Founding membership — first 20 members, $15/mo
The Showcase is the member stage. Five Guild artists play twenty minutes apiece on a properly run night: real sound, real lighting, multi-camera video and a photographer in the pit. Industry guests are in the room by invitation, and every artist leaves with footage they own and can use.
Twenty minutes is a deliberate length. It is long enough to show what an artist does — four or five songs, an arc, a reason to stay — and short enough that five acts fit into an evening without the room thinning out by the last one. Nobody is a support act. The running order is decided on how the night should feel, not on who is most important.
Production is the part most member showcases get wrong. Ours is engineered rather than tolerated: a proper front-of-house engineer, a monitor mix an artist can actually sing against, lighting that has been designed for the room rather than left on a house preset, and a soundcheck that happens on schedule so nobody is warming up in a corridor.
Every set is filmed on multiple cameras with a direct board feed, and a photographer works the whole night. Within a few weeks each artist receives their own footage and stills. They own them outright — the Guild takes no rights in the recordings and no rights in the music. Use them for press, for booking, for a label, for a video; we do not need to be asked.
Industry guests attend by invitation. Bookers, venue owners, managers, engineers, label people and press are put on the list rather than left to find us, and they are in the room to watch rather than to be pitched at. Nobody is made to perform a networking ritual. The point is that the work is seen by people in a position to act on it.
Guild members are admitted free, as with every show in the calendar. The Showcase is not an extra a member has to pay for.
No submission fee, no favours, and no obligation to have a following already.
Only verified Guild members are eligible. Verification means we have heard the material and confirmed the basics — who is in the band, what they play and how they work. It is a standard, not a filter on popularity.
We programme each night as a whole rather than ranking applicants. Five acts have to sit together across an evening, so genre, instrumentation, tempo and draw all bear on who is booked for which date.
A member who has played a Showcase steps back so the next one can play. Over a season the stage is meant to move through the membership, not settle on the same five names.
Members register interest once and stay in consideration for the season rather than reapplying each month. If a date does not suit, say so — being unavailable for one night has no bearing on the next. We tell people where they stand instead of leaving them to guess.
Members free at the door. Everyone else is welcome at the public price.
The inner circle
Limited runs, shop specials and setup tips from the bench — straight from Austin, no spam, unsubscribe anytime.