Booking
The Treehouse is committed to bringing fresh and diverse music to our discerning community.
While we welcome local talent on occasion, our emphasis is on luring national name acts that our patrons would otherwise have to take a ferry to Seattle to see. We have worked hard and succeeded in putting The Treehouse on the touring map for many agencies and artists that have never played on the Island before, such as Greg Brown, The Moondoggies, James McMurtry, and Fred Eaglesmith!
While we respect grassroot folk music, there are plenty of open mics and coffee houses locally, so we do not seek to repeat that. We are not a place for new talent to cut their teeth either—in order for us to pay our expenses, bands playing The Treehouse must demonstrate:
- Experience playing live.
- Experience drawing fans.
- Professionalism in their promotion and presentation.
Booking Guidelines:
Repeat Bookings:
The peculiar pool of patrons on Bainbridge is a small and discriminating one. They come out in good numbers to see acts they’ve never seen on the Island before, but once their curiosity is satisfied, they rarely come back for the same act again, unless it has been a while. Even acts that sell out their first time on the Island have been known to draw scarcely half that number if they come back to the well too often. As a result, we as a rule do not invite a band back more than once a year. The audience simply needs time to recharge.
Our priorities in considering acts are basic and twofold:
- Is the act well crafted?
- Does it have a following?
Acts should have been gigging out a while, road tested. We typically get our bookings from national touring agencies, with many of our bands having support structure, road managers, publicity staff, etc., such as Amy LaVere or Fred Eaglesmith. They should be able to demonstrate their experience and music samples. Typically, if they are not professionally managed, this is done via professionally presented websites that include tour calendars, reviews, bios, music samples and reliable contact information. We read all our emails, and respond when we are interested. Please understand we get a lot of requests, so if you do not receive an answer, it probably means we aren’t interested, and please don’t take it personally.
Booking:
Please make initial contact via email at booking@treehousebainbridge.com. Include links to your website, music samples, bio, reviews, and a calendar of recent gigs.
Other promotional material can be mailed to:
Treehouse Café, Attn: Booking
4569 Lynwood Center Road NE
Bainbridge Island, WA 98110
Important:
Due to the volume of requests, we don’t respond unless interested, and we can’t provide reasons or evaluations of a band’s merit—we are not professional managers. While we try to be eclectic in our lineup, in the end our decisions are subjective, though not personal.