- Apr 19, 2001
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I used to host gigs at my house a lot years ago. It started as a simpler way for my underage friends to come watch our band. Each time I would go out the morning of and have flyers that mentioned there being a band playing that night and if the noise was bad call me first. I would always try and talk to the closer neighbors and if they weren't home I'd leave the note. I lived in a guest house behind the main house, so it was all backyard stuff.
The first gig was a small show with a couple local bands, mine included. Less than 30 people, all close friends. Went great. We just set up in my living room which had a whole front wall of of large open windows and door so people could be inside or out and watch or party. Nothing went worse than the usualy party. Just a mess, nothing broke or stolen.
2nd show, we invited a touring band to stop through that needed a place to play and crash. A few members from both our bands went to the mall to scope girls and invite people over. That and word of mouth got around and we hosted about 50-60 people. We set up outside this time using the back porch of the front house as a drum riser. This show went great as well. After the bands played everyone stayed and hung out and it was very relaxed compared to most of my old parties. Still no issues.
I did a few shows that were like the above, never had a problem. The last show I ended up doing was using the same touring band, as well as another band on tour. When they showed up this particular time, the pother band was very rude and disrespectful of my space. I came into my house and they had crap everywhere, were in my shower, and eating my food. I was like uhhh, ok, nice to meet you.
Anyway, the band that opened was playing WAY too loud, and I tried to get them to quiet it a bit but they never gave in. During my bands performance the cops came. Apparently someone neighbor down the road didnt like the 200 people that showed up and were parking all over the street. We ended up compromising with the cop that we could play a lot quieter (we switched to acoustics and turned down the PA) and the rest was fine.
My advice in a nutshell:
1. Warn the neighbors, talk to them, get a feel for their noise tolerance.
2. Keep it limited as much as possible. Its always easy to invite a thousand people, but in your home, you want to have people you trust more than 100 random strangers.
3. Have help. Have friends or family you know and trust to handle certain things. Someone to monitor people coming in and out, someone to monitor random areas of the house to check up on stragglers. Someone watching the booze is a good idea too.
4. Be prepared to be the bad guy. You'll have times when you have to yell at your friends for something stupid, but you have to man up and put your foot down when something goes foobar.
The first gig was a small show with a couple local bands, mine included. Less than 30 people, all close friends. Went great. We just set up in my living room which had a whole front wall of of large open windows and door so people could be inside or out and watch or party. Nothing went worse than the usualy party. Just a mess, nothing broke or stolen.
2nd show, we invited a touring band to stop through that needed a place to play and crash. A few members from both our bands went to the mall to scope girls and invite people over. That and word of mouth got around and we hosted about 50-60 people. We set up outside this time using the back porch of the front house as a drum riser. This show went great as well. After the bands played everyone stayed and hung out and it was very relaxed compared to most of my old parties. Still no issues.
I did a few shows that were like the above, never had a problem. The last show I ended up doing was using the same touring band, as well as another band on tour. When they showed up this particular time, the pother band was very rude and disrespectful of my space. I came into my house and they had crap everywhere, were in my shower, and eating my food. I was like uhhh, ok, nice to meet you.
Anyway, the band that opened was playing WAY too loud, and I tried to get them to quiet it a bit but they never gave in. During my bands performance the cops came. Apparently someone neighbor down the road didnt like the 200 people that showed up and were parking all over the street. We ended up compromising with the cop that we could play a lot quieter (we switched to acoustics and turned down the PA) and the rest was fine.
My advice in a nutshell:
1. Warn the neighbors, talk to them, get a feel for their noise tolerance.
2. Keep it limited as much as possible. Its always easy to invite a thousand people, but in your home, you want to have people you trust more than 100 random strangers.
3. Have help. Have friends or family you know and trust to handle certain things. Someone to monitor people coming in and out, someone to monitor random areas of the house to check up on stragglers. Someone watching the booze is a good idea too.
4. Be prepared to be the bad guy. You'll have times when you have to yell at your friends for something stupid, but you have to man up and put your foot down when something goes foobar.
