Booking submissions at Cocoa Legato can be made through the form provided below. Before you fill it out, please review the following booking guidelines:

Booking A Show

1. When do we host our shows? How many artists can we have on a given bill?

   We host shows at our venue every Friday and Saturday from 8pm-10pm. All of our shows are exclusively as 2-band bills, as we aim to provide a different experience than other venues in Seattle. We appreciate bands/artists that would like to perform for an entire event, but we intentionally book our shows in this 2-band format. This is due to show timing, staffing for the cafe, and it is one of our main requirements for booking at our venue.

2. How far in advance do we book our shows at the cafe?

   We book our shows out 2-3 months in advance. There are rare exceptions that we can make if bands/artists need accommodations for reserving dates further than 3 months in advance, but we will typically not set any holds for dates further out than 3 months ahead of time and will ask artists to circle back when the booking dates become available.

3. What genres do we book at Cocoa Legato? Do we have any genre limitations?

   We book all genres of music at our venue, although we ask that all of our performing artists adjust the volume of their performance to “earplugs-out volume” to account for the needs of our space. Our café space has fairly high ceilings and concrete floors, and we’ve found that because of that, drums can be really overpowering when played at full volume. We’ve found that drums in our space sound best when it is around the volume of something like NPR’s Tiny Desk or MTV Unplugged concerts. We ask that drummers adjust their volume to the needs of the space, which can also be discussed further during pre-show sound checks.

4. What kind of music/artists do we book at Cocoa Legato?

   One of our main missions as a venue is to promote and highlight musicians and artists from groups in our community that have been historically marginalized within the Seattle music scene. This includes, but is not limited to, people of color, people that identify as women, people that identify as queer, and people with all varieties of physical and cognitive abilities.

5. What if I sent an email and haven’t heard back from your booking team?

   Due to the overwhelming number of requests we receive for booking, we can’t promise a response to all submissions. If you’ve sent us an email and haven’t heard back, please feel free to follow up with another email a few weeks later.

   Venue Policies/requirements

6. What is the venue capacity? What do we set our ticket prices at?

   Our venue has a fire-code capacity of 49 people, which includes staff and performers, so we typically can sell around 35-40 tickets to sell out a show. We sell our tickets on a sliding scale range with different price options ($15, $20, $25, $35, $45).

7. How many audience members are bands/artists expected to bring to the show?

   While the aim for all of our shows is to sell out, we understand that not every show will be a fully sold out show. However, we do have expectations that both bands/artists will bring at least 15 non-guest list audience members each so that the show is financially sustainable for both the bands/artists and the venue/cafe. If you aren’t sure if you can bring 15 audience members to a show, we invite you to come out to one of our weekly Sunday Afternoon Open Mics from 12pm-3pm and begin performing at those events to work on building community, and we can work together to collaborate on setting up a show later down the line.

8. Is your venue 21+ or all ages? Are tickets required for children?

   Our venue is all ages, so children of all ages are welcome, but must be continually supervised throughout the entire show. Children do need tickets of their own to our shows, as the fire code is a strict 49-people. We have had many questions about how old a child needs to be to be required to have their own ticket, and we found that if the child is old enough to stand on their own, then they are considered a body in our space and require a ticket.

9. Do performing bands/artists get any guest lists spots?

   We allow 1 guest list spot per band member, with the total number of guest list spots allowed maxing out at 5 guest list spots per band. Reach out to the booking team directly if you have questions about guest list spots and we can work together to set up accommodations.

10. How do we handle ticket sale payouts to bands/artists?

    Cocoa Legato takes the first $100 of ticket sales from each show to cover our costs, and the two performing bands/artists split the remaining door sales.

11. What does marketing look like for Cocoa Legato shows?

    We will make our own promotional fliers for each event using the band/artist photos that you provide along with our own branding. Feel free to make your own posters for the show as well if you would like. If you do, we ask if you can send them our way as we would also like to share and promote any other artwork for shows on our social media platforms. You can also tag us on our socials at @cocoalegato. We are happy to collaborate on Reels, but to keep consistency on our social media pages, we will not collaborate on any Posts with bands/artists.

12. Any booking tips for bands/artists from outside of Seattle?

    Please include the specific date/potential dates you are hoping to book your show. Include detailed information about your history playing in Seattle (including turnout for your previous shows, other bands you played with, etc), and let us know if you have any other bands/artists that you would be interested in joining you for the show. The expectations of each band/artist to bring a minimum of 15 audience members also applies to touring bands/artists, so if you aren’t sure if you have a large enough draw in Seattle,

For any other questions, feel free to send an email directly to our booking team at booking@cocoalegatochocolate.com and we will gladly answer any questions you may have!

Booking Form