Can Kid Rock's $20 Ticket Change The Concert Business?

Kid Rock has gone completely against the grain of the concert industry by touring behind the idea that a cheap ticket makes more money than an expensive one in the long run. While the average ticket price across the industry is almost $80, Rock has decided that $20 is more in range with what he'd like to see his fans pay.

Rock got promoter LiveNation to buy in after he agreed to revenue share 50/50 on the proceeds, rather than ask for a guarantee like most artists, and so far it's paid off, as every show has sold out and multiple nights have been booked at the same venues. And it gets better than just the low ticket price for fans.

• Walmart offers the tickets with no additional fees. You pay a flat 20 bucks.
• Parking is included in the price of the ticket
• Beer is $4
• Tour shirts are also $20 (they're usually at least $30 to 40 for most artists)
• Free samples of Jimmy John's sandwiches at the venue
• Free coffee available at the end of the show.

Now there are a thousand premium tickets available at higher prices, but they're also being sold directly to fans to keep the scalpers at bay.

This is a great idea because not only does it expose Rock to potential new fans who can afford to check him out because of the cheap prices, but it reenergizes his fan base as well. There's nothing like seeing a great live show to get your fans talking, and buying.

Not wanting to sound too old school here, once upon a time concerts were cheap enough that you could go several times a week and still have money left over. That exposed you to music that you'd have never seen otherwise, and allowed you to make a musical connection in the best way possible - from a live event. Unfortunately, as the prices began to soar, that several times a week became several times a month to today's once or twice a year. There's no way to gain new fans since the artists are only playing to their hard core fan base.

Kid Rock's lower prices have already caused a stir in the business, as Bon Jovi has added a $19.50 ticket to the current tour and other acts are considering something similar as well. This is a healthy trend and good for everyone involved, at least as long as the venues are full. Let's hope it continues.

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Beats Music Launch Getting Closer

Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine's Beats "Project Daisy" streaming music service appears to be getting closer to reality. Not only does Beats Music now have a website (although there's nothing on it), but it's hired a number of high profile people as music "curators." It's also openly advertising for engineers and designers.

According to Billboard, among the new hires include:
   Scott Plagenhoef, former Pitchfork Media editor in chief
   Carl Chery, former digital content director at XXL
   Suzy Cole, a radio music director from Detroit
   Arjan Writes, Recording Academy music blogger
   Mason Williams, former Rhino Records A&R director
   Fuzzy Fantabulous, LA hip hop radio personality
   Ken Tucker, a country music writer

They all report to new hire Julie Pilat, a former top exec at Clear Channel.

As I've posted before, the big hook for the new service will be content curation, which Iovine believes is something missing from the other services. The human element promises to provide a better way to discover new music, something that's not only vital for the service but the music industry in general.

The new curators certainly are experienced in their genres, which is a good place to start. Whether high profile and experienced curators will be better than ordinary people steeped in their particular scene is yet to be determined, but it's a good place to start.

There's no date for the launch of Beats Music (or Project Daisy, or whatever it will be called), but it looks like it's not that far away now.

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Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

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Aimee Mann Sues An Invisible Distributor

While a variety of high profile artists like Thom Yorke, Nigel Godrich and Pink Floyd are all railing against the perceived royalty injustice at the hands of streaming music services like Spotify, singer-songwriter Aimee Mann has taken a different tact in her new lawsuit against a low profile company called MediaNet. Mann claims that the company has been using more than a hundred of her songs while not paying her any royalties in a suit which could add up to as much $18 million in statutory damages.

Everyone is by now very familiar with Spotify, Pandora, Rdio, Slacker and all the other streaming services that seem to be constantly in the news, but not many can say they know anything about MediaNet. (Check out the rest of the article on Forbes).

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You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

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A Like As Positive Reinforcement

A new study has found that if an article or post if Liked on a site like Facebook or Reddit, new readers are more likely to approve of it. This is from a study published Science journal that says that Likes create a "herding" effect in that it makes other readers more likely to react the same way.

This seems like a pretty obvious conclusion, but sometimes the obvious needs real data behind it for verification, which is what this study did. Another thing that the study revealed is that negative views don't seem to have the same impact on readers, meaning that people aren't more likely to follow that trend if it's presented.

On an unnamed news aggregation site, the researchers manipulated the ratings of over 100,000 comments on the site. They found that the ones that got the positive boosts received an average of 25 percent higher ratings as a result.

The conclusion they drew was that Likes perform a sort of positive reinforcement for readers. If someone else Likes something, then it's safe for them to Like it as well. If there are few Likes, then there's less comfort in doing so.

That said, other studies have found that Likes are a function of the number of followers or readers that you might have, where a level of 1% is a good result. In other words, if you have 1,000 followers, you can expect as many as 10 Likes on certain posts, and far less on most others.

It just goes to show that you shouldn't overvalue those Likes.

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When Vocalists Don't Get Paid

There's a long list of hits going back to the 50s that used a different singer other than the artist that was credited on the record. The most famous of these may be Milli Vanilli in the late 80s, who when discovered, were forced to give back their Grammy. This actually caused a law to be introduced in the US making it mandatory to credit the correct vocalists on the recording in the aftermath.

But dance music has always been different, since many times a track is already complete when the vocalists is brought in. It's then up to the singer to complete the song by writing the lyrics and melody. The problem is that many times, even today, these co-writers don't get any royalties for what they've done. Case in point is singer Martha Wash on C+C Music Factory's big hit "Gonna Make You Sweat," who eventually resorted to suing the label to get proper credit and royalties.

Now one singer has had enough. Vocalist Antonia Lucas, after 20 years singing and writing on hits without credit or royalties, has started the Vocalist Songwriters Alliance (VSA). Lucas has found that the the problem has become more acute in today's EDM world, where the real singer of the song is usually replaced by a younger and prettier "singer" on the video, and therefore becomes the star artist. VSA is just trying to bring some equality to the situation. You do the work, you should get paid.

VSA now has over 300 members, and some of them are very impressive. Check out their site and the video below.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.