What You Need To Know About Getting Booked at The Handlebar

The Handlebar is a destination-location that relies mostly on national and regional touring acts with substantial "marquee value." Our goal is to book bands that come as close as possible to filling our 500-seat venue, while also fulfilling our expectations of musical excellence and professionalism. Since 1994, The Handlebar has presented more than 2,000 concerts and has built strong relationships with many national booking agents.

Twelve years later and recognized as one of the top listening rooms (and rock venues) in the Southeast, if not the country, The Handlebar each year receives more than 3,000 queries from bands, artists and agencies -- to fill fewer than 400 slots (headliner and support). With the explosion of myspace.com, it's even easier for bands to send mass e-mails to venues. Help us help you. We're a small business, your band is a small business. How can your small business improve ours?

National Agencies and Touring Bands:

The Handlebar offers national bands a non-smoking medium-sized theater with a professional sound system and house sound technician. The Listening Room is separate from the adjacent bar and restaurant. Our acoustic shows are quiet and intimate. Our rock shows are intimate, too. We've presented everyone from Pat Metheny Trio to Chevelle, Sevendust to Joan Baez, Alter Bridge to Tower of Power, Little River Band and Little Feat to Gillian Welch and Ricky Skaggs to Nickel Creek and John Mayer. (Check About Us for a more complete list of performers.) We sell tickets ranging from just $5 to our high (so far) of $30; we don't have a "cover charge" and don't consider ourselves a "nightclub."

We boast a large stage (28' wide by 26' deep), and two dressing rooms with a private restroom. Our capacity is 500, and we can seat 500 people. We can get rid of the chairs for a rock 'n' roll show or arrange the room with a combination of seating and standing room. We offer easy load-in and load-out and convenient bus-and-trailer parking. We're also a great routing venue, within a two-hour drive of Atlanta and Charlotte and a do-able ride from The Birchmere in northern Virginia or Skipper's Smokehouse and the Tampa Theater in Tampa.

Nearly all bands take advantage of and enjoy our in-house menu; we offer other hospitality within reason. We advance all hospitality and tech requests with road management by phone or via e-mail at handlebar@handlebar-online.com. Directions are available here. The Handlebar tries to arrange bookings at least six to eight weeks out. On occasion, we may have some last-minute slots available.

Local Bands:

We do not accept unsolicited demo kits and press packets. Why? We lost one, and it was the band's only copy. Truthfully, we get more inquiries than we can handle, and it's not fair to accept your material if we can't give it the attention it deserves.

Singer/Songwriters and Solo/Acoustic Performers:

Unfortunately, many solo and acoustic performers don't have the fan-base in the South to warrant playing a venue as large as The Handlebar. Ray Guenthner and Chip Radford provide excellent outlets for singer/songwriters and solo/acoustic performers with their AcousticSeen/Coffee Underground and UU Church series. Please visit http://www.undergroundfolk.com and http://www.acousticseen.com for more information. We also encourage you to check with Robert Seiler at the Purple Onion in Saluda, NC: http://www.purpleonionsaluda.com. A franchise of Cheeseburger in Paradise also recently opened in Greenville. Jimbo Chapman has asked that we have interested performers contact him at  jimbochap@gmail.com

...So How Do You Get Booked at The Handlebar?

John Jeter, talent buyer

If you're interested in an opening slot, keep in mind that many national acts bring their own support. However, keep an eye on the calendar page of our website. If you see somebody you want to open for, send an e-mail query to handlebar@handlebar-online.com. If you know one of the bands booked at The Handlebar, contact the band or their management, and have them bring you along! Don't be discouraged if you get a "no." Unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer opening slots available.

For booking local/regional bands, contact Andrew White

What Else?

• Make sure to visit The Handlebar. We're not going to be impressed if you live around the corner (or even within an hour's drive) and have never been here!


• Have a good look around our web site instead of picking up the phone. Familiarize yourself with who we are, who we book and what we look for. Then come see what the venue looks like and stay to hear a show.


• Consider this: most of the hundreds of local bands we've presented have promised to "pack the place." Though we don't doubt their sincerity, almost none have. The Handlebar has no built-in crowd. We're not a bar, and we're not a trendy nightclub. We book artists based on their "marquee value" in Greenville and their ability to promote their own shows. If folks don't know you, they won't pay for a ticket to hear you. Send us an email at handlebar@handlebar-online.com if you can reasonably guarantee us at least 200 paying customers. And don't forget to support Greenville's music scene yourself! That helps us both!