Austin
Sagebrush
South Congress honky-tonk. Two rooms, late sets, no cover on the back stage.
5500 S Congress Ave, Austin, TX 78745
Capacity
250
Member benefits
Member rate on the back room for private sessions.
Founding membership — first 20 members, $15/mo
A Guild show is only as good as the room it happens in. These are the venues we work with across Austin: rooms with proper sound, a staff that understands live music, and owners who would rather book a vouched artist than gamble on an inbox submission. Members play them, members drink in them, and in most cases members are looked after at the door and at the bar.
South Congress honky-tonk. Two rooms, late sets, no cover on the back stage.
5500 S Congress Ave, Austin, TX 78745
250
Member rate on the back room for private sessions.
The room above the shop. Fifty seats, one microphone, nowhere to hide.
Mythic Guitar Company, Austin, TX
60
Guild After Dark happens here. Members first, always.
South Austin outdoor stage under the oaks. Room to breathe, real sound.
8504 S Congress Ave, Austin, TX 78745
400
Members skip the line and drink at happy-hour pricing all night.
A booking that arrives already vetted, already promoted, and already carrying an audience.
Most venue bookings are a wager. An artist emails, the calendar has a hole, and nobody knows until doors whether thirty people turn up or three hundred. The Guild exists to take that wager off the table. Every artist we put forward has been verified by us: we have heard them, we know their typical draw, we know how many are in the band, and we know they will load in on time and treat your staff properly.
We also bring the audience. Guild members attend Guild shows as part of what they pay for, so a Guild night starts with a floor rather than hoping for one. On top of that we handle the promotion for each show — the calendar listing, the newsletter, the social posts, the posters and the press — at no cost to the room.
The division of labour is deliberately simple. The Guild brings verified artists, an audience and the marketing. The venue brings the room, the bar and production. Neither side is asked to do the other’s job, and neither side is asked to carry the other’s risk.
Commercially we are flexible, and we are not precious about it. Straight room rental, a door split, a percentage of bar above an agreed baseline, or a hybrid of those — we have structures for all of them and we will build the one that suits how your room actually makes its money. Those terms are settled per venue and per night rather than published, because a Tuesday in a ninety-capacity listening room and a Saturday in a four-hundred-capacity hall are not the same deal and should not pretend to be.
What we ask for in return is consistency: a date we can build a series around, sound that does the artist justice, and a willingness to look after Guild members when they are in the room rather than on the stage. In exchange you get a night that fills, a reputation for treating musicians well, and footage of your room at its best.
Deal structures include room rental, door splits and bar percentages. We will talk numbers on a call, against your room and your night, rather than against a rate card.
Talk to us about your roomThe inner circle
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