Liberty Hall is quiet, considering how much activity is happening on the stage.

Four stagehands and a production assistant from Lawrence’s House of Blues help load in gear as their supervisor makes the rounds, coordinating a half dozen other matters via cell phone.

Jacki Becker, who works for the House of Blues, orders lunch for her crew while they set up for a show at Liberty Hall.

For this event, Canadian musician Rufus Wainwright is scheduled to bring his theatrical pop to the historic venue. And while the singer eats lunch at nearby Paradise Cafe, his road crew and the House of Blues staff are preparing for the night’s performance. A piano is tuned, road cases shuffled, microphones arranged and a call is being made to determine if the band can get its laundry cleaned before the show.

“Any place we can do music, we’re going to do it,” said Jacki Becker, production director for Lawrence’s House of Blues.

Putting on a medium-scale concert like Wainwright’s involves a myriad of decisions, some crucial and some banal. And Becker and the others from HOB are quite used to it.

The nationally renowned booking agency runs much of its Midwest operations through its offices at 912 Tenn. And not surprisingly, the Lawrence music scene benefits greatly from having the business based in the college town.

Since there is no actual House of Blues venue in Kansas, the company utilizes a variety of different clubs and stages to host the concerts it brings to the area. Currently, the local outlet handles musical engagements for its parent company in six Midwestern states.

While many bars book a sizable percentage of their own shows, a company such as this offers certain advantages to performers and club owners.

“Someone can make a call to us, and we’re basically a spider web,” Becker said. “And we say, ‘We can do your band in Kansas City, St. Louis, Lincoln, Wichita, Des Moines.’ It’s less complicated to call one person you trust that you know is going to have this staff with the heart and love of music to take care of your artists. It frees up the club then to focus on making sure their toilets flush and to have the best drink specials possible.”

Lawrence is by far the smallest city to accommodate an HOB. The reason for its existence is because veteran Lawrence promoter Jeff Fortier sold/franchised his respected Avalanche Productions to the corporation in January 2001. Even though the name changed, Fortier and the former Avalanche staff still run the Lawrence enterprise albeit with input from the home office.

Despite some speculation to the contrary, HOB has no plans of relocating. Last year, HOB put on more than 400 shows. A third of these were held in downtown Lawrence.