FORUMS

Welcome to the shannoncurtis.net forum community, Guest! Log In or Sign Up
2 House Concerts after reading your book
#1
Hey everyone,

I live outside Philadelphia, PA and not many people have actually heard of house concerts when I bring up the topic.  So it's been an uphill battle for me explaining what they are before getting someone to agree to host one.  But I've had some brave friends and family who have stepped up and since reading the book, I have recently played 2 house concerts.

I'll quickly say that before reading the book, I played just 3 house concerts in the last 2 years.  I made under $100 total (donations plus merch sales) in each one, got very few email signups, and didn't have a single follow-up for someone else to host.

After reading the book, I tried implementing a lot of Shannon's ideas, so I will list the ones I was able to have a lot of success with here.

The first concert was 2 hours away in NJ, hosted by my sister.  She invited a few friends and people from work.  There ended up being a total of 5 people including her, but I was just happy to have a concert and stayed positive.  By the end of the night, I made exactly $100, half donations and half in merch.  Wow!  I was blown away but immediately realized the things that had the biggest effect on the overall success of the night (which I'll share in more detail below).

The second concert was by a work friend, and it was only 30 minutes from home.  She was able to get 14 people between personal and work friends.  I set up outside on their deck which was my first time playing an outside house concert!  Because of certain things about the event, I decided not to ask for donations but just sell my CD's and other merch.  From that I made $113, got 4 email signups, and 2 people interested in hosting their own house concert.

   

One thing that made a huge difference in merch sales was I had this idea to create a unique and memorable item to sell.  It's a coffee mug with some of my lyrics written on it (which I talk up a lot right before and after I play the song that has the lyrics).  I get the mugs from a dollar store for $1 each and am selling them for $15.  The time and cost of other materials to make them are extremely low, so I'm making a huge profit on them as well, and no one has had an issue with the selling price of the mug (see merch pic below).  I'm also pairing them with coffee from Haiti, which I share is affiliated with a non-profit I also support.

   

One thing I did not do particular well was promote the email list.  Something I will try next time is passing it around to give people a chance to sign up even if they don't make it to the merch table.  I also created postcard sized handouts talking about hosting a house concert and gave them out to everyone.  So hopefully some people will take that home and contact me if they are interested.

Overall I had great experiences playing the shows and meeting everyone.  I really enjoy the interactions you can have with a small crowd and am getting better at talking in between songs with that type of crowd.  It's so encouraging when people are generous with not only their money, but in saying how much they enjoyed the show.  For the next few shows, I'll make some changes and add some more things I want to try, and I'll be sure to post how they went here!
Reply


Forum Jump: