HISTORY

A Rough History of the Democracy Center ShowBooking Collective

Beginning in 2005, shows were facilitated by Papercut Zine Library, who at the time resided in the "Library" room of the DC. Facilitating shows was part of their space agreement, and they paid a sliding scale from each show as their "rent" when possible. When they were asked to leave the space in summer 2009, most of the Papercut librarians were no longer interested in facilitating shows at the DC. That was understandable since they had been kicked out of the space! one of the librarians wanted to continue hosting shows though, and moved forward in forming a new collective specifically for facilitating shows.

Around March 2010, The ShowBooking Collective (now named!), wrote up a new contract to begin booking shows officially at the DC. The group advocated to keep the space low-cost and to have a certain number of shows every month, with the understanding that they would be accountable for any messes or damage to the building and for keeping shows in line with the rules of the space.

Initially, the show approval process was somewhat casual, with requests coming in through the main email and then sent out to the collective for consensus. Once a show was approved, the booker would come to drop off a deposit and sign an agreement form.

The Showbooking Collective went through a few different iterations over the years, and along with new members came new discussions around how to best facilitate and run shows. We've also worked to make the booking process smoother and more transparent, and improved our PA set-up to better fit the space.

In March, 2020, we went on hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic and began hosting a zoom drop-in on Saturday (now Friday) nights to give folks a space to be social, share new music, be nostalgic about old music, and discuss ways we could safely return to booking at the DC. We returned to hosting shows in summer 2021 with COVID mitigations in place, such as mask requirements and air filtration.

Over the last 17 years, the DC has hosted over 450 shows (we're still counting...), featuring bands from all over the world, booked by nearly 100 individual bookers (also still counting!).

Show and Flyer Archives

Democracy Center Shows Tumblr Archive
One archive is hosted on TUMBLR, and also functions as our blog. You can search using tags for many of the shows, but it has maybe 1/10th of the shows we've hosted at the DC.

NEARLY-COMPLETE LIST OF DC SHOWS Spreadsheet
This spreadsheet was started from our friend's MASSACHUSETTS PUNK FLYERS site/project. It's very searchable and extensive, but also a work in progress. If you have anything to add please get in touch!!