Fellow Bristol Risers, Mike Seery and I are poised to build on the success of our Ingraham House Concert Series–held here in our historic mansion on Summer Street–and create a live music venue that echoes the intimacy and homey-ness of the shows we offer in our grand foyer, but for a larger audience.
We have been bringing the music lighter, quicker, and cheaper with our house shows, enjoying fantastic live music in our home while testing the market for live music in Bristol. If we feel the market is there, we will move forward with our plans to take this endeavor to the next level.
We are talking about a small venue–capacity of 200-300–that, like Infinity Hall, will book great music and entertainment. Unlike Infinity Hall, however, we want to create a casual, intimate experience for both artists and audience. Any of you who have been to one of our house shows will know exactly what I’m talking about. We want you and the performers to make yourselves at home.
We will serve delicious gourmet food, but not necessarily plated food that you need utensils to eat. We will serve wine and beer, but not hard liquor. We aim to be family friendly. Most shows will be “all ages.”
We call our house shows “The Ingraham House Concert Series” because we hold them in our beautiful home that was built by William S. Ingraham in 1890 and we are inviting people to celebrate both wonderful live music and this incredible house with us. We’re thinking of calling the new, larger venue “Bristol House,” because it would be Bristol’s place to celebrate with fantastic live music and entertainment.
Here’s what we need from you:
1. We need you to like this so we can replace the generic “Live Music Venue” entry that currently has 161 likes.
2. We need you to suggest a name for the venue–we like “Bristol House,” but maybe you can come up with a name that better conveys what we’re trying to accomplish. Bring it!
3. We need you to tell us what kinds of music you want to hear. We know what we like to listen to, and we’ll book that all day long, but we don’t know what YOU want to hear, and you’re our audience. Without you, we’re going nowhere fast. Tell us what you love!
4. Most importantly, we need to see you at our shows. We have three shows left in our Summer Concert Series–7/15 Jamie Kent & The Options, 8/12 Milano, and 8/26 The Press Gang–and we’re already booking for the fall–Driftwood will be back 11/12! We’ve just started this thing and our turnout gets better with each show, but we need to KNOW there’s a market for a live music venue in Bristol. We need to hit capacity–that’s 100 people for our house shows–again and again and again before we’ll know it’s time to take the next step. Let’s face it. If we can’t consistently draw 100 people to our shows, Bristol just can’t sustain a live music venue.
Thus far we’ve booked great roots music and folk music, we’ve booked fantastic acoustic rock and jazz fusion, we’ve even booked an incredible traditional Irish music band. We’ve kicked things up a volume and intensity notch or three with Milano, a great indie rock band from Chicago. I’ve got The Wood Brothers and Ben Sollee in my sights, as well as local greats Caravan of Thieves. If we can fit ‘em, we can book ‘em–if we can pay ‘em. WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT!
Like this entry. Like our Facebook page. Come to our shows. Bring your friends and make new ones here!
Let’s make some magic happen in Bristol!
Visit Ingraham House’s Web Site for upcoming events
Looking to experience some live Celtic music? Like this entry and this comment and we’ll make it happen. And don’t miss The Press Gang on August 26th…
Looking to experience some live R&B? Like this entry and this comment and we’ll make it happen.
Looking to experience some live singers and songwriters? Like this entry and this comment and we’ll make it happen.
Looking to experience some live rock and roll? Like this entry and this comment and we’ll make it happen…as soon as we can fit all that beautiful noise into the appropriate space.
Looking to experience some live indie rock? Like this entry and this comment and we’ll make it happen.