Addison LeClaire Booking

Addison runs her own booking agency in San Luis Obispo

Addison LeClaire Booking: The heart of SLO music

What initially made you want to get into the music scene? 

I got into the music scene in Cal Poly, through some old friends of mine, probably years ago now. And used to go to their shows just for fun, and I loved seeing the mosh pits. I love meeting people, and I really love the community building aspect of the music scene.

What made you realize you want to work in music? 

So yeah, I've just got into it through my friends. I would do a lot of one on one photo shoots with my friends. And so I had a lot of photography experience with my own photography business, and that is a really big part of the music scene, is making fliers, getting the word out there.

What have you learned in your classes that you have implemented in your work? 

Additionally, journalism is really important and focused on community building and communicating just in general. And the music scene definitely needs people that are really great at building bills, getting people connected and overall just uplifting the community.

Tell me a bit about how you and your friends started the Aviary? 

As of now, my role at The Aviary is more of a help out and social media position. So I look for potential leads for bands to book at the venue. I do artist relations in terms of the green Room hospitality. At the end of the day, we get a lot of bands that also come through San Luis Obispo that don't know people here, don't live here, they're not local, and my job is to make them feel welcome.

Talk a bit about your role there and how you use social media to find new bands to perform at your shows. 

At this point of my career, I've been doing that story with my friends. I've been shooting shows for a while, and I really immersed myself in the live music community here in San Luis Obispo.

I heard that you began your own booking company, what made you want to start that? 

My resume was pretty stacked at this point, and I was like, I want to go independent. I want to do my own thing. You know, San Luis Obispo does not have any independent female bookers.

Talk about your experience as a woman in the music industry given how male dominated it is. 

I am the first independent woman booker in San Luis Obispo. In the current music scene, that's kind of a big deal. It's normally men. It's a very male dominated field, and I just felt like I could step up and uplift the community and kind of add that space. That's kind of why I'm going into an independent combination of my experience, my passions, and overall just wanting to lift up the music scene community and make it a safer place for women.

Do you have a favorite music genre to work with? 

So at The Aviary, we try to mainly do really fun high energy shows, whether that's more hardcore or more Artwalk or Psych rock, a variety of those different things. But at the end of the day, we want to have really fun, high energy shows and we want people to have a good time.