Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: house concerts

[Lynn Nadeau / Maraiah (welcome]

RoseWind Cohousing, Port Townsend WA. 
Writer from Songaia refers to an in-house talent-optional show, in response to 
the inquiry about "house concerts". Here, we use the latter term for 
performances by artists from outside the cohousing community, sometimes local 
musicians, sometimes folks from out of town. We've had such gatherings about 
three times a year, I'd say. Our dining room, set up theater style, seats about 
60. 

As we don't simply rent out our common house as a venue (for anything), a house 
concert, like any not-just-RoseWind event at the common house, needs a member 
sponsor. A sponsor must be present start to finish, including set up and clean 
up, and is responsible for all the details: house rules (no pets, no street 
shoes, no fragrances, alcohol not left unattended but taken home after the 
event), orderly parking, exit aisles, heat, resetting the furniture, left and 
lost: there's a whole checklist. 

Because being a sponsor for a concert is a fair amount of work,  the sponsor 
typically has some personal connection to the performers or type of music. So 
in that regard it wouldn't be just a matter of a series of performers making a 
tour of cohousing venues, and just having a date for a show. So I don't think 
we'd be a good place for that. On the other hand, if a particular performing 
group is popular in cohousing circles, and is doing shows around the Puget 
Sound/ Seattle area, they could contact us to see if someone would be motivated 
to do the work of sponsoring them. 

Maraiah Lynn Nadeau
at RoseWind, where December sees lots of common house use: Audubon Bird Count 
party, English Country Dancing, Quaker holiday potluck, gatherings of 
individual families or groups of friends, the usual meetings --of our 
committees and business meeting, political issue groups, art group, choral 
group, meals 2x week --plus our holiday party and gift exchange, Dec 25 big 
organized potluck with friends and family, New Year's Eve snacks and games,