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An open mic, literally, means there will be a microphone set up and access to it is open to the public. An open mic is a rare opportunity for both veteran and untried performers to get in front of an audience and do whatever it is they do.
Not all open mic events actually use a microphone; some are acoustic. Some book in advance. Some are reserved for poetry or musical performances only, others are open to anything (well, almost anything). Most have an MC who organizes the event and introduces the acts, and most limit performers to about 10 to 15 minutes of time onstage.
Basic etiquette is to show up early if you want to perform, respect the other acts by listening politely and have your own stuff well-rehearsed and ready to go when it's your turn.
There are not enough places for local performers to showcase their art in the bay area. This means that the only outlet for some truly excellent and accomplished local artists are open mic events. Amateurs in the bay area are even less likely to get an opportunity to play for an audience. Open mics provide a safe and supportive place to make that first awkward, fumbling attempt before you've really honed your performance. This is the reason for this calendar: to support the bay area's live performance scene.
Even in this day and age, it's hard to find the open mics! Venue website calendars often neglect them, event sites bury them under other more glamorous and less inclusive performance events...maybe because they're quite literally unprofessional? Maybe it's because no one is selling tickets to them? In any case, here I am 30 years after bayareaopenmics.com was created to be my own personal, selfish, list of open mic events so /I/ could find and go to them - relaunching the calendar for the same reason: there just isn't another place that does this right.
I run this calendar for my sins, keeping it as up to date as possible with help from people like you. While I can't attend every open mic personally, I check each one to make sure the info I have is accurate.
I do list poetry open mics (I find most will let lyrically-oriented songwriters participate). Comedy open mics are their own thing and tend to frown on earnest musical participants, but I bet if you play funny stuff they'll give you a break, so for now those are on here too. Then we've got "jam" nights - which, believe me, I know, don't really fit the ethos of an open mic—they're more of a music session and less open to the quintessential "whatever" that an open mic entails. That said, I love a good session, so for now you can still see jams listed here (at least under the upcoming events feed) until I find a way to get them on their own calendar.
Run an open mic or know of one I've missed? Let me know. See an open mic that is no longer running on this calendar? Give me the heads-up.
I hope this calendar helps you get out there and play some music, read some verse or do whatever creative thing you want to do. If you know of an open mic I've missed, have been to one of the open mics on the calendar or are just another local musician/poet, I'd love to hear about it.
While I try to attend most of these myself, open mics are about community, and so is this calendar. I appreciate feedback and hearing about your open mic experiences, new open mics or ones I've missed, so feel free to join the Bay Area Open Mics Facebook group or drop me a line on my Facebook music page and tell me about your experiences in the wilds of the Bay Area open mic scene.
As a musician and web junkie back in the 90's I found there simply wasn't a good open mic site; a site that not only provided information about where and when open mics were, but what exactly to expect from each venue.
I started taking notes at the open mics I attended and, in 1998, I hand-coded and launched the bay area open mic calendar at www.lightholder.net. I am not a web designer. It (the first version of this calendar) was not pretty.
In Feb 2005, even though I was living abroad, I was getting more email than ever from people and felt it was time for a tune-up to the site. Seriously, I would get home from a gig at 3am Irish time (right around when places were opening in the bay area) and call bay area venues asking, "Hey, is your open mic still happening?" Also, the site was ugly and slow. I taught myself CSS both to improve the calendar's accessibility (& appearance) and created an updated version.
Within a few months, open mics seemed to come back into fashion and the calendar grew so fast that I needed to revisit the design again. I spent several months learning more about CSS and databases and launched the first dynamic version of the site in July 2006.
In 2009 I found myself living in the bay area again and began hosting a few local open mics in the East Bay. Then, my life slowly began to fall apart. When a virus took bayareaopenmics.com down in 2016 it was the final straw. I let it die. But I hung onto the domain and just focused on raising my kids as a solo parent and, frankly, had very little time for open mics and making music in general for many years.
I never stopped thinking about the calendar, though. I kept a spreadsheet and dreamed of how, if I ever got the time and wherewithal, I'd modernize and relaunch the site leveraging all the years I spent working on other people's data problems.
So, in Feb of 2026: here it is. A lot of time and effort has gone into making this site functional...but now the content needs a refresh. From the hundreds of listings that have come and gone over the years (maybe some day I'll make a site showing all the "dead" open mics that have come and gone), I'll only be adding events to the calendar I have verified myself, so be patient: this is a labor of love and work in progress. But really, you want to know if it's on here that I've checked it, right? That's why every entry has a "last updated" date so you know how stale the information is.
While I really don't want to get embroiled in the debate, as the host of an open mic site I should explain why I use "mic" instead of "mike."
For some eloquent and justified reasons to use "mike," see Samuel Bayer's rant on the subject.
So, if an east coast linguist with a PhD has proven that "mike" is superior, why is this bay area musician still hosting an open "mic" page? Primarily because I'm stubborn. I know what a "mic" is. It feels right. It looks right. Even with "open" in front of his name, "mike" to me is still "Mike." Secondly, as Sam Bayer points out, "mic" is the young, troublesome upstart in the language. Mic causes problems ("I mic'd the drums"??). It's pure unwashed, by-your-bootstraps american slang. It's dirty, it's incorrect...
... ain't it beautiful?
The calendar loves you too. Send me a message and tell me about your favorite open mic. Join the Bay Area Open Mics Facebook group, stop in at one of the open mics I host or just scroll on up there right now to the top of this page and click on the "buy me a beer" link - I appreciate it.
See ya out there.