Book A Pop-Up Band

Common Hymnal started out as a content creator, with a vision to build a well-stocked library of forward-facing content from the spiritual underground. Hence the name!!!

Each of our contributors have invested deeply in the work, sacrificing both money and time. We have avoided leveraging celebrity and the instantly-accessible, fiercely-popular and ‘lyrically-safe’ CCM worship genre for quick results. No cliches, no forced emoting, no gimmicks. We set our sights on forging a new path, a hard path - dare we say, a prophetic path.

We were initially focused on songs and songwriting. It was a surprise when we looked up and realized that we had some really gifted performers in the ecosystem. Now, a few years later, we have logged an intriguing variety of live events: from touring with Live Free USA to partnering with Red Letter Christians in multitudinous ways, from performing at the Grand Finale of Kehinde Wiley’s “Archeology of Silence” Exhibition at the De Young Museum in San Francisco to participating in a series of social justice lectures with Shane Claiborne at the University of Pennsylvania, from closing out The Carter Center’s Human Rights Defender’s Forum to hosting a songwriting session for the Children’s Defense Fund’s annual camp, from performing at the final night of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference to leading worship at CCDA’s annual gathering, not to mention sharing bills with Brian Courtney Wilson, Dee-1, Rev Sekou, Tommy Sims, etc.

When we started getting invites to put together pop-up bands for events, we found ourselves in a quandary because we could not ask our people to sacrifice any more for something that was not in the original plan. If we were going to ask our contributors to travel away from home and, in some cases, take a day’s leave from work, we wanted to make sure that this addition would be good for them and their families.

The truth is that we do not have the name awareness or the draw to warrant the money that is necessary to send out a team. Therefore, when people ask us to put together a custom team for an event, but do not have the resources, we prefer to help out in other ways - maybe helping them build an appropriate repertoire for their local band to play from our song catalog, or giving them gratis permission to use our recordings and videos?

If the inviter has access to finances to make it all work, we ask the following:
(1) $500 per team member per show day, and $250 per team member per travel/rehearsal day,
(2) $400 additional for the MD to prep everything for the event, run rehearsals and direct the show,
(3) $20 per person per day away from home for parking at the originating airport,
(4) reimbursement for air travel, including one checked in bag and a prebooked seat for each person,
(5) reimbursement for ground transportation and parking for each person in the destination city,
(6) single room hotel accommodations for each person for each night in the destination city, or an airbnb that gives each team member their own room,
(7) $25 per diem per person per meal while away from home, including while traveling to and from the event,
(8) $500 management fee for pre-event logistics

We can pull together a convincing team with as few as four people with a keyboard, acoustic guitar and tracks. However, we will always ask to bring in a sound engineer as well to ensure a quality experience.

Click here to see our rider.

If you would like to book a team, please email the details to hello@commonhymnal.com and we will send you a more specific quote. If you have challenges regarding the costs involved, please do not hesitate to reach out.