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Hosting an Open Stage: Need Advice

#21
All this is good -- but marketing is the hardest part of anything I have found. Have you a good plan for getting people there?

Here are a few things to try

a) Don't be afraid to bill it as a music networking night. Get established players out for musical quality and don't be afraid to be a socialite and introduce people to each other.

b) music schools and music teachers -- advertise it there provided you aren't getting mixed up with underage minors...depending on the venue. Everyone is looking for gigs and subs. Jam nights are a good place for such a thing.

c) Look for blues meetup groups on meetup.com....

d) put it up on eventbrite and eventful and yelp to get free search engine support.

I have found that traffic comes from all different sources....once no one source got me the crowd -- they came from all the different sites where I promoted it.
 
#23
I've been in house bands for these before.

My recs would be:
1 Be prepared for 1 or zero other bass players to show up. Happened a lot to me.

2 The limiting factor is usually knowing lyrics. So whomever is singing calls the tunes.

3 Someone has to be able to give the capsule version of the changes to the other players, as other people have said. Even for songs people think they know. There's plenty of train wreck potential for different versions of the same song that have one chord substituted, or extra verses, etc.

4 Small house amps. Can't stress this one enough. Lots of volume problems go away when you make sure the amps aren't capable of being too loud. The standard around here is a blues jr for guitar, a 100 to 200w bass amp into a 1x15 and no drum mics. Keeps everything under control and eliminates sound person issues.
 
#24
The ones I've been to we're adverstised on CL or Facebook. We have a good network around here. Too many people and it becomes a problem. The really busy ones near the city (I'm in the burbs) have you draw a number when you get there and wait. Then you get like one song. So that's not a good event either.
 
#26
I've hosted 2 blues jams over the years and it can be like herding cats. You have to be the alpha male and keep things moving and entertaining for both players and (hopefully) audience. It can turn into 2 basic songs over and over, a slow version and a fast version. Gotta incourage variety from the players.

Although it was more rare than I hoped when the magic did happen I got to hear and play some amazing music. Even jammed w/ James Hetfield when he strolled in during a jam.
 
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#27
3Liter said:
#2....you CAN have people pick songs that are straightforward that the band doesn't know. If you have a guy that is clear about what the tune does....it's a 1, 4, 5 and the chorus is 5, 4, 1. I've seen it work.
Click to expand...
Yup, I do it a couple dozen times a week. Chances are it's ZZ TOP, or SRV song, and you may not know it, but it's certainly not rocket surgery.
 
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#29
I have hosted a Sunday night blues and rock jam with a guitarist and drummer friend for 2 years now. Runs from 7:00 - 11:00, or until everyone who wants to play has had stage time. House band plays an opening set, usually an hour. Sometimes if there are unaccompanied vocalists and horn players there early, we'll get them up during our set. If they have plans with others, we leave them until they're ready. The house band always plays the closing song of the night.

We don't make a list. The guitarist, drummer and I are pretty familiar with most of the musicians who show at jams in our area. We keep track of who came first and do our best to make good matches with musicians during our break. Some musicians will come with a pre-arranged line up and we do our best to honor those. All acts get 3 songs on stage. After we have rotated all players through, we allow musicians repeats, if time allows.

Something that I think has made this jam an ongoing success is that the host players circulate the crowd, thank everyone for showing up and enquire about if they are players, if we don't know them. This way, we have established a personal rapport with audience and players alike. I try to personally shake hands with everyone there and at least say, "Thanks for coming....hope you have a great time...come see us again." We get a lot of repeat attendees from this.

The house band has enough experience and chops to play as a trio, but nearly every week we invite a local "guest artist" to join us on keys, a second guitar, or vocalist. We try to rotate among 5 or 6 very seasoned recognized area players in this role. Sometimes we will also fill it with a player that one of us is mentoring, but are careful to not give that player more than they can handle. Still, even with limited experience, they are "featured" and helped to succeed with the help of the house band. We want everyone to have a great experience. These things have been great attendance getters for us.

Most Sundays, we pretty much pack the small venue we use for this. We'll have an occasional off week, but it has been a very successful jam. It is not unusual for us to rotate 30 - 35 players, sometimes more, of all skill levels in an evening.

Also use FB invitations and the typical social media stuff. Get lots of shares and reposts from "fans" and followers

The objective is to keep live music alive and bring the message to the next generation of younger musicians.

OP....If you want more info from me, please PM me and I will share more, if I can.

Bottom line is we create an atmosphere of personal relationships, camaraderie, and fellowship. We continue to get new players, but all beome part of "our family".

Sorry for any typos....rushing this off so I can go help a friend in his Tuesday night jam.

Hope this is helpful.

Koog
 
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#30
Bunk McNulty said:
I'm impressed with your preparations, especially the idea of the songbook. All the open mics I've ever been to have been more...rough and ready. I'm going to one tonight that my BL started, to give support and probably run into some players I haven't seen in a while. One thought: I understand the efficiency of replacing players one at a time, but it might be wise to identify groups who want to play together.
Click to expand...

Agree. The songbook is a great idea.

If you point to something on YouTube or Spotify as a reference, make sure it follows the somgbook arrangement. There's probably a dozen or more popular variations of most of the major blues standards (like Stormy Monday) which inexperienced players aren't going to know about.

As far as groups go, I differentiate between an open mic night and a jam. If it's open mic, groups or a couple if people who want to play together is fine by me. But if it's a jam, where the point is to play with different people, then I tend to prefer experienced duos and trios don't take the stage together since that's usually how jam cliques get their start. But maybe that's just me.
 
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#31
From the ones Ive been to or participated in the past, there seems to be a few different types of jammers:
  1. Player/Leader - Guitar, Keys, Vocals/Harp. They have material they play and sing and want the House Band to back them up
  2. Player/Individual - Rhythm Section, whatever. They just want to jam along with a few tunes the House Band knows.
  3. Solo/Group acts - Either a single soloist, or a group wants to get up and do "Their Thing".
Ive seen mostly Guitar Players, Drummers, Singer/Harp....and a few Bass Players. Oddly there usually seemed to be ZERO bass players or like 5:) Anyway, thanks for the advice...like I said the venue is just trying this out and still not sure if this will go over or not, Friday nights would not be my prefered timespot. I do think it will just take a few to see how it shapes up
 
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#32
I used to run an open stage at a local bar from mid 2005 - about the end of 2009, and I took it over from a friend of mine who quit doing it. Our setup was for drums, bass, 2 guitars and 2 microphones. Sometimes it'd just be one person who wanted to play by themselves on acoustic, or an acoustic duo. Sometimes somebody would want to play a song with our band, or with just the rhythm section. Sometimes a whole band would come in and want to play. Sometimes there would be nobody that wanted to play, and our band would just have to play a normal set.

The best advice I can give is 1. Don't let anybody questionable play your instruments. Don't let the drunk 21 year old behind the drum set! 2. Meet as many musicians as you can. This is probably the best networking opportunity you'll ever have as a musician. You'll meet a lot of downright decent people, and a lot of self centered a$$holes. You'll meet good and poor musicians alike. You never know when having the right connections is going to come in handy. As far as my music playing life goes, that was the best. I was in my 20's at the time, had all the free time in the world. I had an absolute blast, and made a lot of good contacts and friends. Looking back now, I'm just so grateful I was able to be a part of something like that.
 
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#33
Koog said:
I have hosted a Sunday night blues and rock jam with a guitarist and drummer friend for 2 years now. Runs from 7:00 - 11:00, or until everyone who wants to play has had stage time. House band plays an opening set, usually an hour. Sometimes if there are unaccompanied vocalists and horn players there early, we'll get them up during our set. If they have plans with others, we leave them until they're ready. The house band always plays the closing song of the night.

We don't make a list. The guitarist, drummer and I are pretty familiar with most of the musicians who show at jams in our area. We keep track of who came first and do our best to make good matches with musicians during our break. Some musicians will come with a pre-arranged line up and we do our best to honor those. All acts get 3 songs on stage. After we have rotated all players through, we allow musicians repeats, if time allows.

Something that I think has made this jam an ongoing success is that the host players circulate the crowd, thank everyone for showing up and enquire about if they are players, if we don't know them. This way, we have established a personal rapport with audience and players alike. I try to personally shake hands with everyone there and at least say, "Thanks for coming....hope you have a great time...come see us again." We get a lot of repeat attendees from this.

The house band has enough experience and chops to play as a trio, but nearly every week we invite a local "guest artist" to join us on keys, a second guitar, or vocalist. We try to rotate among 5 or 6 very seasoned recognized area players in this role. Sometimes we will also fill it with a player that one of us is mentoring, but are careful to not give that player more than they can handle. Still, even with limited experience, they are "featured" and helped to succeed with the help of the house band. We want everyone to have a great experience. These things have been great attendance getters for us.

Most Sundays, we pretty much pack the small venue we use for this. We'll have an occasional off week, but it has been a very successful jam. It is not unusual for us to rotate 30 - 35 players, sometimes more, of all skill levels in an evening.

Also use FB invitations and the typical social media stuff. Get lots of shares and reposts from "fans" and followers

The objective is to keep live music alive and bring the message to the next generation of younger musicians.

OP....If you want more info from me, please PM me and I will share more, if I can.

Bottom line is we create an atmosphere of personal relationships, camaraderie, and fellowship. We continue to get new players, but all beome part of "our family".

Sorry for any typos....rushing this off so I can go help a friend in his Tuesday night jam.

Hope this is helpful.

Koog
Click to expand...

Your Kung fu Is strong sir - or should I say....
Koog Fu?

Nicely done - great points
 
#34
FirewalZ said:
From the ones Ive been to or participated in the past, there seems to be a few different types of jammers:
  1. Player/Leader - Guitar, Keys, Vocals/Harp. They have material they play and sing and want the House Band to back them up
  2. Player/Individual - Rhythm Section, whatever. They just want to jam along with a few tunes the House Band knows.
  3. Solo/Group acts - Either a single soloist, or a group wants to get up and do "Their Thing".
Ive seen mostly Guitar Players, Drummers, Singer/Harp....and a few Bass Players. Oddly there usually seemed to be ZERO bass players or like 5:) Anyway, thanks for the advice...like I said the venue is just trying this out and still not sure if this will go over or not, Friday nights would not be my prefered timespot. I do think it will just take a few to see how it shapes up
Click to expand...

Thats funny - I have a picture of the night we had 11 bass players - dually dubbed the night that was a "Low Down Dirty Shame" - :)
 
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#36
I did a similar residency for about a year, some 16 years ago, and it's still the best musical experience I ever had. Ours was a working band just trying to help a bar owner friend fill a Tuesday night. We were ... not highly organized. And you've got some great ideas and good advice already, so there's probably not much I can add.

We started out the first couple months basically playing/rehearsing our show. A few musician friends came by and became regulars. We did NO marketing. Facebook was not a thing. But after a while, word got around and new people began trickling in. By the last three months, the band - minus myself, and often the drummer - didn't have to play much at all. Expect to play a lot of bass and constantly be put on the spot. We did a lot of scrambling, but most people were chill and just ecstatic just to get on stage and play with a PA. It was a grand experience, warts and all. There was a lot of warts, some awful trainwrecks. But there was a lot of magic too. One of the best highlights was the group of horn players who showed up for a few weeks straight.

So if I have any advice I guess it'd be to keep at it as long as possible. Eventually (and probably quickly, given the marketing tools today) you'll get a big group of players wanting in. And then you'll have a big circle of players meeting each other, and making bands and growing a scene. It's a great thing to do in a smaller town. It might increase competition for bar gigs a little, but it'll be offset somewhat by all the parties and special events with multi-band bills that'll pop up.
 
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#39
Koog said:
House band plays an opening set, usually an hour.
Click to expand...

An hour! Really?!? Sounds like you're more interested in people coming to see you than hosting an open jam.

Last time I participated in an open jam it was 3 songs or 15 minutes whichever came first. NO EXCEPTIONS. Whether it was the house band or John Doe. Whoever was on the list at starting time got their 15 minutes. With a ticking clock people are more likely to be prepared. Anyone who showed up unprepared learned very quickly to get it together.
 
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#40
howlin said:
An hour! Really?!? Sounds like you're more interested in people coming to see you than hosting an open jam.

Last time I participated in an open jam it was 3 songs or 15 minutes whichever came first. NO EXCEPTIONS. Whether it was the house band or John Doe. Whoever was on the list at starting time got their 15 minutes. With a ticking clock people are more likely to be prepared. Anyone who showed up unprepared learned very quickly to get it together.
Click to expand...

An hour does sound excessive. The house band at one jam I attend, I know what they are going to play since they play it every week.

As far as being stage ready....yeah. Tune in the on deck circle, hit the stage and rock out. No dialing in your "tone" and all that. Get up and get busy!
 
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