A lot goes into throwing a house party. A lot goes into putting on a concert. Now, combine both of those and imagine upwards of 30 people, plus a band and all of its gear in your living room.
Exhausting, right?
Residents of local venue The Flat have dealt with all of these intricacies on a nearly monthly basis for the past eight years.
The Flat has been hosting concerts in its living room since 2011. While the occupants of The Flat have changed in that time, they have kept the tradition of hosting shows and weekly community dinners
since the inception of the house as a community hub.
“The house gets transformed every once in a while. We don’t host shows too often that it starts to wear on us, but it is a lot of work. We tried doing multiple shows a month last year because there was a lot of interest, but that was a bit much, so we’ve limited ourselves to once a month,” said Kaden Kopas, who is the longest standing tenant in the Flat, living there since September 2016.
Lyden Hayes-Sparks, who moved into the house just last September, is one of the newest occupants of The Flat. Although his experience living there is limited and he just participated in his first show last week, he said he loves the community dinners he and his roommates host.
“It’s been awesome. We keep trying to get people to come over every week for dinners, but some are more successful than others. One roommate is usually in charge of making dinner and promoting it on our Facebook page. After dinner, we’ll play board games or watch a movie. We mix and mingle–meet new people, it’s fun.”
Kopas said they are continuing to build off of what past residents laid the foundation for.
“The house was well established by the time I came in, from the people here before us. We’ve been trying to continue that in a lot of ways as well as adapting as things change throughout the years.”
Artists find out about the venue mostly through word of mouth according to Kopas and they are often approached by artists who are looking for another place to play between larger shows.
“We collect $10 at the door from everybody, all of that money goes straight to the artist. If turnout is a little bit low, we’ll also pitch in from our bottle fund because we know it’s expensive to drive those big vans across the country. Artists are often looking for places to play earlier in the week when they aren’t playing at bars. The fact that we can give them a meal and a place to stay really cuts down on their costs and they appreciate that,” said Kopas.
With an average of 30 people for concerts and on occasion up to 100 people, that can amount to a hefty chunk of money going straight towards touring artists.
The Flat hasn’t announced its next show yet but said something is always in the works and its community dinners are held weekly on either Monday or Friday.
Keep an eye on their Facebook page at facebook.com/TheFlatLethbridge for upcoming dinners and concerts.