After 8 Years of Side Door, Here's What Still Drives Us
Side Door is 8 years old.
The reason for starting Side Door was a response to a need. Now, it feels like a compulsion. The need is greater. The reasons people play live and go to see live shows often include the need for respite or the desire to share space and emotion when they just can’t manage on their own. When I go to live shows these days, especially since COVID (while global leaders make life-changing decisions for people they don’t seem to care about), there’s a collective relief. We feel pain, sorrow, grief, love, courage - all together. It’s hard to feel these feelings alone. It’s hard to deal with life alone! When we go to a show, we are having a group experience to work through those feelings. Maybe that’s why I still like to mosh?
Ever notice the big shows are mostly nostalgia driven now? Sure, nostalgia is a feeling too. But it’s a feeling of the past. It’s a balm. It’s numbing. It’s harkening back to ‘a better time’. There’s a time and place for nostalgia, no question. (I am still mad I didn’t get my Dad to John Prine.) But, in my opinion, the role of the artist is to capture the current moment, the vibe of the community, region, culture. It speaks to you and helps you make sense of what is, not what was.
And that’s where the compulsion comes in. I still, after all these years, am frustrated by the number of amazing artists with great music and incredible, DIVERSE perspectives that still can’t find a place to play live. More venues have shut down, more are pay-to-play and others have been scooped up by multi-nationals. Nearly 3500 hosts have profiles on Side Door - cafés, taprooms, parks, homes, community halls, churches, - incredible spots! But only 16% of those hosts have actually hosted a show. Despite all the things we’ve tried, it’s still really hard to get folks to set up their first show.
But inspiring things are happening. I’ve watched artists take the bull by the horns and find their own venues, ticketing and promoting with us to help manage the bookings and support the shows. Eric Kane recently booked himself 17 dates in western Canada (stay tuned for a full report on how he did it.), selling out cafés and plant shops to listening audiences who gave feedback like,
“Amazing. Heartfelt and soulful. Thank you for bringing us along to heal, love but most importantly live in the now.”
We know that to increase the number of people hosting shows, artists need to help us find these places and maybe even help them set up their first show. We help educate the host, manage the audience needs and ensure payouts are secure. To support this, we’ve removed our 10% commission from shows. Now, 100% of the ticket revenue goes to the show creators — however they choose to split it. We simply charge a small fee to the audience per ticket sold and that keeps the booking part free. This model gives artists and hosts more to work with when negotiating splits and ensures Side Door works as hard as possible to book shows and sell tickets!
Our vision and mission has not changed much since Dan Mangan (who just did his own string of Side Door shows) and I started this back in 2017:
The vision for Side Door is to promote a closer connection between people and art and their community across Canada.
The mission of Side Door is to provide creators with a meaningful revenue stream and attentive audience, to provide hosts with support and incredible access to talent and to provide audiences with intimate and accessible experiences with artists.
The amazing addition to those statements is we’ve been fortunate enough to host shows all over the world. And now, you can use our booking and/or ticketing at no cost to you.
8 years. 3000 shows. So much more to do. And always striving for that feeling of catharsis at the end of the show.
With hope,
❤️ Laura
