By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, March 30, 2009
Making money in today’s music economy is not the easiest thing. An old idea come back again is the house party. Bands that are starting up with little club appeal will put together a concert in the home of a fan. In the dirty 30’s they were called rent parties. Entertainers put on a show and the house passed the hat for rent money. Survival is the game. House parties always were a part of music. Today they’ve come back as the growing supply of high school and university trained musicians hits the economics of fewer venues and changes in where money is being made. House parties are also a way to avoid the barriers in bars – age for drinking, no smoking, no grass, time limits and other rules. I attended a house party that was a blues jam over the weekend that was livelier than many of the club dates I’ve been to lately.
Even recently artists could count on making money from CD’s. With free downloads becoming more common, the chances of making money from expensive CD production gets lower and lower. Of course, you can record your next CD in your bedroom or friends living room with a laptop and some relatively inexpensive software and hardware. The CD may not be as good as Pink, but who cares. Certainly, the audience for music is more diverse and less fixed on top 40 radio. Fans are into the latest music that has “buzz”.
Using MySpace, Twitter and other social media, musicians are using viral marketing to spread their message. Fans in each area are used to organize the house party which can spring up in residential neighborhoods without much warning. $5 or $10 at the door, bring your own booze or dope, party until the cops arrive, and sell CD’s to people who never buy CD’s. It won’t make you rich but forget about that in today’s music world.
Real Life Touring. A Social Media-Fuelled Tale tells of a band from the UK that did an extensive House Party tour. Steve Lawson says A few salient points to start with:
- most of the gigs were booked by people we know via Twitter.
- all but one of the gigs were house concerts.
- we did 5 masterclasses – 3 in houses, one in a pub, one in a Uniin 7 weeks, we spent 2 nights in hotels, which we didn’t pay for anyway.
- we made more money per gig than we ever have playing clubs/coffee houses (read: we actually MADE money, net, after paying for everything.)
- we met more amazing people on this trip than ever before.
- very few of the people at the gigs could have named a single other solo bassist. moreso, very few of the people who came to the shows had heard OF us before, let alone HEARD us. Media exposure was not a prerequisite for attendance.
- we have about 5 hours of video to pick through of the shows.
- we have invites back for twice as many gigs as we played.
- nobody got rich.
- nobody planned to get rich.
Everything is possible.
It takes 10 years of trying, playing gigs night after night, city after to city to break out in the music biz. House parties are one step along the way. Bring your sleeping bag, have fun and enjoy the music. Here’s a site ConcertsInYourHome.com
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