Hosting a House Concert

Have you ever attended a house concert or hosted one in your home? It begins with an open door and smile that says “Come in, make yourself at home, there’s a space for you here”. You pushed the coffee table to the side, lined up mismatched chairs, rearranged the lighting and your home feels like it was meant for something like this, a night when music and people find each other in the same place.

A house concert is a kind of beautiful that sneaks up on you. Like how the sky slowly turns pink just before sunset. Like how the best conversations seem to happen after everyone’s forgotten to check the time. So the evening unfolds gently,?without barriers—?no stage separating the musician from those gathered. Songs are shared like stories passed between neighbors over a fence. Listeners, seated close and unguarded, receive the music as one receives rain after a dry season—welcoming it deeply, as if it were rain after a long drought, needed more than anyone realized.

And when the songs end, there is no rush to leave. People linger—lingering being as much a part of the experience as the music itself. Conversations arise that might not happen elsewhere—conversations about life, faith, joy, and struggle. In those moments, it becomes clear that the concert was never about the music alone, but about what the music allowed: the weaving together of lives, however briefly, in a spirit of kindness and shared experience.

A house concert isn’t just an event; it’s a seedbed for community. It’s the creation of something beyond music—a place where art touches life and where people remember the joy of being together. Hosting one isn’t just about the evening itself; it’s about opening doors to a longer, deeper story—one where music becomes the thread that binds us all together.

And for those who attend, they don’t leave with a memory of having seen a band. They leave with the sense of having been part of something greater—a moment in time when songs became more than sound, and strangers became companions.

My friend, Andrew Peterson and I, along with some other friends, created and operate a web site that facilitates house concerts called Host & Artist.

Host&Artist is more than a web site, it is a opportunity to be part of a thousand moments of creation. Check it our and let me know what you think.

Cheers