It’s tough enough to be a record executive these days. Your budget’s shrinking, your staff keep leaving to join tech startups, and you keep having to figure out which one of your interns is the one who’s leaking your biggest…
Category
Concerts
Back from a week on Cayamo
If the pile of mail in my inbox is any indication, regular readers of my blog are wondering where I have been for the past few weeks!Believe it or not, Lori and I treated ourselves to an honest-to-goodness vacation, our…
What does it mean to be “fully paid” for your concert appearances?
In researching an upcoming article on music booking agencies, I keep running into a trend that’s got me thinking about how musicians really get paid for live performance in a web-enabled music industry. When Coldplay offered concert tickets via an online auction…
Farewell Little Brother’s — Another Live Music Venue Closing
I was talking with a musician the other day about why it’s so hard to find places to play lately. We’re in another real estate surge nationwide, which means that all the cheap spaces and run-down buildings that are great…
The Nog in Boston — No TV During Bands
In general, this story about a favorite Irish pub in Boston is inspiring. For every club owner that moans about how hard it is to grow a following and stay in business, this should be mandatory reading. These guys lost…
Live Recording Patent Busted
With all the internet radio and YouTube stuff happening this week, this news nugget nearly slipped by me: The EFF managed to get a patent revoked that prevented many artists and clubs from offering quick-turnaround CD recordings of live performances.…
Your Music — At a Church Near You
In Host Your Own Concerts, I wrote about churches as a viable type of venue for concerts you can stage on your own. The trend’s really taking off, with more megachurches hosting evening entertainment. While most of the events are…
Multiple Levels of Engagement for Musicians
Tom Hespos writes from the point of view of a music fan, frustrated that he feels left out when his favorite bands come to town and he doesn’t know about it until it’s too late. For too long, record labels…
Ticketmaster and Venues Experiment with Auction Pricing
Instead of selling every seat in the house for $30, INXS recently staged an auction on Ticketmaster. The highest priced ticket sold for $500, the lowest for $3. Nine Inch Nails used a similar model, and watched online scalping drop…
Selling Tickets to Your House Concerts or Special Events
Readers of Host Your Own Concerts know how I advocate advance ticket sales as a great way to guarantee attendance at your next gig. eTickets.to is a new UK-based service that’s offering flat-rate ticketing, and seems to offer the same…
Swimming Upstream: Can Musictoday Help Live Nation Get Back On Track?
Coran Capshaw was on to something when he founded Musictoday as a connector between fans, artists, and venues. Taking what he learned from the successful fan club he built for Dave Matthews, he and his team have been building solid…
Working The Tip Jar
A friend and I did a show last week at a coffeeshop and forgot to put out a tip jar. I mean, we completely forgot. I was pretty upset because I’d violated one of my own personal Rules Of Performing:…