Crafting an audience: Sean Healen hits four-year mark with online series 'Beer Phones'
May 14—Four years.
This is the amount of time singer-songwriter Sean Healen has been performing Facebook live shows called "Beer Phones."
Each Friday, Healen logs onto the social media platform to perform his original music during the weekly show. He livestreams the show from his 484-square-foot cabin in northern New Mexico.
Beginning at 4:30 p.m. mountain on Friday, May 17, he will mark the 208th consecutive week for his show.
"I started the show in May of 2020 while I was still sick with COVID," he says. "We desperately needed to find a way to make money. Anyway, the show stuck and has had a small but generous following. The show runs on average around three hours and 20 minutes. I usually perform between 20 and 30 of my original songs each show, some good bad jokes and stories."
Healen's better half, Wendy, will come into the live feed and begin a question and answer segment called WW2K or "Wendy Wants to Know" and another called FUF or "Finish Up Friday."
Prior to the pandemic, Healen would perform hundreds of shows a year. The move to online performances became a way that Healen could reach an audience while being safe.
"I have turned down all live performance offers over the last almost four years because Wendy has two autoimmune diseases and for one of them she takes an immune-modifying drug," he says. "Needless to say, any pathogen could go very wrong for her."
Healen says the live show is called "Beer Phones" because during the early part of the series, Santa Fe Brewing Co. was the first sponsor to sign on.
Since then, Steve Davis Guitars, Mongata, PeterLZ Photography and Radio Free Galisteo have all joined in.
"Beer Phones" is on his John Sean Healen Deere Facebook page from 4:30-7:30 p.m. MST every Friday.
The majority of the previous shows are also available on the Facebook page so people can watch.
Healen says one of the positive things to happen because of the series is the community that's been built.
"We have people from all over the world log in to watch," he says. "Having the group log on, it starts conversations. A lot of the regular viewers have become friends over the course of the show. It's refreshing to see like-minded people coming together through music. We're a small, but mighty community."
Healen works on music every day and has over 2,600 tunes.
"I'm slowly digging through," he says. "I currently play 160 original songs, which amounts to 25-30 songs a show. It's a lot of fun to revisit all the songs I've written over the course of my career."
Healen plans on doing some live shows on his property outside this summer.
"It's been amazing that I've been able to keep performing all this time," he says. "I feel like I need 'Beer Phones' just as much as people watching."
