House Gigs: Playing In The Front Room, Patio Or Among The Flower Beds
After a folk club gig I was having a chat with a member of the audience who asked if I would play a gig at their house one Sunday evening and how much I charged. I thought about it and said,
“I won’t charge you anything, but get everyone who comes to the party to donate £5 towards the cost of the gig.”
After agreeing a date I arrived at the House Gig an hour before the party was due to start and set up a very small acoustic amp in the host’s living room and set up my microphone and mic stand.
House gigs are great fun. Just don’t stand on the flow beds, it doesn’t go down well.
At the last house gig I did I played 2 x 45 minute sets. It was close up and personal…. I could interact with each member of the audience and I had a great time – and hopefully so did the audience. Some of the audience sat on chairs, some sat on the floor and some chilled out on the patio.
In all there were about 40 people at the “gig” and they all seemed to know each other. Everyone was comfortable with their surroundings and there was lots of banter between songs.
After my first set we had a 20 minute break allowing for people to refresh their glasses, grab something to eat and go to the loo. I talked to some of the audience, ate some of the food from the BBQ before playing my 2nd x 45 minutes set.
Just before my pre-arranged “encore” I reminded everyone that I had CD’s to sell (I always work on the assumption that if you don’t tell anyone that you have CDs to sell how can you expect people to buy one) and then I finished the gig.
At the end of the gig I sold 6 CDs at £10 each, added 5 people to my mailing list, and then spent a total of 6 minutes putting away my guitar, mic and amp.
They even carried my equipment to the car!
I said thanks the host and together with the CD sales I made £250.
I had a great time, the audience had a great time and the party continued in my absence – probably going on until late into the night.
House Gigs are brilliant – book yours today!