How to Book a 10 City Living Room Tour Without a Booking Agent

Booking a 10 city living room tour without a booking agent is possible with the right approach. Will Tynan shares how he used direct outreach and intimate house shows to create meaningful connections and successful tours across North America.

How to Book a 10 City Living Room Tour Without a Booking Agent

by indie artist Will Tynan (aka Will Ettante). Check out his newest release here.

Will Tynan (aka Will Ettante) is a guitarist, songwriter, and performer who has played shows in all kinds of venues, from large theaters to every shape of house concerts. 

As a guitarist, solo artist, and member of multiple bands, I have played concerts across North America, from SXSW in Austin to the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles. When I first started playing shows, I was very focused on playing in the “best” venues – which in my head meant clubs, theaters, and other music locales. And don’t get me wrong, those stages are often wonderful, with real energy and history and a special vibe.

But I also realized quickly that shows in non-traditional venues – hosted in people’s homes, backyards, and other unique places – were a fantastic way to bypass conventional booking headaches and create truly memorable experiences. I have made these shows a cornerstone of my performance schedule, and recently booked an extended living room tour across the US and Canada. 

 Here’s how I did it. 

Why do a living room tour?

It’s a testing ground – doing a larger number of small shows is a great way to test new material and force yourself to polish a cohesive set, all with the benefit of relatively low stakes. The audiences are generally friendly, the sound setups are simple, and you can tailor the set to fit your style and the needs of the night. Worst case scenario, a relatively small number of highly engaged and supportive people see you fall on your face, with more lessons learned in one night than in weeks of tiny open mic nights or basement rehearsals.

Total creative flexibility – although it’s more work to organize the whole billing yourself, home venues provide a blank slate for designing a set that fits your needs. Traditional combo of short opener and longer main concert? Works great. Blended music/performance art/game night? Also works great.  

Intimate setting → high engagement – in addition to a generally friendly crowd, the size and character of most house show venues creates a unique energy. Even a twenty-person show in a living room, basement, or backyard can feel like a packed house. There is a high level of interaction/participation from the audience, and people love to be able to meet and support artists who are “early” in their career.

It’s a hot ticket – living room concerts are an infrequent invite for most people to receive, so there is a special kind of intrigue and buzz that goes with them. People love the feeling of exclusivity that comes from a word-of-mouth invite – even if they’ve never heard of the artist and have no idea what they’re in for.

Build a core audience – doing a couple shows a year in a given city creates a baseline of highly engaged fans who have had a unique and memorable experience with you. The numbers are small, but the contact is meaningful. At least a portion of every show’s audience will be net new people whose contact information you will now have for any future touring and promotional efforts.

Finding hosts

Still, the shows don’t book themselves. So how does it work?

To find hosts and schedule shows for my most recent tour, I relied almost entirely on my email list, which is where I have the most engagement for my audience. A few months ahead of the planned start, I got the ball rolling with a simple email soliciting interested hosts with a bit of context (size/format of shows, target cities, example content, etc). In my case, email was best, but any platform will work where you know you have real engagement with actual listeners. You can use streaming platform or social media data to get an idea for which cities could support what type and number of shows, but I generally believe that if you’ve got a host, you’ve got a show (more on that below).

So it starts with making the ask wherever you’ve got a large, engaged funnel (this could literally even be blasting your old group texts – I’m not above it). There is definitely some DIY wood-chopping required to finalize dates (especially if you’re doing multiple shows in one city). But once a few of them come into focus, I find it’s best to commit rather than trying to overly optimize.

In the same way that an invite to a house show is a hot ticket, hosting one has cachet and is a great alternative to a regular old dinner party. I’ve been surprised by how many people are interested in hosting once the ask is out there – and the number only grows as you share content and updates about shows you’ve already done. Even if it seems daunting at first, people quickly realize that it’s actually not a huge lift (especially if guests are asked to bring drinks, food, and chairs).

In the early days, the host list may end up being more “friends” than “fans” – but within a few shows you will likely have more offers to host from people you’ve never met (audience members, people following your updates, etc). And even if there isn’t perfect overlap between your listeners and your friends, you can get creative about ways to frame and/or market the shows so that the right people end up there.

Butts in seats

Perhaps even more than many small venues, living room shows have a built-in audience – the hosts’ network of friends. In addition to pinging your own channels to market the shows, you can lean on your hosts to bring new people that otherwise might never have heard of you. Some hosts (shout out to my Type A people) will want to do the invites/guest management themselves, and others will appreciate you giving them a standardized template for the invites and RSVPs.

A simple blast with a tool like Google Forms with a two- or three-question survey can quickly get you a baseline pulse of interest levels and attendance. Good email list hygiene is no doubt very helpful here, because it allows you to ping people specifically for a city/show rather than spamming everyone for every show. But it also shouldn’t take too many follow-ups to get the guest list configured. And of course, since it’s a word-of-mouth show to begin with, encouraging people to bring friends can get some good bang-for-buck on outreach. Once you draft that first email (plus follow-ups) and create a survey, you can repurpose them for every other show.

To charge or not to charge?

Without opening a whole can of worms about the economics of touring, it’s worth noting that living room/house shows generally have low overhead. The shows don’t need to be staffed (unless you’ve landed a fancy host with a mansion), and the most expensive part of the sound setup is likely a rental PA and maybe a baseline of drinks and food to whet the whistles. And I really do believe that having even a small number (~100) highly engaged fans in a city who had a unique experience of your performance is super valuable. They are primed for merch sales, future promotions, and becoming advocates for you as you grow.

People also take great pride in their homes and often use these shows as an excuse to finish renovations, tidy up, and make cool additions to their spaces. I recently had a host who decided to finish painting his basement for one of my concerts and ended up also adding a removable curtain and turning some ceiling lights into spotlights by taping them with rolled up tin foil. It created a true underground club vibe, with no investment needed on my part (and minimal on his part).

Still, flights/travel and setup have a cost, and guests are totally happy to pay in some way. Many states/cities have specific licensing requirements to be a “venue” that can sell tickets, drinks, etc. The general way to avoid any headaches is to have *suggested donations* that support the artists (rather than “tickets”) – with the general understanding that some people will give more and some may give less.

Fundamentally, it’s also a question of vibe – certain hosts/crowds may not want the transactional feeling of “tickets,” whereas others will be constantly asking how they can support you or contribute. Selling merch to these highly engaged audiences (either during the evening or after, via a follow-up) is also a great way to capitalize without blowing up the energy of the show by passing the hat.

Final Thoughts: How To Tour Without a Booking Agent

It can be tempting to overly formalize a “tour,” but informality is core to the appeal of house concerts. Small touches like doing a real soundcheck, being thoughtful about seating, and tailoring start times to the audience/day of week can go a long way. But the main goal is to get in front of great people and play the best show you can. For me, the best way to do that is to find people who like throwing parties, have tons of friends, and ideally don’t hate your music!

HYPEBOT PRO TIP

You may may be booking a tour without a booking agent, but that doesn’t mean that your tour marketing should be as strong as possible.

While some house concerts are considered private events, many are not. Ask the host first, but always post and promote public shows using the free listings and tools available at Bandsintown For Artists including distribution to Spotify, YouTube, Google. Apple. Shazam, Bandsintown.com and more.

How to Book a 10 City Living Room Tour Without a Booking Agent first appeared on Hypebot.com