LIVE MUSIC BLOG.com » Concert Industry

Live Music 2.0: Concerts and the Social Web

whitperson — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:57:46 +0000

Over the past few years, as this whole web 2.0 thing has really grown and progressed, we’ve seen a number of new sites launch that are specifically geared towards live music fans on the web. In a sense, all of them exist to help fans track and follow their favorite touring bands/artists in a variety of ways, but with a focus on their live shows rather than their studio output (which is amply covered by a slew of Music 2.0 sites and services).

While a lot of these sites have not yet emerged into the larger music business landscape, there’s no doubt in my mind that web technologies in general will continue to affect and disrupt the live music space, as they’ve already been doing quite drastically with the recording industry. Back when I was able to dedicate more of my free time to Live Music Blog, I was really interested in exploring this space in depth. Although Justin and I have occasionally posted about some of these sites — mentioning iLike.com and ShowClix or talking up the latest feature from JamBase — we’ve never really focused on them directly as a key topic. We’d like to change that. Since we are a site dedicated to live music, it only makes sense to look at the related web services and sites that serve all of US as a community of fans. I’d like to finally re-visit my original idea and dig a bit deeper into all the sites and services that form what we call “Live Music 2.0.”

In exploring the Live Music 2.0 landscape, we want to look at what all these sites are offering — or, in some case, what they’re not offering — and to try to get a sense for which ones our readers and live music fans in general actually use. We’d like to specifically dig down into some of the individual sites, point out new features, and look at the area where these companies can be most innovative. Also, where possible, I’d like to talk directly with site owners/founders to get some information straight from the source. Most importantly though, we want user feedback. I really want to know if anyone else out there is really using these sites for tracking their favorite bands. Have these sites really started to seep out into the masses of concert fans? Do live music fans even really know they exist? Am I only into this kind of stuff because I’m a live music web nerd? We’ll see.

In one sense, this is mainly an administrative note about a new site topic. But it’s also an intro to the overall concept to give a sense for what we’re actually referring to with the Live Music 2.0 label. Although the term can apply to a large swath of companies in the online space, the sites we are currently interested in exploring typically offer some kind of combination of the following:

Tour Dates and Tracking

Ways to track your favorite bands’ tour dates and your personal live music calendar

Social/Sharing Features

Integration with Twitter & Facebook, iCal, email alerts, RSS
Widgets for listing on blogs, sites, and social networks

Favorite Artists and Import Options

Ways to Import your favorite artists (upload your iTunes library, link to Last.fm profiles)

Portability

iPhone and other mobile apps
Widgets and calendar display

Ticketing

Links to third-party ticketing services
Their own ticketing options/outlets

Streaming Music and Artist Info

Basic bio about artist/bands
Streaming music and video(like more traditional Music 2.0 sites imeem, myspace, spotify etc…)
Links back to artist pages, merch, music samples, etc…

Concert-Specific, Archival Content

Setlists, Photos, Reviews, and other archival info
Webcasts, live streams, and live downloads

Considering that Live Music 2.0 is a fairly niche concept, the large number of start-ups in this space is actually pretty staggering. I put together a quick-list below just to offer some examples:

The above list by no means includes all of the sites that fall under the larger Live Music 2.0 umbrella. But what’s interesting is that while some sites have been around for more than a few years, we continue to see new/similar offerings popping up every six months or so. In fact, just today I learned about another new site called: Gigulate. Although I definitely think the concept of Live Music 2.0 is here to stay, I really don’t see how this many different players can exist in the same space for very long.

All of the above is really just a primer about the overall space and concept of Live Music 2.0. In future posts, we’ll dig into more specifics and see how the overall space is developing. But if you have any general comments about the sites you’d like to see us cover or about the overall space, be sure to add your comments below.

Much more to follow…

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Ticketmaster and Live Nation Merger Update

Justin — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:08:49 +0000

I haven’t really been following the updates on the proposed Ticketmaster and Live Nation merger, but this latest article from the AP confirms that there’s still some movement:

Regulators in the United Kingdom and United States appear likely to impose conditions on the merger of concert promoter Live Nation Inc. and ticket-selling giant Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc. now that British authorities came out against the deal yesterday.

[via brooklynvegan]

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Live Music 2.0: Interview with Nate Parienti of iClips.net

whitperson — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:24:46 +0000

iClips.net has been webcasting and streaming live events for several years now, but it seems like the site has begun to really pick up steam in the last few years, particularly with its heavy focus on the music festival scene in the U.S. As the live music streaming space continues to grow and evolve, we thought it might be a good time catch-up with the folks at iClips.net.

I recently touched base with Nate Parienti, the man who founded the site and continues to lead the team over at iClips. Enjoy.

Live Music Blog’s Interview with Nate Parienti of iClips.net:

Business model & strategy

MW: Can you tell us a bit about the overall iClips business model?

NP: Our business model since day one has always been based on advertising and sponsorship revenue but what we’re increasingly realizing is that additional elements also need to be added to the model, especially in this economic climate. So we are increasingly looking more towards Pay Per View broadcasts, subscription models, and syndication. We’ve just completed several syndication deals in the last few days with a couple of very large media companies, which we will be announcing soon.

MW: It seems like you guys have been experimenting more with a paid/premium model lately. I’ve seen some recent examples like Umphreys McGee (for $5/show) and the Summer Camp festival and Mountain Jam festivals (for $19.69/day or $29.99 for the whole weekend). Has this strategy been successful?

NP: Well we actually did our first Pay Per View event back in February of 2007 with Yonder Mountain String Band so its not an entirely new strategy, and it is becoming more and more successful as we educate our consumers as to why we are charging them to see content that they became used to seeing for free. What people have to understand is that it costs us a lot of money to shoot all of this content, especially big festivals where we are covering three and four stages and we shoot all of those stages typically with five cameras — that’s a lot of crew to send out on the road all summer long. We have trucks and vans and a lot of associated travel expenses not to mention all of the equipment that it takes as well as bandwidth and satellite fees. People may not think about this but in order to get a signal out of the woods in the middle of nowhere we have to send that signal up via satellite. It all costs an enormous amount of money. That being said we are still trying to strike the proper balance with our pricing structures, if you’re paying $10 to see 1 band on 1 night, it seems appropriate that $19 is a fair price to see a full day’s worth of music with 10-12 bands, and then we discount that pretty significantly to $30 if you purchase the whole weekend upfront. $30 is about the price of an official t-shirt at most festivals or concerts. Additionally, once you purchase the stream it gives you access to the VOD of the content for an extended period of time. We’re also looking at various ways to tweak this model, but you will notice in the coming weeks as we make some announcements that for the bulk of the summer the LIVE content will be free and then we will be offering the VOD on a PPV basis probably with a downloadable upgrade. We are also considering various options in terms of a subscription model. July and August will definitely be VERY busy months for iClips, we’ve got a GREAT lineup of Festivals!

MW: Do you have any other upcoming premium webcasts?

NP: The next premium broadcast will be Eric Church in Nashville for three nights June 11-13th for a very special run of shows in an intimate setting. You can read about that here.

MW: What about Ads? Are you looking at expanding beyond display/text ads to offer pre-roll advertising?

NP: Absolutely, that is coming soon. We’re also experimenting with different ways to make our advertising less obtrusive and more relevant to what the user is currently watching.

MW: Do you plan to use ads in video players to support your free option?

NP: We would love to be able to offer everything free, so the more advertising potential that we can create the better. On the other hand, we want to keep the look and feel of the user experience clean, so there is definite balance between having content that is advertising and sponsorship driven without causing too much clutter on the web site and video player.

Competitors

MW: Who do you consider to be your competitors in this space? What are you doing to differentiate iClips from other online concert webcasting services?

NP: AT&T Blueroom used to be our biggest competitor but AT&T has restructured what they are doing in the music space and the Blueroom is no longer active. Actually, there’s no else that’s doing what we’re doing at least on the festival front. In fact, I’d say there are very few companies who are actually capturing as much raw music content as we are. Literally we’re filming thousands and thousands of hours of music.

Social Nets/Marketing

MW: You guys are now on twitter, youtube, facebook and myspace. Have these social nets helped you expand the iClips business? If so, how?

NP: Sure, those are all helpful tools, our Youtube channel feeds a lot of traffic back to us as we typically put promotional clips into our channel and then those fans come over to iClips to watch the full shows. Twitter and Facebook are both great tools in real time messaging and letting fans know what is happening at that very second.

MW: Real-time seems to be all the rage these days. Given that you offer real-time (or slightly-delayed) webcasts from festivals and concerts, do you foresee any ways of integrating the online audiences with those that are actually at the show?

NP: That is something that I am actively working on in a number of different and unique capacities. There is a whole other part of iClips that no one has seen yet but should launch in private beta within the year and it will be pretty awesome!

Logistics and on-site process

MW: Tell us a about what all goes into filming a large festival like Mountain Jam or Summer Camp. Is it a logistical nightmare? Any funny or crazy stories you can share?

NP: We have serious war stories! We have had to dig trenches (military crawl style) under our production truck that was slowly sinking in the ground and we went through 4 different tow trucks to get it out. One of our guys had to literally chew his way through ethernet wire to get the broadcasting going at Echo Project in 2007. There was a time we had to “fly” cables over a busy downtown street in Tulsa at D-Fest before shooting the Flaming Lips. We’ve braved lots of weather! Notably a terrible storm last year at Summercamp which cut the broadcast and broke down the equipment, so we jumped in a golf cart and drove around trying to find internet signal while the rest of the festival was being evacuated! We also were shut down basically by a hurricane at Langerado last year that completely took out our satellite, we literally had to fly someone in from Los Angeles on a red eye with replacement parts! So it really is every bit as much of a nightmare as you might think and then multiplied by about 1,000! Fortunately we are blessed with the hardest working road crew in the business. Jay Blakesberg, Danny Clark, Brenton Henry, Conway McDonald-O’Lear, Drew Wilson, Sharif Musaji, Victor Sujaritpinij, Mark Wiley, Wes Petty, Miles Schmidt, Andy Trost, Zach Houser, and Joe Kleuh. We also have excellent support back home with Carol, who is somewhat famous with our fans as she is pretty much 24/7 in the live support and chat boards as well as Perrin who does most of the heavy programming work. These are the guys and girls who really make everything happen. They are at all the events, they truck the equipment around the country, they load it in, set it up, tear it down, shoot, edit, haul cables, and every other odd job that needs to be done. These folks work through blazing sun, driving rain, clouds of dust, thick mud, and every other element that you can think of. They’re a tremendous asset to us and they never fail to get the job done. Logistically its crazy, we’re setting up on multiple stages, running tapes and hard drives back and forth, editing on the fly, broadcasting live and doing it all under extremely adverse conditions. Any time you are dealing with a live broadcast its difficult but when you throw in all the craziness of a festival it gets pretty insane.

MW: How did iClips start?

NP: I really wanted to be able to broadcast great live content that you wouldn’t typically see on TV, to a broad audience. We also want to bring the experience of a music festival or concert to folks that can’t make it to the actual event. And we try and show it as raw and real as the experience really is as opposed to the over-produced television broadcasts of music that have been more prevalent in the past.

Types of bands/genres

MW: Do you feel that you’ve been more successful with the more improv-heavy touring bands (Lotus, Gov’t Mule, Umphreys McGee, Disco Biscuits, etc…)? If so, was this a result of a specific strategy or more because of personal/business connections?

NP: We’re trying to show as diverse of a line up of music as possible. But the improv-heavy touring artists are typically the hardest working acts in music, they’re usually generating most of their revenue from touring so they are just simply playing more shows as well as shows that are usually different every night so fans will tune in on successive nights in a row because they know that they will see a different show every night.

The Future

MW: Is there anything you can tell us about the future of iClips? Any new offerings or plans for expansion?

NP: Absolutely, there is a lot of new content and further diversification on the horizon; sports, speaker series, films, wrestling, MMA, etc. You can see some of the earliest signs of that now with Celebrity Boxing, the Real Deal in the Rock High School Basketball Tournament, Amy Vs. Joy wrestling event, and the recent Evolver: Towards 2013 Event. We also have plans for a re-launch of the website with a broader scope of functionality that includes a social networking platform, new interactive online applications that act like television stations for your favorite events, genres and artists. It’s a lot of fun and there will be a lot of new offerings coming soon. We’re really excited about the continued expansion and growth of iClips overall and I think that our fans will be pretty excited about all of the new changes as well!

MW: Thanks again for your time.

~~~

Big thanks to Nate for answering our questions. It’ll be interesting to see how iClips grows and what kind of new strategies they employ along the way.

Though I understand why Nate might not be able to share the details, I’d still be curious to hear how successful the paid offerings have been. For example, is it profitable for band like Umphrey’s McGee considering all the costs of filming and hosting? How many people does this tier of band have to get at the $5 price point to break even? It seems like the pay-per-view model might work with some bigger bands (maybe a Phish or DMB) or slightly larger festivals, particularly if they could garner some decent sponsors and/or ad revenue.

Also, I imagine it’s difficult to compete with the likes of AT&T’s Blueroom, which is not only free but is definitely still offering occasional webcasts contrary to Nate’s assertion above (we just saw one for Bonnaroo a few weeks ago). To Nate’s credit, the Bueroom seems to have taken a step back in terms of its big push for lots of new content, but I am sure they will continue to cover the large festivals like Bonnaroo, Coachella, and Lollapalooza. And with the free price tag, that makes it a tough competitor.

The “real-time” approach we touched on above is really where I think iClips can innovate and build an even more compelling and successful site. After witnessing the recent onslaught of online coverage and interaction around the Phish’s June tour, it’s not difficult to see the potential for combining live streaming video and real-time social media commentary/coverage of live events. If iClips could stream festivals and shows, and the fans at home could interact via social media with the fans sending updates FROM THE SHOW, that certainly would up the ante in my book.

Whatever the future holds, we certainly hope iClips will continue to successfully stream great live music events straight to our computer screens.

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Update on the Ticketmaster / Live Nation Merger

Justin — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:17:47 +0000

Jim DeRogatis has a fantastic summary posted of the recent news surrounding both Ticketmaster and Live Nation and their supposed merger that has yet to be approved by the Department of Justice.

5. The American Antitrust Institute last month issued a paper “urging the Department of Justice to ‘just say no’ to the proposed [Ticketmaster/Live Nation] merger now under investigation.” (The PDF is here.) Among the conclusions: “Live Nation Entertainment would be a vertically integrated enterprise with dominance or substantial power on five market levels. The new entity would therefore be able to use its strengths in some markets as leverage to gain customers or compliance in others. This vertical integration would effectively frustrate new entry because, as a practical matter, it would require firms seeking to compete seriously against Live Nation Entertainment to enter the industry on several levels at once. The second factor is that the merged entity would likely enjoy market power not just as a seller but also as a buyer. In essence, the company’s market dominance would benefit it in both ways.”

I think if this is allowed to go through, we’re going to see a revolt in the industry somehow. Revolutions need to happen at the ground level, and if the government can’t stop these capitalist pigs from seeing what they’re doing to damage the music industry in too many ways then we’re going to have to help them see the light from our point of view.

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Canada Pulls a Fast One | Public Funds Cut for Artists

Andrew McMahon — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 16:00:00 +0000

There’s been an interesting story coming out of Canada over the last few days and it is unfortunately negative news for a lot of touring bands that come from the great white north. PromArt is a funding program for artists who seek to share their form in the international community with the purpose of spreading Canada’s culture across the globe. It offsets costs of touring internationally and a notable recipient was Holy Fuck in 2006 who used the grant to tour in the U.K. The band is now being named in press releases by the government explaining the reasons behind the retrenchment.

The program, which has helped give us a lot of great bands from Canada, was recently cut by the Conservative Tory government. In addition to the $4.7M PromArt program, a $9M program called Trade Routes was cut as well. Trade Routes funded cultural entrepreneurs who sought to develop export strategies for Canadian arts. Both of these pull backs are harmful to the entire arts community in Canada but is woeful because it sets a precedent of de-facto censorship and puts our neighbors to the north on a slippery slope.

Canada’s Leader Post covered the story well with some interesting quotes from an anonymous government official. In one notable instance he rationalizes the cutback, “I think there’s a reasonable expectation by taxpayers that they won’t fund the world travel of wealthy rock stars, ideological activists or fringe and alternative groups.”

Wealthy rock stars aside, it is fringe groups and ideological activists that help to promote new thought and keep the rest of society from falling into the monotony of state sponsorship. Free societies should have these devices as their disposal and Canada was progressive to fund them with government money. But now, arguments coming from the government seem to be entirely based upon the fact that the artists are outside of their notion of mainstream art. That is entirely disappointing.

From an economic perspective the funds helped Canadian artist compete on an international stage, which generated revenues for the country’s entertainment industry and most likely the country as a whole. From my musical point of view Canada was competing on a grand scale. The list of successful Canadian bands is presently great and their artistic credibility is deep. Though now, the spigot may have been turned off. The music industry, which is suffering generally, took a blow from this move by Canada.

For more information on this story check out some of these article and editorials:

Tories to cancel PromArt – Leader Post
End of Trade Routes and PromArt – CIRPA
Public Funds Take a Hit – Coolfer
Don’t Blame Us – CBC News

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Going Down the Road Feeling Bad: Touring in the Current Economy

Andrew McMahon — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 16:00:00 +0000

With the the stock indexes in the first bear market in almost six years and gas prices that have hit lifetime highs, we are all feeling the proverbial tightening of the belt. Obviously I am not a columnist for the Wall Street Journal but I try and keep close tabs on the live music industry and this economic environment affects some in the industry very seriously. Although the live music scene is certainly seeing an apex in its influence and marketability within the greater music industry — notice the glut of festivals, Live Nation’s constant news making or this NYT article for example — smaller acts are finding it harder and harder to do what they love and bring us the art we crave.

A large majority of the artists that keep the live music scene moving are being hindered seriously by the current cost of travel. On top of this, the overwhelming number of festivals this summer will probably not stand up to diminishing discretionary spending, especially those in distant locations. Bonnaroo just missed a sell-out — according to their own numbers — and Coachella was 17,000 under their 2007 record crowd. It will be interesting to see what happened at Rothbury but Lollapalooza, a city festival, seemed to do quite well. By far the most serious consequence from the current economy falls on the thousands of bands that criss-cross the country in big white vans.

Just to get a perspective on what bands are managing while on the road, here’s a quick run down. If a Chicago based band tours the west coast taking the northernly route out to Seattle and down to LA then drives back to Chicago the group is looking at a 5,000 mile trip. That could be upwards of $2000 in gas costs alone. If the group plays a dozen dates and makes $200 a show on average, there is less than $500 for all other expenses — making fast food a luxury good. The point of the above helps to highlight what seem to be the major issues with the current economic situation.

First is the effect on the supply side of the live music scene or more simply, the bands. Touring from city to city in a beat up van is a rite of passage in rock and roll and in my opinion makes for more profound, experiential music. Take My Morning Jacket as a perfect example: ten years of touring has turned the Louisville natives into the powerhouse they are today. But now bands are going to have to reexamine the way they manage tours or worst case scenario, be very choosey about where to tour.

If bands still need the live medium to close the margins from dropping album sales then one option will be to combine efforts of label-mates or even just like minded bands. A sort of touring car pool system may come to be the norm rather than the sparing treat. Combined bills like Umphreys McGee and STS9 have done this summer may allow for larger venues and in turn larger box office grosses. The aforementioned tour has allowed both bands to step into the pavilion circuit rather than playing theaters.

Our friend Jared Bell from Lymbyc Systym explains that this approach works when bands share a commonality, “We have a split album coming out in the Fall with This Will Destroy You, and we’ll be doing a US/Canada tour in support of that. We’re going to share a van and some of the gear to cut the cost of gas in half.” Its this type of sacrifice and creativity that’ll keep heavy touring bands like Lymbyc Systym on the road.

Another outcome from the squeeze may be the resurgence of the residency. Bands may choose to play a few nights in one city at a smaller than normal venue rather than trudge through a intermediate market. This may be good for the Chicago’s and New York’s of the world but less so for the smaller media markets. The Houston Press touts this solution for the older more seasoned groups who can draw a couple hundred a night for a week or so. That means many bands out on the road building a fan base do not have this option.

By far the worst change we may see is the regionalization of smaller bands, some of which may never reach far outside their home city. This is already occurring with groups from Europe and Canada, according to the Chicago Tribune. In the summer months, many bands may begin to festival hop. With the number of festivals and solid paydays this is a logical solution to the cost of touring. Why not play to 5000 and make more money? The problem is festivals rarely convey the truest virtues of live music — unless you’re Daft Punk.

In the example I used above, if that same Chicago act decided to make a east coast tour and even included Toronto and Montreal they lose almost 3,000 miles in comparison. The hypothetical group would hit more media markets on the east coast increasing revenues. Numbers alone could force this group east rather than west. I am seriously hoping that creative minds prevail and regional biases do not become the norm within touring bands but until the price at the pump budges this could be a reality and the left coast could be out of luck.

For those of us on the other side of the fence things may be changing as well. Ticket prices, limited touring and smaller bands not even stepping into the ring may become more prevalent. Obviously all of the effects listed above change the live music scene in our respective cities but these are changes that we have no control over. There’s nothing we can do about band A not coming to our favorite venue and that’s why it kills us when it happens. But there are certain things we as fans can do that will help the bands we love and make it easier to stop in the Omaha’s or Eugene’s.

The first thing fans can do is decide what bands matter to them. I know full well the cost of a music addiction and try my best to budget when I can but there are a few bands whose work I will always purchase. Its a small show of support but it matters. Falling album sales are as much a product of the changes in live music as gas prices if not more and if you really love a band, one of the best things you can do for them is go to the record store and spend a little love.

A offshoot of this is the effect of merchandise sales. For many DIY bands this is the bread and butter of their revenues. I know its a bit of the chicken and the egg to help promote a band coming to your town by buying a tee when they are in your town but merch is a life saver for many groups. A lot of smaller acts make a living of that little table in the back of the room and when they mention that their CD is, “available for purchase” they are trying to fund their next meal.

A last step we as fans can take costs us nothing but our time. If and when a favorite of yours has a tour date in your city, help promote. Email the band for fliers and posters or get on you favorite social networking site and blab about this hip new band coming through town. Overall though just keep supporting live music by going to shows and having a good time; if bands keep seeing the joy they bring they’ll bike to the concerts.

I know all of this seems a little gloomy but it is serious a hell and its on the minds of everyone in the music industry from the bottom to the top. I’m not sure this will seriously hurt the major recording artists who play with huge balance sheets but medium to smaller acts will definitely begin to slim down. I am hoping that the trend in DIY groups begins to take hold where vertically integrating all the pieces of a band’s business becomes the norm. String Cheese Incident was a frontrunner in this move years back with SCI Fidelity and now groups like STS9 and MMJ are taking the reigns. All in all though, live music will find a way through and we as fans can only do our best to support the music we love.

Here are a few articles that I used as references for my own thoughts if you have any further interest.

Gas prices thwart indie band tours – CNN.com
Bands on the run — from high gas prices – Oregonlive.com
Road grows rocky for bands — chicagotribune.com
High Gas Prices Still Hurting Touring Bands – Houston Press

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Heady Links | Digital Music/Concert Industry Edition

whitperson — Thu, 10 May 2007 23:00:00 +0000

I’ve been trying to catch up on some digital music and concert industry news this week. There’s a lot going on, so you know what that means? Yep, another ‘Digital Music and Concert Industry’ version of Heady Links.

So grab your afternoon coffee and check it out after the jump…

Ticket Scene:
Live Nation to offer event tickets [Variety]
This new is further evidence that Live Nation is pushing further into the ticketing side of the concert industry. I’ve mentioned it before, but the fact that their contract with Ticketmaster will be expiring soon makes me think that they’ve got some big plans on the horizon for this area of business.

Nokia, Live Nation Partner For Ticket Rush [Billboard]
I think this is a good step for the company. Anything that makes it easier for fans to buy concert tickets is good in my book. Live Nation has really been on the warpath, gobbling up concert venues and making big partnerships like this one. I think 2007 will be an interesting year as Live Nation hones its digital strategy and continues to push away from its Clear Channel roots.

Warner Signs Secondary Ticket Deal With Viagogo [Billboard]
Viagogo is basically a European version of Stubhub — which is the major U.S. player in the “secondary market” for event tickets (didn’t we used to call this scalping?). I find it interesting that labels are getting into this “secondary ticket market” game. They’re obviously interested in grabbing some of this extra cash generated by tickets after the original sale. But you’d think they might find a better way to deal with this. Why not offer the tickets for auction from the get-go instead of dealing with the “secondary” market auctions?

Ticketmaster Layers Free Downloads Into Ticket Purchases [Digital Music News]

And Bob Lefsetz immediately rips into them with another solid rant.

This move makes sense for both Ticketmaster and iTunes, but I still think that this isn’t nearly as potent an idea as the inverse for ticket sales — which I’ve previously discussed. Putting ticket sales alongside digital downloads and on social networks seems like an obvious next step, yet it has really taken off substantially. Two exceptions..

Social Networks:
iLike To Launch Concert Features [Billboard]
Social network/music discovery site, iLike.com, recently partnered with Ticketmaster to add concert ticket sales alongside artist tour dates and listings. Good move, but it would be much better if they weren’t only limited to Ticketmaster’s offerings. Wouldn’t it be great if people had what they really want: better alternatives to the infamous ‘Ticketbastard?’

Showclix is the other music social networking site that is attempting to put concert ticket sales in context with artist’s tour dates. But it is still quite young and has not generated as much press as MySpace, Last.fm, or even iLike.

Last.FM Augments Offerings with Streaming Video [Wired's Listening Post]
Another site making news this week is Last.fm, which is one of the most popular social networking sites for music. The site continues to build a dedicated following by adding great features and generally doing things right. Last.fm is now making another big leap by adding streaming videos to its online offerings. Although I doubt that it will truly be a “YouTube killer,” I think that Last.fm’s content partnerships will help combat any potential lawsuits and make for better quality video offerings (two issues that have plagued YouTube).

Snocap Spins Live Performances, Positions Show Downloads [Digital Music News]
And there’s always the social networking behemoth that is MySpace. Last September, Snocap and MySpace partnered to offer artists the ability to sell digital tracks directly from their MySpace page via Snocap’s ‘MyStore’ widgets. Snocap is now going to be launching a ‘live in the studio” series to offer live tracks as well.

Digital Downloads:
eMusic has been popping up quite a bit since it’s business model was discussed at last week’s NARM conference here in Chicago. Mainly at issue is eMusic’s lower payouts to labels and artists in comparison to iTunes. There were some reports late last week that suggested some key indie labels would be pulling their catalogs from the service. eMusic CEO David Pakman ended up having to defend eMusic’s business model on the company’s blog. If you want a more detailed take on eMusic, Hypebot has (finally) started its series on the digital music retailer, with lots of good info and analysis.

Phew! That’s a lot to digest!

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Concert.TV Adds News Division for Live Music Scene

whitperson — Tue, 08 May 2007 00:45:00 +0000

Does anybody out there watch Concert.TV?

The “Live Music Television” channel and website seems like it has very slowly been bubbling out of the underground since its initial launch back in 2003. I don’t have Comcast Cable or any of the other cable providers that carry it, so I haven’t seen enough from Concert.TV to give it a solid assessment. But I did find it interesting that they’ve now launched a news division:

Concert.TV, a digital media network committed to live music performances and
documentaries, has expanded its reach with the launch of a news division. Concert.TV News coverage will include major festivals and tours throughout the year, including recaps to appear on television and online, according to a statement. “This is about offering a perspective on what’s happening in and around live music,” says Michael Shimbo, president and co-founder of Concert.TV.

I generally think it’s a good thing to have more News offerings dedicated to live music and touring bands. But I’m not yet sure how I feel about Concert.TV. My first impression is that it has a bit too much of an MTV vibe. Then again, last time I checked, MTV had pretty much scrapped most of its music news programming, so maybe this is somehow filling that void. MTV-vibe aside, there are some decent concert clips on the website that have me thinking that its full concert offerings — which are only available on the cable channels — might be pretty decent.

Are there any Comcast subscribers out there who watch this channel on a regular basis?

What do you folks think?

Concert.TV Launches News Division [Billboard]

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eMusic Reaches 300,000 Subscribers | Great, Now How About Improving eMusic Live?

whitperson — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 21:41:45 +0000

As CD sales continue to plunge, it’s nice to hear more good news about digital music stores. Congrats to eMusic for reaching 300,000 subscribers, which they announced earlier this week.

I really like my eMusic subscription. it provides me with a nice, reasonably-priced way to check out new music and independent bands. I offered a similar post to congratulate eMusic’s 100 millionth download (back in December when I was still running LMM). I like the eMusic model and have already downloaded a ton of tracks that I might not have discovered on my own.

But after being an eMusic subscriber for some time — and a live music fanatic for even longer — I have an eMusic gripe:

What’s with the weak catalog for eMusic live?

Ticketmaster Sues StubHub | Ticket Industry In-fighting Continues

whitperson — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 22:20:04 +0000

vs.

Billboard is reporting that Ticketmaster has filed suit against secondary ticket market site, StubHub, over its supposed sale of primary-market tickets.

Ticketmaster, the world’s largest ticketing company, has fired a major shot over the bow against online ticket seller StubHub. Ticketmaster filed a suit yesterday in Los Angeles Superior Court against Stubhub and its parent eBay, citing intentional interference with Ticketmaster’s contractual rights and other charges…”The issue in this case is these tickets posted on StubHub for a tour were tickets that were made available to the general public, and in these particular instances, we had the exclusive right with our clients,” says Moriarty.

In addition, just yesterday Ticketmaster filed a series of lawsuits against four companies over their use of automated web “bots.” The automated software programs are set up to access Ticketmaster.com to quickly and automatically purchase groups of tickets beyond what a single user could achieve.

Although Sean Moriarty, Ticketmaster’s CEO, denies any connection between the suits being filed, in a way, it looks to me like Ticketmaster is trying to play it off as sort of good cop/bad cop on the same day. I don’t think either move will improve the ticket giant’s standing amongst most consumers. It’s unofficial “ticketbastard” moniker is unlikely to fall out of favor until they stop charging so many ridiculous fees and “convenience charges.”

I hope to have a bit more later, but the main takeaway is that Ticketmaster sees Stubhub’s emerging growth as a threat to its business, and they’re starting to fight back.

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