The Black Rose Acoustic Society

For over 30 years, The Black Rose Acoustic Society has been the home of live, handmade acoustic music in the Pikes Peak Region. We host twice-monthly concerts, jams, and classes through the year. Nestled in the tall Colorado pines, the down-home atmosphere of our log-cabin concert hall provides a family-oriented setting unsurpassed in friendliness and congeniality.

Performance Opportinities

The Black Rose historically has had Friday night concerts with a world-class feature act, backed up by 2 opening acts where anyone of any ability could sign up and play. Not only do we believe in bringing our audience the best in acoustic music, we also believe in giving up-and-coming musicians a chance to perform in front of others as they build-up their repertoire and develop their stagecraft.

In recent years, we have added 2 other performance opportunities for our musician friends: Open-Mic and Showcase.

So, now that there are 4 different Black Rose performing options, we thought we would elaborate on the differences between each of them:

  • Open Mic - The requirements for this are what we used to have for our Opening Acts, namely NOTHING! You just need to know how to spell your name when you sign up at the Buffalo Lodge on 2nd and 4th Wednesdays. You will get a chance to play 3 songs in front of a small, but appreciative audience. This is a great way for new performers to experience playing out in a very low-stress environment. Open Mic performers do not get paid.

  • Showcase - After getting comfortable at Open Mic, you can pre-register for our Showcase, also at the Buffalo Lodge but on 1st and 3rd Wednesdays. You will get to perform for 30 minutes, and while it is a step-up from Open Mic, the expectations are still somewhat lower than that of Carnegie Hall. You will be playing in front of an audience of about 10-25 people. You won’t get paid directly, but instead share money collected from a tip jar.

  • Friday night Opening Act - This also requires advanced sign-up, but more and more we are finding professional muscians playing as openers who didn’t realize our Feature Act waiting list was so long but still want to play on our stage at the Black Forest Community Center. The Friday night audience varies anywhere from 100-200 people, and this can be a little intimidating for first-time performers. Our openers do not get paid, but the expectations are now higher than they previously were, and so we now have an application process. Like our feature acts, we need to pick and choose the acts not only for quality, but for compatibility with the feature act to bring the audience a great overall musical experience. If you are thinking you might want to be an Opening Act but have little or no on-stage experience, please consider playing several Open Mic or Showcase events first. This is a great way to improve and perfect your act and then perhaps apply for an Opening Act slot sometime down the road.

  • Friday night Feature Act - This continues to be our flagship product with paid professional acts, literally from all over the world, and you can expect the finest of musicianship from them. We begin booking in early September for the following year and often fill up the slots by January. It is not unusual to get 70 applications for only 21 spots, so don’t be surprised if we can’t accommodate you. Our booking agent has to be very discerning in choosing the acts. Needless to say, you need a pretty good resume to be a Feature Act on our stage.

We hope this helps you decide where you fit into our performance spectrum. Many of our Feature Acts first started out as Opening Acts. So, keep playing, practicing, and working your way up the Black Rose ladder and someday maybe you will make it to Carnegie Hall!