Booking Info
Booking
If you are interested in consideration for a booking in the Valley Folk concert series please contact Debra Chesman or (607) 962-4461 ...but read this first:
Valley Folk is a long-running folk concert series which serves a three county area (Steuben, Chemung and Schuyler) in and around Corning and Elmira, New York. We also draw a few from other surrounding counties, like Tompkins and also the Northern Tier of Pennsylvania.
We try to create a rather intimate performance space and usually draw an average audience of 50 + people per performance (with a range of from 36 to 90 people). We are sometimes grant supported, sometimes not, so the math doesn't always make sense when it comes to fees we pay and accessible door prices.
We are looking for traditional or traditionally-oriented musicians or any musical traditions. Acts with harmony singing go over especially well. If you are a singer-songwriter and your songs are only about your feelings with no stories to tell, then you might not be what we are looking for--or at least not very often.
We use various sound systems depending on the performance. If you have equipment that we can use for your concert it can save some expense, so please let us know. If not, we are often able to borrow quality equipment from volunteers and/or other local music organizations. However, sometimes we do end up spending money renting equipment--and a sound engineer--which increases our costs for a concert. We do have terrific sound engineers who will make sure you sound good.
We rely on volunteer home hospitality with real beds and bedrooms. If you absolutely require a hotel, then let us know about this, too, before we talk money. (By the way, if it's a NASCAR weekend at Watkins Glen, there will probably not be any hotel rooms available!)
We can happily share you for a weekend with other NY State venues in Albany, Saratoga, Adirondacks, NYC, Schenectady, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Bethlehem (PA), or other New England places. Even Baltimore, Maryland is only 4.5 hours from here. We only rarely share with nearby cities such as Binghamton or Ithaca because of audience overlap, so we don't share automatically and not without prior agreement. If you want to share a weekend with a venue in Ithaca or Binghamton, best to declare that before we negotiate a deal. If you choose to book those locations after we have a deal, then our deal becomes null and void and will have to be re-negotiated.
If you don't have a Web site, and/or do not have professional photos, you will have convince us about how you can make our job of publicizing you easy. If your bio doesn't mention what your music sounds like, please be prepared to write a blurb for us to use. We have to be able to tell the audience what to expect and get them interested enough to come to the concert. This is especially important if you are coming as part of a collaboration that is different from your solo work and the collaboration does not have its own, dedicated Web site. We are in this together, so we have to help each other by bringing the right tools to the partnership.
We aim to run seven to nine concerts a year, roughly a month apart on Saturday nights or Sunday afternoons, although Friday nights are not completely out of the question. For us to deviate from that, you'd better be well known and offering us a fantastic deal or have another organization in mind for us to co-sponsor the event. If you are unknown and coming through town on a random night, we might be able to offer you a free guest room bed--but maybe not a concert. If you do school shows, we could pass your material on to the local schools and see if we can coordinate.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Debra Chesman
Valley Folk
friends of traditional arts
Corning, NY, USA