want. There’s no need to make it super-formal, but we do want it to feel like a fun, unique event, rather than a casually skipped get-together.

• If you don’t know whether you’d be able to bring 20+ people to such an event by reaching out to friends and colleagues and other people in your network, consider partnering up with someone else to host, so that you have two networks to draw upon, rather than just one. That still allows you to vet the people who’ll be showing up, but also increases the potential audience size and gives you the chance to meet some new friends.
If you have any questions, or if you’re totally into this and keen to start planning details, please let me know at colin@exilelifestyle.com.

I’m also very open to alternative ideas, riffs on the theme, or further thoughts you might have on this concept.

The whole point of having these sorts of shows available alongside the more formal, traditional model is to have fun, experiment, and try out some alternative methods of meeting folks and sharing ideas (while also being able to financially sustain those efforts), so I’m all ears if you have ideas you’d like to share.

Whatever the case, thanks very much for your interest—you’re awesome 🙂

 

PS:
Here are some solid write-ups about the world of house shows (specifically as they relate to musicians):
Our House: The Cozy, Complex, Interconnected World of House Concerts
House Music: Your Living Room Might Be Your Next Concert Venue

And here are a couple of informational sheets similar to this one, also written up by musicians, for their house shows:
http://www.dannyschmidt.com/houseconcerts.html
http://justinroth.com/houseconcert/

If you’re thinking of regularly hosting house shows, or going on your own house show tour, this book is worth the investment (it’s short, but full of valuable information): No Booker, No Bouncer, No Bartender