HOW ABOUT A HOME CONCERT?

 

 

 

"FRIENDS AND GOOD MANNERS WILL

CARRY YOU WHERE MONEY

WON'T GO"

      Margret Walker

 

 

 

     Have you every just wanted to have some friends over, or a lot, for a nice evening but want to avoid dull and boring conversation?  What about a HOME CONCERT? 

     Many people think you have to have a lot of money or connections to get professional entertainers to come do parties or events.  Well there is a type of concert that many entertainers will do as they travel through from one gig to another.  Many of these entertainers are in Folk, Bluegrass, Western, and Acoustic music.  These are entertainers that really love to get to know their fans and are at home setting in the lawn chair in the backyard as in a fancy hotel suite.

     We have a backyard concert twice a year, if we can, and have friends of mine in Western music perform.  We let everyone know what is going on and when.  We make the concert into a pot luck supper so we don't have to figure out what to cook.  We tell everyone to bring one dish and their lawn chair.

     We generally do this on a weeknight because the artists generally have a paying gig on Saturday nights.  We have anywhere from 50 to150 people show up.  But you can do it on the space you have.  Nobody fails to have a good time.

     To make it worth the artists time we put out a jar and all the money donated goes to the artist.  We do not take any part of it.  We, also, put them up for the night and feed breakfast the next morning.  This saves them some expense and let us get to know them better.

      This works well for individual artists and duos.  But we have had all four members of the Diamond W Wranglers here.  I have friends in the Western Music Association that are traveling through here from New Orleans, Albuquerque, and Dallas.  We all have a great time.

     So how can you have a concert at your place?  Simple.  Through the Big Rural Brainstorm that the Kansas Sampler Foundation sponsors there is a group of us that formed KAN-REN (Kansas Rural Entertainment Network).  For now it is a Facebook page.  Like the group and you can find names of entertainers and make connections with people who have had these events for information.

     You do not have to be the richest person in the community to have a good time with good music.  Oh and it is more than music.  We have members who are Cowboy Poets and ventriloquists.

     Remember to LIKE KANSAS RURAL ENTERTAINMENT NETWORK (KAN-REN).