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Dear Steve, We never met — which is an amazing thing for someone who has had such a profound impact on my life. Here’s to your passion, your vision, your desire for excellence, your creativity, your unrelenting energy, your desire to break the impossible and surpass the possible; here’s to your light and to the long shadow that you have cast over all of us business people, artists, creators and entrepreneurs. Here’s to you, Steve Jobs. The last true American original. Panos I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with members where I hear the same request – I want more feedback on my music. It doesn’t matter if I’m talking to a folk singer, a rock band or a singer/songwriter. If I’m in the States, the Netherlands or the UK. It’s always the same message – I want more feedback so I can improve, do better, and know where I stand. Last week, we launched a partnership with SoundOut to help with that. SoundOut is the market’s leading research and audience insight tool for new music. Their community of more than 140,000 music fans and consumers review new music and provide feedback. SoundOut puts all of this feedback together in a handy (and quite extensive) PDF report. This includes info on a song’s market potential, overall track rating, like rating by age group and gender and passion rating, indicating the intensity in which reviewers liked the song. OK. Now let’s get to the part about why you should care. Our beta launch with SoundOut means that a random sampling . . . → Read more Digital Music News recently published an article about GigMaven and festival submissions (“Should Artists Pay for Festival Submissions? GigMaven Says No Way…”). Below is my response. This is Panos, founder of Sonicbids. I’ve been following the comments and I think much of what I have to say has already been captured in comments made by Dave Cool and others. In many ways this whole subject is moot, as right now 65% of all gigs on Sonicbids carry no submission fees. By June, this number will be 90%. But, I will also say that we are keeping some premium listings fee based, because I’ve seen these fees work and create opportunities for emerging music that without them would have never been possible. If you care, read further. If you’re fixed in your opinion, then don’t waste your time reading my rather long-winded response. We at Sonicbids did not invent submission fees. They existed long before I launched the company 10 years ago. Do I feel that it’s worth it for an artist to pay $25 or whatever . . . → Read more
Submission fees had been a part of the music world way before I launched Sonicbids exactly 10 years ago on Friday (February 25, 2001) with the simple mission of helping every band get a gig. My personal philosophy around them has been pretty simple: 1. Small submission fees act as an effective filter (we currently have 300,000 bands using the site); That said, the fees often have had some undesired byproducts: they discouraged bands from taking risks and applying to more gigs on the site (on average, it takes 9-10 submissions to get a gig) – which meant fewer gigs booked; a whole . . . → Read more
But I am also excited that starting this week we have officially launched a new program with our partner Eurosonic that we are calling (very creatively) EuroSonicbids. With this program, and with the local support of the good folks from Eurosonic we are making a multi-year commitment to invest in bringing in over 300 new festivals from Europe into the Sonicbids fold. (Rejoice European Sonicbids members.) Basically, we are financially rewarding each festival that opts into the EuroSonicbids program for booking a minimum of two emerging artists for their stages each year. And, we are encouraging them to in turn use this money to pay the bands they book. Stipends can range from 500 – 1,000 euro per band. Members of Eurosonic’s ETEP organization include the Ruisrock Festival in Finland, the Montreux . . . → Read more |
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Copyright © 2012 Sonicbids Corporation. All Rights Reserved. |
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“Panos’ Brew” is Sonicbids founder/CEO Panos Panay’s weekly (or more) post about whatever happens to be on his mind. Look for musings and observations on entrepreneurship, the state of the music business, his experiences with members, interesting things he’s seen in his travels, or just about anything else.
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