Letters of Support
Carson Letter
January 24, 2007
Greg --
Thanks for letting me know about your hearing with Boulder about your
house concerts. I'd just like to express my support for your house
concerts, and give a little background.
I have worked in the music business for over 20 years. While there are
plenty of lovely places to hear amplified music (rock & roll, jazz, hip
hop, etc.)and many large venues to hear symphony, opera, Broadway
musicals and the like, there are not very many venues that cater to
smaller crowds who want to hear acoustic artists in an intimate setting.
There's just not much money in it, so it's not viable as a commercial
enterprise.
In recent years, there's been an international movement toward house
concerts, where people make available their living rooms to several
dozen people who make a contribution to the artist. Small potatoes in
the music business, but a crucial part of what keeps diversity and
creativity flourishing in the arts. While the owner of the living room
makes no money from these concerts, the artist and the audience have a
haven in which to enjoy the uniquely personal form of music that is
usually classified as folk, and artists can support themselves in
between larger gigs.
When I was the concert director at Swallow Hill in Denver for almost
nine years, producing about 200 folk and acoustic concerts a year, we
started encouraging these smaller house concerts as a route for artists
to "get ready for prime time" -- to hone their talents and prepare
themselves for the more professional venues where there are tickets
sold, money paid, commerce encouraged. As the house concert climate grew
more favorable, the quality of the acts I was able to book at Swallow
Hill improved greatly. It's a win win situation. There's not much noise,
because the concerts are not amplified -- the artists just stand up
there and sing. There's not much traffic, because people can only fit so
many people into their living rooms. There are no taxation issues for
the presenter, because that person isn't making any money. There are no
discernible zoning issues, because these concerts are really just house
parties with music, similar to backyard hoedown where people bring their
instruments and pick and sing together, then throw money in a pot for
whoever brought the barbecue.
House concerts are also a place for established artist to "fill in"
between their larger concerts. This isn't so necessary in the Northeast,
where people are all crammed together and there's a folk music club in
every town. But out here in the west, where it can be hundreds of miles
between major concert venues like Swallow Hill (and a "major" folk venue
would hold, say, 300 people, as opposed to, say, 2200 people at the
Opera House in downtown Denver), the house concerts are critical to the
success of touring artists who have chosen the most personal and
intimate of all forms of music - folk music. Indeed, without house
concerts, some of the well-known players would never venture into the
heartland. They'd just stay near the east and west coasts, where there
are lots of folk music venues.
During my tenure at Swallow Hill, I also served for 7 years as a member
and as then as president of the board of directors of the North American
Alliance for Folk Music and Dance (Folk Alliance), a 3000-member
international organization of folk music and dance enthusiasts and
professionals. At our yearly conference, the house concert group grew
from about a dozen the first year to about 100 house concert producers
throughout the United States and Canada. These house concerts all
operate on the same principals that yours does -- music lovers with
large living rooms have an email list to let interested people know that
an artist is coming, those people come to the house concert and usually
bring a pot luck supper and make a contribution to the artist that is
playing, everybody eats and listens to music in a personal, comfortable
setting, and the artist makes enough money to get to the next gig.
I applaud people who give their time, contact and schedule musicians,
clean their houses, email their friends, cook some dinner, and make it
possible house concerts to happen. It's a load of work for a small
payoff -- that wonderful feeling you get when you know you've made magic
happen.
Meredith N. Carson
Event Coordinator
Denver Performing Arts Complex
City and County of Denver
Division of Theatres and Arenas
1245 Champa Street - First Floor
Denver, CO 80204
Ph: 720-865-4242
Fax: 720-865-4247
