Booking a rehearsal room: what to check before you turn up with a van
· 3 min read
Rehearsal rooms fail on practical things, not musical ones. Almost all of them are checkable in advance.
A rehearsal room going wrong is rarely dramatic. It's a PA with two working inputs, or three flights of stairs nobody mentioned, or a kit missing a hi-hat clutch. Small things, and they eat the evening you paid for.
All of them are checkable beforehand.
The five things that decide it
1. The PA, in detail. Not whether there is one — how many inputs, whether there are mics and stands, and whether all of it works. A five-piece with two vocals needs at least four usable channels. Ask specifically.
2. Load-in. How far from where a car can stop, how many stairs, is there a lift, is it a shared building with a door that locks at six. If you're carrying a bass cab and a kit, this is the single biggest determinant of whether the night starts well.
3. Noise hours. When can you actually be loud, and until when. A room in a residential building with a 9pm limit is a real constraint for a band that finishes work at seven.
4. The kit, if you're relying on one. Is there one, what is it, and — the actual question — is it playable. A kit with dead heads and no clutch is worse than no kit at all, because your drummer left theirs at home.
5. Whether you can book the same slot again. If you're a working band, the recurring slot matters more than the room. Ask before you fall in love with somewhere that can't give you Wednesdays.
The things people forget to ask
- Is there parking, and is it free? Two hours of rehearsal plus a parking ticket changes the price.
- Can you leave gear? Some complexes offer storage. It's transformative if you rehearse weekly.
- Is the room shared or private during your slot? Occasionally it isn't obvious.
- What's the actual size? A five-piece with a kit in a room built for three is a miserable two hours.
- Is there any backline? A house amp you can use saves a carry.
Booking somewhere new
Book a single session before committing to a regular slot. You'll learn more in two hours than from any amount of asking, and if it's wrong you've lost one evening rather than a term.
When you're there, note the things you'd want to know next time: whether the room's actually the size stated, whether the PA was as described, how the load-in went in practice. Those are exactly the things worth putting in a review, because they're what the next band needs to know and what listings most often gloss over.
On SESH reviews can only be left by someone who completed a booking, so what you're reading is from people who actually turned up.
Being a good tenant
Slightly self-serving to say, but the bands that get the good recurring slots are the ones the owner wants back:
- Turn up and leave on time. Someone's booked after you.
- Put things back where they were.
- Say something if you break something. Everyone breaks something eventually; it's the not-saying that ruins the relationship.
- Don't leave rubbish.
Rehearsal room owners talk to each other, and in most cities the number of decent rooms is smaller than you'd think.
The social bit
Worth saying plainly: a rehearsal building with other bands in it is more useful than an isolated unit at the same price. You'll meet people. Someone will need a bass player, someone will have a spare amp, someone will put you on a bill.
That doesn't show up in the hourly rate and it's frequently the most valuable thing about where you rehearse. Bands form in these buildings — it's worth choosing one that has some life in it.