[scelerat]

There is a psychological hype effect which affects both audience and performers in a capacity room of any size. Whether it's 50 or 5000, if the room is full, you feel it, and it adds to the excitement, tension and maybe magic of the event. There's nothing worse than playing an empty room, and some of the best times I've ever had have been with a band and thirty people crammed into a living room.

[spacechild1]

As a musician myself, I can 100% confirm this. For me personally, small gigs are often the most fun because the audience is very close and you can actually see/hear the reaction of individual people. Noticing one or two excited audience members can already make a difference. Conversely, a Jazz musician once told me that seeing me in the front row, visibly enjoying his performance, fired him up. Also, in a small venue it is much easier to hang out with the audience after the concert.

One of the most fun gigs I had was a garage concert at a friend's place in Luxembourg we did on our way to a festival. The fact that weed had just been legalized in Luxembourg certainly contributed to a very receptive and enthusiastic audience. We ended up repeating our whole set :-D

[shaftway]

The best concert experience I ever had was in the mid-90's. I went to a medium level band (frequent radio play at the time, but you probably wouldn't recognize the name now) at a smaller venue. But I guess nobody really promoted the show at all. Only 8 people showed up for the audience. The band didn't seem to care and rocked it anyway. During their most popular song the singer got down off the stage and passed the mic around, we all sang karaoke style.

[colechristensen]

I don't know, at several of my favorite places, capacity is 10% too much.