Online Concert Is the New Normal
Show4me is a music interaction network that provides a platform for musicians to consolidate their fanbase, promote and sell music, as well as tickets to events. At the beginning of April 2020, the platform introduced a ticketed online show functionality to help musicians set up an additional stream of income while working from home and social distancing. Now musicians don’t need to risk losses by spending a fortune on renting out expensive venues while at the same time expanding the reach of their live shows to the global community – anybody can now attend their live event from the comfort of their own home, saving on travel and accommodation. The feature has fast become one of the most in-demand on the music interaction platform Sow4me.
Online Shows Bring Profit Here
If you right now want to try out Show4me functionality, here comes the gigmit special offer – valid through August 7, 2020: a personal support manager who will help set up your Artist club along with a free show management for your ticketed online show held through Show4me that consists of an assigned personal show manager, a free show description, and a set of free promotional visuals (show posters and promo pics).
To better understand the platform and the vision behind it we talked to Show4me Chief Business Development Officer Yuriy Sylovanyuk about their zero-loss solution in this pandemic and the megastar crisis, about selling music, monetising artists clubs, selling tickets and crowdfund events and music.
gigmit: Hi Yuriy! How has the relationship between musicians and fans changed?
Yuriy Sylovanyuk: Our observation is – musicians have become markedly more available to fans via virtual means of communication. Fans start to appreciate artists’ work and agree to reward it fairly. Many music lovers are aware of the dire circumstances many in the industry have found themselves in this crisis. They want to help. Show4me provides the tools for that. A musician on Show4me can consolidate their fanbase in a single place and give them options to support through buying music, paying for Artist club subscriptions, purchasing show tickets – either for ticketed online events or even for live shows with an open date (we’ve introduced open date functionality a while back to help make crowdfunded shows more flexible).
With Show4me, artists can sustain their music business with digital tools that bring in income. What does digitalization mean to you?
Digitalization for us is the solution to the megastar crisis. We all know that globalization promoted the rise of huge stars, but it came at a cost – to get to that level and maintain it, there had to be a whole organisation of people and resources working to keep the machine working. In turn, the machine required the stars to earn as much as possible to sustain itself. The music industry has reached a scaling crisis. Digitalization made scaling irrelevant. First, it enabled musicians to sell unlimited amounts of music without any additional logistical efforts. Now, recording, mixing, and broadcasting equipment has become affordable – one can literally use a smartphone to record, mix, broadcast, and manage a music career.
What does this imply for artists?
Today, any artist can start small and still earn a living as a small-time entrepreneur, doing a lot of the work themselves – be it interacting with fans, uploading their music to the distribution sites, or setting up shows. And they can outsource the rest to gig professionals – track mixing, poster design, ad campaigns, concert promotion, etc. Show4me’s place in this is offering a platform where an up and coming or established musician can sustain their music business with the core set of digital tools that bring in income. Show4me helps conduct both online and offline music business activities: music sales, fan subscriptions, fan interaction, ticket and merch sales, concert and music crowdfunding, digital portfolio.
How does that work in practice?
To earn on Show4me, an artist creates their Artist club, tells their story by fleshing out their profile with info and images, uploads their music, shares updates, videos, behind the scenes, anything relevant to their fans, and sets up shows. In turn, fans subscribe, buy show tickets and/or music. With music, Show4me offers fans a couple of options.
- They can either buy an album (and download it) for the price set by the artist (or higher – this is essentially a tipping tool aimed to help musicians turn support from the superfans who have the means to afford it into actual profit).
- The second option is to get a paid Artist club subscription to the specific artist which allows the fan to listen to all the music in the given Artist club without any additional charge for a whole year. The subscription costs the fan $1/year for each artist they subscribe to. This gives our Artist club subscriptions the potential to become more tangible for the artist in terms of income than, say, social media followers.
Speaking of income, artists using Show4me are only subject to fees once they have actually earned something through the platform. The 6 to 15% (depending on the type of earnings, full details here) cut is deducted from the total profit when the artist does a fund withdrawal. It’s a no-risk formula that we are very proud of.
How was your ticketed online show product feature received by the artists?
The feature has fast become one of the most in-demand on our platform. Dozens of shows have been launched enabling musicians to earn on their live-streamed events. I would say all of them were incredibly successful, but if I had to pick two – piano wonder from Indonesia Elizabeth Michelle Heryawan, who has already set a few world records and is still in her teens, sold out her June 14 show in a matter of days. Incidentally, the concert was a stress-relief themed event to help the audience relax and get soothed by Heryawan’s interpretations of some of the best classical, jazz, and pop piano tracks. And Los Soneros, a London based band, that brings a hot mix of Latin rhythms and vibrant colours of Mexico. Their recent online performance on Show4me had incredible success and feedback from fans from around the globe.
By the way, these days we talk a lot about how the crisis made it apparent what’s essential and what can be done without. And while entertainment isn’t usually considered essential, the role of our favourite talents in helping us through this situation could not be understated. Just look at some of the titles of the event campaigns launched on Show4me: The Show Mask go on, Bored in the house, Social Dis-Dancing, Quarantine Bangers. These alone make one feel a little better about the whole ordeal we are all in!
What is the special offer to the gigmit community?
If you right now want to try out the music interaction network Show4me’s functionality, we’d love to offer the gigmit community a special offer: a personal support manager who will help set up your Artist club along with a free show management for your ticketed online show held through Show4me that consists of an assigned personal show manager, a free show description, and a set of free promotional visuals (show posters and promo pics).
Follow this link to redeem the offer.
Valid through August 7, 2020.
You can do a lot by yourself!
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