The door is in the alley off Brundage. There's no sign. You walk past Legerski's Meats, past a dumpster that's usually in the wrong spot, and if you didn't already know, you'd keep walking.
That's not an accident. That's the whole bet.
A room built on word of mouth
We opened The Living Room this spring with a four-piece band out of LA called The Props, a hundred and twenty-five people packed into a space that used to be a coffee shop, and no idea if anyone would come back a second time. Sheridan is a town of about seventeen thousand people. It's not a market anyone builds a venue for on paper. You build it because the town needs a room that doesn't already exist, and you find out fast whether that's true or whether you imagined it.
It was true. People came back. They brought people who hadn't heard of us yet. That's the only marketing plan that's ever actually worked for a room like this — somebody standing in the alley telling a friend it's worth finding.
Thursday, a guitarist is routing through Sheridan on his way to Seattle
Travis Larson has been touring for longer than most bands stay together. Solo rock and jazz fusion, the kind of playing that makes other guitarists go quiet. He's routing through the Northwest right now — Bend, Vancouver WA, Tacoma, Seattle — and Sheridan is one date on that map, sandwiched between two much bigger cities, on a Thursday night in August.
That's the part worth sitting with. A touring musician doesn't choose Sheridan because it's the biggest crowd on the route. He chooses it because someone booked the date, and somebody has to decide whether the town shows up for it. Tone Jesters, a local 90s cover outfit, is opening — so the night runs from a band everyone here already knows to a player almost nobody here has seen live yet. That's the shape a good night at this venue usually takes.
A thin room on a Thursday tells a touring act everything it needs to know about whether to route through here again.
What it costs when a town doesn't show up
Nobody talks about this part. A musician plays a half-empty room in a small town once, and that town quietly falls off the routing sheet for the next tour. It's not dramatic. Nobody says anything. The booking agent just doesn't call next time, and the town doesn't find out what it missed because it never has the chance to.
Every touring act that plays a room like ours is a test of whether Sheridan is a stop worth making twice. We're not asking for a favor when we ask people to come out Thursday. We're asking the town to prove something true that we already believe about it — that there's an audience here for a national act that isn't playing the fair or a casino, just a room behind a meat market with folding chairs and better sound than the building has any right to have.
Pay what you can, at the door, no drama
Doors and music both run 7 to 10 on Thursday, fifteen dollars suggested, pay what you can if that's not where you're at this month. That price point is intentional. We'd rather have the room full at whatever people can actually afford than half-empty because ticket prices priced out the exact people we built this place for.
The room still doesn't have regular hours. We're not pretending that's a marketing choice — it's just true, and it'll change as the calendar fills in. What's already true is that when there's a name worth telling you about, the room fills, and the next act finds out Sheridan is worth the drive. Thursday's one of those nights.
Come find the alley
Travis Larson (solo) with Tone Jesters open, Thursday, August 13th, 7 to 10 PM, The Living Room, 151 W Brundage St — behind Legerski's Meats, no sign, alley entrance. Tickets and info at livingroomsheridan.com, or grab a pay-what-you-can spot straight through Eventbrite. If you're building something similar in a small Wyoming town and want to compare notes on what actually gets people to show up, that's a conversation I'll always make time for.
Anything here about money or results describes my own companies. It isn't typical and isn't a promise of yours. See the earnings disclaimer.
DG
Dalton Goodyear
Operator, writer and speaker in Sheridan, Wyoming. Hosting short-term rentals since 2017. Licensed Wyoming real estate broker and founder of Wyo Stays.
