The Idea
The Lark Unplugged is six Sunday nights in January, one band a night, stripped right back to what a room and a voice can do. Reduced rig, close to the stage, a set that doesn't exist anywhere else on that artist's calendar. Every night is produced twice, once for the room and once for the stream, so the same ninety minutes sells two ways.
This isn't a support slot or a warm-up gig. It's a session built as its own event, ticketed at €35 a seat, with a live stream running alongside it for an audience the room could never hold.
How We See It
Nobody in Ireland is doing a weekly, stripped-back session series built for broadcast. The pieces exist everywhere separately: house gigs, radio sessions, the odd stream. Nobody has put a stage, a camera crew and a Sunday night slot around it and made it a habit.
The acts we actually want are the ones who don't need another gig. Names on the level of a Christy Moore or a Coronas already play arenas and sell out tours. What they don't have is a reason to do something this small, this often, unless it's genuinely rare. That's the pitch: a night they don't play anywhere else, not a smaller version of a night they already play.
The Offer
Every band on this stage gets more than a fee. A multi-cam, broadcast-quality recording of the set, theirs to keep and use. A dedicated weekly spotlight, not a name buried on a poster with five others. First billing into a new series, not the fortieth date of somebody else's tour.
At this tier the money was never going to be the reason they say yes. Pay is structured as a session fee plus a share of stream and door, priced as content, not as a headline gig.
Getting There
Major promoters hold the contracts on the bigger shows, and their deals with agents carry a six month radius clause: an act can't play another paid, ticketed date within six months of a promoter-backed show nearby. The artists we want already work with those promoters. There's no version of this that goes around them, so it goes through them.
The approach is to open that conversation before booking, not after, and ask for case by case clearance on the grounds that a stripped-back Sunday session isn't a competing tour date. Where that conversation doesn't land in time for a given week, the fallback is a band with no promoter show on the calendar at all, so the series never stalls waiting on an answer.
The Room and the Stream
The room is small enough to feel like a favour and big enough to be worth doing, capacity still to be confirmed against the venue we lock in for January. What doesn't move is the ticket: €35 a seat, in the room, for a show that isn't happening anywhere else that week.
The stream is built the same way as the room, broadcast quality, not a phone propped on a mic stand. Bundled with the ticket or sold on its own is still to be decided, but the intent is the same either way: an audience the venue could never hold, tuning in for a set they can't get anywhere else.
What Success Looks Like
- Six Sundays delivered on time, on budget, one band we're proud of every week.
- At least one name on the level of a Christy Moore or a Coronas saying yes to a night like this.
- A performance library of broadcast-quality sessions we own outright.
- A working relationship with major promoters that survives past week six.
- Proof that The Lark can build something artists want to be first into, not just book dates.
Moving Forward
These six weeks are the proof. What comes after depends on what they establish: a standing broadcast exception written into future contracts with promoters and agents, so this stops being a fight every six months. A second series with the runway to book further ahead. A session library that keeps working long after the night itself is over.
The Lark Unplugged isn't a smaller night for a big name. It's the only night like it on their calendar.