The Awkwardness Of Cutting Out The Middleman

from the handling-money dept

We've talked in the past about the idea of musicians doing "house concerts" or in-home shows (all the way back to 2003), highlighting how folks like Jill Sobule successfully offered up the opportunity for fans to pay $5,000 to have her perform at their home. She had a handful of fans take her up on this offer and said they went great. When Amanda Palmer released her latest album a few weeks back, she included a similar offer. $5,000 for an in-home concert during her Australian tour. Very quickly (and, it appeared, mostly via Twitter), one superfan took up a collection to see if they could raise the $5,000 to have Amanda come play at a barbecue at her place. And, it worked. Amanda has now written a really great blog post describing the overall experience, which apparently went amazingly well:

it was a fantastic fucking night. i feel so incredibly lucky to always work on the assumption that my audience will be made up of people that are interesting, people i want to actually talk to.
i borrowed a piano from a girl who came to the gig (and she wound up playing after me, while i signed and chatted to folks), took requests, drank beers, told stories, listened, hugged. kim came along and played some of her songs, and we sang together, and we....felt right at home. i was given some incredible gifts. i feel like collapsing sometimes under all the awesome that comes into my life. thank you to all you who were there. that was special.

But what's most interesting is that Amanda goes on to discuss how she was worried about doing this -- especially for the first time. Her main concern was that it would be awkward to show up and play for money -- even though she does that all the time when playing concerts. But there's something different -- something more intimate -- about playing in someone's home, and the idea that they paid for you to be there is definitely a different feeling. Amanda narrows it down to a key point: it sometimes feels awkward to deal with money directly. Money is often a taboo subject, where people like to skirt around actual dollars. I see this all the time in business meetings, when discussing various deals. Everyone always like to dance around the key issue -- the money -- for as long as possible, and always seems to hope it's the "other guy" who brings it up or (even better!) some third party steps in and handles the transactional part.

In fact, that's part of the reason why middlemen exist in so many areas. Asking for money is difficult, and asking for and handling the money is a function that many people just feel more comfortable handing off to a third party. Yet, after all of this, when the deal does go through, and you realize that it's a direct connection between two people who are happy about how each came out of the transaction, people begin to realize it shouldn't be awkward at all. Amanda makes this point as well:

there's something really fucking satisfying about the money not going to everybody inbetween...the promotors, the ticketmasters...and not having those inbetween people involved AT YOUR GIG. there's something that kills the vibe about playing in a venue and knowing that everybody who works there doesn't give a shit about you, your music, or your fans.

Of course, this is the crux of what a market economy is supposed to actually be about: transactions where all parties are better off post transaction, and happier for it. That may sound crass and businesslike, but if everyone's better off, isn't that a good thing?

That's not to say that all middlemen should be done away with. Not at all. There are plenty of great and important roles for middlemen in specific scenarios. Middlemen can do all sorts of useful and compelling things to enable content creators to go on and do much more in the world. But, some middlemen are really just there to make it so that the "awkwardness" of money exchanges goes away, and those middlemen might not be that useful in the long run. One of the key things we've seen over the past few years is that people love to support artists they like directly. In fact, they seem more willing to spend if they think or know that the money actually has a half decent chance of ending up in the artist's wallet. As Amanda notes, more people are starting to realize this, and learn to get over the awkwardness of asking for money, and the awkwardness of removing a middleman who isn't really adding value, but simply obscuring the transaction.

Filed Under: amanda palmer, awkwardness, business models, house concerts, middlemen, money

A Different Model For Touring: House Concerts

from the watch-the-innovation dept

We recently posted a report pointing out that touring revenue wouldn't be an acceptable substitute for a loss in recorded music sales. A part of that report suggested that there just weren't that many efficiencies that could be wrung out of the live touring business, while also noting how expensive it can be to put on a tour. Part of my problem with that report was that it focused very much on an old model of touring, and didn't consider that new technologies could, in fact, really change the way people think about touring.

For example, plenty of folks have pointed to the success Jonathan Coulton has had with touring, by using services like Eventful to guarantee a large enough crowd at a certain location and showing up for a "strategic" concert in a place where he's guaranteed to make some money out of it. But some are taking it even further. We've certainly talked about backyard/house concerts before (in fact, we've been suggesting them for about six years), and we've seen Jill Sobule use them as part of her model to fund her latest album. She ended up doing five or six of them, and said they were lots of fun (and she's still open to doing some more).

However, I recently came across a story from a band who basically did an an entire tour based on (mostly) house concerts. The story is from February, but I just found out about it, seeing it mentioned in the comments on a post from Andrew Dubber about how he wants to attempt house consulting for bands (an interesting idea in itself).

The story of the house concerts tour is really fascinating, though, in a variety of ways. Basically, the band -- based in the UK -- were able to book a bunch of gigs all at people's homes around the US. They did most of the booking via Twitter, from people who followed them, noting how much more efficient this was than the traditional system of begging different venues to put on a show:

Method for our tour: "talk to lots of people on twitter >> make friends >> allow them to discover music as they get interested in who we are >> tell them we're touring >> invite them to host gig >> Book in the dates" - the audience is a shoe-in, cos most people can fairly easily find 15-30 friends who are up for a crazy night of music making in a house. It's a nuts idea, it's fun, and it has the added benefit of being validated by a friend of their's... if Tracy/Linda/Angela/Steve/Gus etc are willing to book this, it MUST be good. The person who books the show then emails the links to what we do around (no need to send out CDs) so people have an idea what to expect. Everyone comes to the gig, eats, listens, buys CDs, and we go home with money and loads of new friends. Win-Win.

Other benefits were that the gigs were tons of fun and the band saved on hotels since they usually were able to crash at the house that put on the house concert. They note how many amazing people they met, and how much of a connection they made with folks by playing in such an intimate setting. Also, an advantage of such house concerts is that it was a great way to expand their audience and fanbase, since the "host" basically would go out and recruit a bunch of friends -- most of whom knew nothing about the band before seeing them play.

Perhaps most interesting of all: the band made more money on this tour than they did in the past touring clubs. They noted that the "risk" and costs are much lower. While they say they aren't getting rich this way, they are earning money -- and more than the "old" way of doing things.

So, once again, this obviously isn't a model that works for everyone -- and no one's saying it is. But it does show yet another business model that can work for certain bands, by taking a very different look at the market and coming up with creative and innovative ways to get themselves out there, and do so profitably.

Filed Under: business models, house concerts, music, touring