There’s nothing worse than playing music in an empty room. Unfortunately, without a proper marketing strategy, that’s exactly what many bands do when performing a house concert. When you want to draw raving fans to your living room or smaller event space, here are five strategies you can use to bring more people to your house concert.
What is a house concert?
A house concert is simply a concert put on at your (or someone else’s) house. These shows are typically very small with somewhere between 15 and 50 people. They’re held in intimate locations like a living room, apartment, back yard, or small event space.
Because they’re so small, the marketing campaigns are usually paid for and executed by the homeowner in conjunction with the bands performing. There’s usually not a team working to fill the seats—or standing space, depending on the venue.
Marketing strategies to attract more fans
Ready to put on your own house concert? Here are just a few marketing strategies you can use to bring fans through the front door.
1. Build an email list
Even in the age of social media, email still isn’t dead. In fact, it’s one of the most effective marketing methods because you can reach your fans directly!
Email is a great way to reach all your fans at once and announce your next house concert. Because they’re your fans, the minute they see an email in their inbox that says “New show date,” they’re going to click it immediately to check out the details.
Even better, most email platforms are linked with a calendar, making it even easier for your fans to remember the date and time. With the click of a button, they can RSVP to your concert and add it to their calendars—complete with reminders!
While there are certainly many benefits of using email to promote your house concert, the main downside is that it takes some time to build up a contact list. But for bands, that’s not really hard to do. Just keep an email signup sheet on a table at your shows and just watch the email addresses roll in. The better the show, the more people who will sign up!
Over time, you’ll have a huge list of contacts to easily send concert updates to every time you get a gig.
2. Use social media to keep your followers up to date
When it comes to promoting your band’s house concert, social media is still king. It’s one of the best platforms to let your followers get to know you and the band, as well as keep up with concert and event dates.
Of course, social media isn’t just a one-and-done type of a platform. If you want to be successful marketing your house concert on social media, you have to do the legwork to build your following. Post regularly and use only high-quality video and photos. There’s a lot of great content online, and you have to make sure yours still stands out.
Once you have a following, all it takes to promote your house concert is to design an eye-catching photo or flyer and post it on your various social media pages.
If you’re more of a musician than a graphic designer, that’s okay. Concert flyer templates are a great way to design professional-level images without professional level skills. Just choose the template that fits your band’s style, fill in the concert information, and you’re ready to promote!
3. Hit the streets
It might seem old-fashioned, but there’s nothing wrong with a little physical marketing out in the real world. Handing out flyers, printing posters, and sticking stickers all over town is still a good way to get people to come to your house concert.
People love to hear local bands, and a house concert is the perfect intimate setting to really show off your music. Flyers are a great way to reach people who would otherwise not see your marketing materials either on your social media feeds or in an email. You don’t need someone’s email address to hand them a concert flyer!
Again, using concert flyer templates is a quick and easy way to design high-quality promotional materials without needing a degree in graphic design.
However, before you go around handing out marketing materials, make sure you’re not going to go over your venue’s capacity. House concerts are typically pretty small, so if you post a flyer in one of the most popular local businesses in town, you might soon have more people than your living room can handle!
4. Add an event calendar to your website
If you put on concerts regularly, it’s a good idea to build a website for your band. It’s like a digital homebase for your band! All your fans can quickly visit your website to check for information, listen to your songs, and check for concert information.
To make it easy for fans to check for upcoming dates, it’s a good idea to add an events calendar to your website. They can quickly take one look at the calendar and see all the days you’re going to be playing and mark them down in their calendar. It puts everything in one easy-to-find location, so your fans will never have to miss a concert.
5. Play with other bands
Your fans show up to your shows, so it would only make sense that other bands would bring their fans, too. If you want to expand your fanbase and bring twice as many people to your house concerts, just play with another band!
Playing with another band is an easy and fun way to bring more people to your shows. When both bands are marketing the show, your reach doubles (at least).
The only thing you need to consider before playing with another band is to make sure the other band has a similar style to yours. If you’re a rock band and you decide to play with a jazz quartet at your house concert, there’s a good chance their fans won’t enjoy your band’s music and leave unhappy. Play with a band that compliments your band’s style to really boost your fanbase.
Attract more people to your house concert
House concerts are a fun, intimate way to play for your fans. Because of the small venue and stripped-down approach, you can provide more personal performances compared to many large venues.
But because it does take place in your home, you’re in charge of getting butts in the seats. There’s no major venue to help with marketing! If you really want to bring people to your house concert, start an email list, promote the show on social media, hand out flyers and stickers, add an event calendar to your website, and play with other bands. That’s the secret to putting on a great house concert.
