What’s up Rockstars?
I spent the day yesterday at the New Music Seminar put on by Tom Silverman of Tommyboy Entertainment. The day was divided up into 4 ‘movements’ with panels of guests that included the likes of Derek Sivers (founder of CD Baby), Kevin Lyman (Creator of the Warped Tour), Rodney Jerkins (Producer for Jennifer Lopez, Lady GaGa), Michael Doernberg (founder of Reverbnation), Tom Jackson (Live Music Producer for Taylor Swift), Ian Rogers (CEO Topspin Media) and many more, with Daniel Ek of Spotify as the Keynote.
I’m going to break it down to the takeaways that I got out of it with some quotes and pics.
“We thought we were selling music, but we were really just selling “stuff”.” – Tom Silverman
Tom started off the day with some words and some stats about the state of the music industry. Continuing on the trends of the last decade, there are more music transactions taking place than ever before, but people are making smaller purchases, and as we all know, downloading songs from file sharing sites and giving them away for free to their friends. Record companies can no longer maintain the control that they once had over the product they sell. The industry is going through a predictable cycle in which we’ve moved from order into chaos and through which we will return to order in time.
He believes that that next 10 years can be the golden age of the music business.
Right now music can be had for free by virtually anyone, yet many people still buy, and the question we need to be asking is – “why are people still buying music?”
The First Movement – Welcome to the New Music Business: Everything You Know is Wrong
Tom Silverman, Ian Rogers, Michael Doernberg and Bryan Calhoun
Conductor
- Tom Silverman
Players
- Bryan Calhoun (Sound Exchange)
- Mike Doernberg (Reverb Nation)
- Bruce Houghton (Hypebot)
- Ian Rogers (Topspin)
The first panel was all about how we define and achieve success in the music industry today.
Book recommendation from one of the panelists – What Would Google Do?
- There are greater opportunities for artists who play music that would’ve died in obscurity years ago. We now have the ability to connect people in smaller niches to the point where music that’s far from mainstream can make a decent living for savvy artists. Ian Rogers calls this the ‘rising musical middle class’.
- If they love us, what will they buy? Bare Naked Ladies sold tickets for a cruise with them as the entertainment. How can you use your creativity to sell something outside the box?
- Bryan Calhoun states that fan relations have to be authentic and consistent. If you drop off the map completely for any length of time then you’re likely to lose much of your audience.
- True fans are of the utmost importance. Think of Jimmy Buffet and the Parrothead culture he created.
The Fan Relationship Pyramid - Potential Fans -> Passive Fans -> Active Fans -> Super Fans
- Here was a good one – Divide your fans up into different tiers and give them a reason to climb the pyramid. Don’t have a one-size-fits-all approach to your fan base. Reward your best fans.Give them access to content and deals that other people can’t get. Have a strategy for each level of the pyramid
- Artists need partners, but not necessarily labels. You now have more choices when it comes to assembling a strategy and a team.
“In the future, quality is hyper-efficient” – Ian Rogers
- Your true fans will market for you. Give them tools to help them.
- Be diligent about claiming any money that you’re owed. Are you on this list?
- Look for mangers who listen and are in tune with your unique needs and opportunities. Looks for mangers who see your band and your marketing as a puzzle that they need to learn how to put together.
- Micheal Doernberg makes the point that you need to engage with your fans on the place that you control – your website. Everything else, including his own site, Reverbnation, should be seen as lead generation.
- Don’t overlook regional or local sponsorship opportunities. What businesses could you create a mutually beneficial arrangement with?
Keynote – Daniel Elk
Tom Silverman with Daniel Ek of Spotify
After the first panel Tom Silverman sat down with Daniel Ek to talk about the company he created that’s taking Europe by storm.
Spotify was launched in late 2008 and has exploded in the 7 European countries that have access to it’s service. The basic premise is this: It’s a music streaming service that allows users to access virtually any song and share those songs with friends. A free membership includes the option to purchase downloads while a paid membership allows users to download as many songs they want. The only catch is that if their membership runs out then the song files will be locked due to DRM technology.
- Daniel looked at the reality at hand and saw that a huge percentage of music that consumers own consists of illegally copied or downloaded music. He believed he could create a model where those same people would move towards an entirely legal music catalog. He just needed to set up the conditions in a way that dealt with reality and was appealing to music fans, yet still produced income for the company and the artists.
- Based on his experience and data, he says that the ‘album’ concept is far from dead. Fans still enjoy music packaged as albums and don’t actually prefer unrelated singles.
- Spotify plans to give artists access to very useful data and provide tools for communication to fans. This can be valuable especially considering the opportunities to spread music internationally through sharing amongst members.
- Every artist on Spotify is given an artist page and no artists are give preferential treatment aside from performance based showcasing on subscriber’s home pages.
- Artists can gain exposure by being randomly selected to be featured on user’s home pages.
I, for one, am really looking forward to seeing Spotify in the U.S. Licensing issues are currently being worked out. There’s no timetable on it’s American release, but when it hits it will undoubtedly have a huge impact.
Follow on Twitter:
Tom Silverman = @tomsilverman
Ian Rogers =@iancr
Bryan Calhoun = @bryancalhoun
Reberbnation = @reverbnation
Daniel Ek = @eldsjal
and of course:
Independent Rockstar = @independentrock
Thanks for the review.
Oh also, liking your blog layout. I had a similar blog to yours before I sold it on.