Over the weekend I was playing at one of my regular haunts. It is a small place in a little village like community within the larger city.

This was the first weekend for a new owner of the place and she was excited to be welcoming a whole new crowd. She told me to expect a big turn out because she had invited lots of the people in her social circle.

Strangely it was very quiet when I arrived a little early for my Sunday afternoon gig. But it turns out that she had told her friends that the show started promptly at 2:00 and sure enough the place was nearly-full at 2:00.

This was a completely different crowd for this place. All were speaking a non-English language, chatting and enjoying the food, the ambiance and, each other's company.

The place is normally quiet when it is bright and sunny out, and it was bright and sunny and a Sunday of a long holiday weekend. There was a huge parade going on in the center of town so I wasn't expecting many people. This crowd was a surprise. There were some but not many of the regulars who took it all in stride. We also had street-traffic, people looking in to see what was going on and some came in and filled the last remaining seats. Others looked in, stepped in the door, turned around and left.

Between songs we (the audience and I) congratulated the new owner, enjoyed the local holiday spirit and we figured out that if we totalled the ages of all the kids in the room, they were still younger than my duo partner's Violin. Sadly, between the two of us, our ages exceed that of the Violin.

Partway through the afternoon, partway through a set, there was an odd shift. About a third of the people in the room moved to the back of the space and the people back there moved forward.

The background noise level dropped significantly although from what I could see, the overall activity level was unchanged.

This was probably the weirdest thing I've seen in some time. A self-organizing organic audience. I mean, I have seen people rearrange furniture. That happens all the time, and it happened as people were arriving that day too. The individual tables for two and four were rearranged in groups of eight or twelve here and there. But this thing of groups of people visibly flowing around was new.

During the next break I wandered among the people at the back of the room, just chatting.
"How are you?"
"Did you come far today?"
"Did you bring other people or plan to meet them here?"
"You all appear to know one another, how is that?"

That kind of thing.

Then I asked one person with whom I had struck up a rapport, "Was it too loud up front for you?"

She apologized on behalf of all of the people who had moved. She said they were sorry if they disrupted things and that they had tried to be quiet. Indeed they had been. If I had not been watching them, I probably would not have noticed because the whole transition was very quiet.

I assured her that it was not a problem, but I was just curious what had happened.

"Oh, they all speak a different language", she said gesturing to the front. "We all moved here so we could talk, and they could talk and not have to talk over each other".

She went on, "We can hear you just fine,... (more nice compliments here), and it was good over there too".

By the end of the afternoon, the new owner was exhausted and happy. Her friends had left en masse immediately after the show was over. On the way out, someone from each table came to me, introduced him or herself, asked for a business card, offered me one in return and as they gave me the card they pressed a tightly folded bill into my hand.

It was a very nice way to break-in a new crowd in an old venue.

You know ST it is always refreshing when something new comes along. I think we have been doing this for so long that we take it for granted. We feel that we have seen it all and done it all. It is nice when something like this gets your attention. It sounded like a wonderful afternoon and seems you have opened a door onto a whole new fan base. Roy

Very nice story ST! Cool - and thanks for sharing it with us...

I may have one in a few weeks, after our Eagles and Elvis show coming up - strangest combination ever!

Mike

Good, the organic audience is developing. Whenever we hear posts about "not loud enough for the back of the room", I have always said...let those who want to hear, move up front, the others will move to the back. That has usually been my experience, although maybe not a surprisingly noticeable as your situation.

It's kind of cool when you're part of something that is weird & inexplicable - a nice change & a reminder that life is always wonderful.

Tom

Hi ST,

Thanks for the great story. It reminds me that people, in general, tend to segregate themselves into the groups they are comfortable with. (No US politics here - I mean "We're here to listen to the music" Vs. "We're here to chat and catch up" or "We're here with a bunch of friends from work" Vs. "We're here to party and meet people") I believe most gatherings become self-organizing groups.

Now that you've had this explicit example, I'm wondering if it brings to mind less-obvious examples from other gigs for you? I know it did for me. In fact, I can recall a couple 'self-organizing organic' events at Little Switzerland - even tho' we were all there for a common, shared purpose, it seems to me we still behaved along these lines for various events.

V/R,
PmP