“Nobody goes there – it’s too crowded!” said Yogi Berra (probably).
For a few months, I have been hosting a bluegrass jam session at Bonehead’s BBQ in Lafayette. The first few months it was a raucous, rollicking event, with maybe 10 pickers. I’m sure the proprietor loved it, and the patrons dining there seemed to have fun, but attendance has dwindled somewhat in ensuing months.
There are several factors at play – one is, just the luck of the draw – on any given first Sunday of a month, there are many more things to do than go to this jam. I get that. A couple of my friends said they stopped coming because it was “too big”. Um, OK, I think I know what they mean – it can be tough to have a satisfying jam when the group is too big. I’ve written many times about how spontaneous jam sessions at festivals attract players until they collapse from being too big.
Interestingly, several of my friends have also told me of other jams they often go to on the same day of the month, and urge me to come check those out.
Here’s the odd paradox at play here. My jam is becoming more properly sized, but if new folks show up at these other jams, won’t THEY become too big?
My jam has only had 4 iterations (January/March/April/May), so maybe things will straighten themselves out. I have hopes for a jam that has at least 6 players at any given time, and folks drop by, sit in for a few songs, and maybe there’d be a fairly constant rotation of players during the duration.
This place is big enough where pieces of the jam could break off and play on the outside deck (once the weather becomes reliably warm).
So, I am asking you folks that have jams you frequent – have they reached a critical equilibrium where there tends to be enough players, but not TOO many? And, in your opinion or observation, how did that equilibrium get achieved? I can’t imagine “closing” the jam – that’s antithetical to what I’m trying build here.
Or perhaps this jam is still in its nascent stages and may achieve the balance I seek without specific actions on my part?
