We started concerts in their current form in August 2016 and spent about a year building contacts, a reputation and momentum.
- We hosted Hat Fitz and Cara in November 2017 and they attracted our biggest audience to that point of a bit over 100
- Prior to that the biggest concert was Les Poules a Colin (CAN) in March 2017, who got 80+
Hat Fitz and Cara marked the start of a run of concerts with an average attendance of 75+, peaking with Ten Strings And A Goatskin in April 2018.
- The run included 19 Twenty with about 80, Dan Walsh (UK) with 70+, Faith i Branko (UK/EUR) 90, Flats and Sharps (UK) 79 and ended with The Paul McKenna Band (SCO) on June 1st 2018 who got 80+ along
- The Ten Strings And A Goatskin audience was 128+ 15 children and they took home $1900 from ticket sales
Audiences continued to grow and peaked at just over 150 for The Northern Folk in January 2019. That marks bout the practical limit for indoor concerts.
COVID Times
Like every venue we had to close for COVID. When we restarted we went with outdoor shows to allow us to host a decent sized audience, whilst complying with health and safety measures.
Outdoor Concerts
The post-COVID outshows were so popular that we’ve try for them (but not in La Nina times!)
Winter
Historically audience numbers drop significantly for winter, probably because it’s cold and dark and people are more reluctant to come out. As a result for winters (June/July/early August) our plans will be by preference to go with artists who can do a weekend afternoon show, when it’s warmer in the hall and people will be more likely to come out.
Audience Make Up
A significant number of people in the valley are tree changers from Sydney and some of us go to festivals regularly. Music tastes are eclectic and we’re open to most things. We’re obviously older and a bit different to your archetypal, city audience, but we still like a good time and the chance to dance around a bit.
So if you have a quiet or rocky version of your set(s), we’d usually go for ‘rocky’ by preference, at least to end the night with.