creative deconstruction

15 Responses to “Reality of Fan Involvement – Figures and Benefits”

1. 

   refe
   

   11. Jan, 2010

   This is a great case study for independent artists in how to build a community with their music at its center. Thanks for willing to be transparant with the figures from your project – too many bands are unwilling to let the numbers get out in the open. Maybe it’s because they fear they will lose some of their mystique, or they’ll look to money-focused, but in your this kind of transparancy seems to be a natural extension of the relationship you guys have built with your fans.

   I’d be curious to find out if there are any other artists reading this who have done something similar and would be willing to talk about the results?
2. 

   Kevin English
   

   11. Jan, 2010

   F’in brilliant if you ask me. There were certainly enough bands that did this wrong in 2009 (i.e. Public Enemy), but Hope and Social paid close attention to details.

   Connect With Fan + Give Them A Reason to Buy = $$.

   P.E. forgot the R to B part of the equation. I’ve never heard of this band until now, but as I was reading this I could picture myself at the event with a candle and a bunch of friends making weird noises to become a permanent part of the album. It made the $40 price tag a no brain’r.

   Not a fan of long comments, so I’ll hold the rest for a blog post later on. Great job Rich. Very inspirational.

   • 

     refe
     

     12. Jan, 2010

     That’s true – Public Enemy thought they could hit up their fans for funding on the basis of their fame alone. Did you ever look at the ‘rewards’ they offered? Pretty lame stuff.

     Now, if they had found ways to truly connect with their fans – and their fans to each other – maybe they would have had a real community to lean on to get that album funded.
3. 

   Brian
   

   11. Jan, 2010

   That’s fantastic Rich, well done! What a beautiful looking box set.

   This is the way to build an audience in 2010…
4. 

   Jeff Power
   

   11. Jan, 2010

   This is amazing stuff, well done
5. 

   Rich Huxley
   

   12. Jan, 2010

   Thank you all very much for your lovely comments. I hope to be able to reveal some Pay What You Want figures for 2009 in a future post, and also some news about how we plan to involve our fans this coming year.

   Couple of questions to expand this further:
   What other examples of fan involvement can we find? And what can artists do better to connect with fans in 2010 and beyond?

   • 

     Kevin English
     

     13. Jan, 2010

     Hey Rich!

     Have you seen this?

     http://oneframeoffame.com

     Not sure how they are doing it, but I thought it was pretty cool.

     Best,

     Kev
6. 

   Janet Hansen
   

   12. Jan, 2010

   Hey Rich, guy with the beautiful Twitter background,

   Love this piece of writing! Brilliant ideas here that have worked well for you…so brilliant, that one is compelled to tuck them away in their secret arsenal of tricks and make them their own.

   Hopefully, no one will exploit this concept as it is yours.

   The indie model for creating community around a band is fabulous. The only thing that’s gone astray is utter and complete exploitation of one or two solid ideas that render them totally useless after the second or third rendition on a theme.

   Hopefully this will not be knocked off and you will be allowed the freedom to perfect your model without being forced to come up with something so totally unique again.

   Excellent marketing!
7. 

   Robert Szeles
   

   12. Jan, 2010

   Congratulations to the band for creating a wonderful experience for their fans. And thank you very much for being transparent with your figures.

   Creatively and socially (community building) this was a huge success. Business-wise it was not a success, though it was not a total failure since it did help solidify and grow their fanbase. This illustrates how incredibly difficult it is to make a band a successful business without funding. As the band admirably admits, they underestimated costs. If they had charged 150% or 200% of what they did, at least they would have been paid decently for the event, even if not for the amount of work put into making the entire package (but would as many people have bought the package for the higher price?). Going forward, they may make enough money from the package to pay for all their man-hours and then profit beyond. Yes, they solidified their fanbase and probably increased it, and that’s what everyone always emphasizes, but you have to take a hard look at the numbers (something most artists seem to hate to do). If 4 people in a band are going to make a living from it, the band is going to have to bring in at least $80,000 a year just to make a meager living. That’s the reality.

   Hopefully they will continue to grow their fanbase and learn more about pricing so that they will actually be making a living from their music in a few years.

   Everyone seems to put such a huge emphasis on building a fanbase and connecting with fans, etc. This is of course vital. But if you are not able to substantially monetize your music in some way, it will fail as a business and you’ll be working a job doing something other than music for the rest of your life. Music will just be a hobby. There’s nothing wrong with that if you’re ok with that. If all you want is admiration of people or to create a community of friends to enjoy, that’s one thing. But if you want to make music for a living, you must be able to bring in enough money to not only cover costs but pay your rent and all living expenses. That’s not easy.

   As independent artists, we have to diversify our income streams (licensing, side-projects, corporate partnership, teaching, consulting, etc.) to bring in enough to make a living (or at least to make progress towards that). Unfortunately that’s necessary since our society seems to have a hard time recognizing the monetary value of music and performance. Would love to hear people’s ideas on other ways that artists can monetize their talent. That to me is the biggest challenge regarding having a career in music. I make most of my money from licensing for film and TV, royalties and also from producing other projects. Live performance and retail sales are not big money-makers for me.

   Best of luck to the band and thanks again for sharing their experience. Whatever happens with them, they’re contributing something positive to the community and therefore, the world.

8. Tweets that mention Reality of Fan Involvement - Figures and Benefits | creative deconstruction -- Topsy.com
   

   13. Jan, 2010

   [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Artists House Music, hypebot, Adrian Fusiarski, ♫ Plugola, Kevin English and others. Kevin English said: Wonderful case study on Connecting with Fans and Giving them a Reason to Buy http://bit.ly/8Ne1gS (via @refeup) [...]
9. 

   MusicBizGuy
   

   13. Jan, 2010

   There is no magic bullet when it comes to any artist or band making it in the music business, new or old. It’s like any other business. You will require time and money and the big idea which, of course, is a combination of your music and the artist product that plays it . The more of each you put in the better your chances of success.

   There are lots ways to gauge the success or failure of Hope and Social depending on where they are relative to building their business. How much time, effort and money have they put in to get to this point? Have they been tweaking their band business model to balance the creative and business elements. Is their model coming together? Is their gross income increasing? Are they working to bring their expenses under better control? Do they have the time they want to write, make music and work on their live performance? All of this stuff comes into play.

   Rich, you have done an excellent job of detailing your efforts at a specific point in time. Where is Hope and Social in regards to its grand plan whatever that may be? What exactly is your end goal in the music business, i.e. how modest or ambitious are you? Only in light of this knowledge will we really know how Rich Huxley and Hope and Social are really doing and where on the road to success they really are..
10. 

    refe
    

    13. Jan, 2010

    Robert – great comment, and it’s great to see someone who is able to ask questions and challenge these results in a way that is realistic, but respectful and positive. The web doesn’t see very many comments like that.

    Rich is obviously the one to really answer some of your questions, and the questions posed by MusicBizGuy as well, but I’d like to say a few things.

    MusicBizGuy said it well – this is a breakdown of a specific event and the results it yeilded for the band. It is one piece of a larger strategic puzzle. Was it a success, financially speaking? That’s hard to say without more info, but I think that overall it was.

    There are two ways to approach an event like this. One is to make a financial profit from the event itself. Ultimately, this should be a goal.

    However, even if the band made no money on this event and the accompanying box set, it has served to really solidify the band in the hearts and lives of its fans. It’s a downpament for continued support down the road.

    Hopefully, as you point out, Hope and Social (along with any bands who read this and attempt a similar project) will be able to look at this data and figure out ways to ensure that they are getting the kind of compensation that they need for it to be profitable.

    I think that the real focus in the future for this band and bands who have made a similar ‘down payment’ in fan engagement should be: how do we translate this down-payment into future income and the continued growth of the fanbase?
11. 

    Robert Szeles
    

    13. Jan, 2010

    Yes, along with: “how do you effectively build a fanbase” this is
    primary question: “how do we translate this down-payment into future income and the continued growth of the fanbase?”

    Thanks all for your gracious comments.
12. 

    Rich Huxley
    

    15. Jan, 2010

    Firstly, thank you all for your astute and honest comments. Very much appreciated… I’ll try and be methodical and respond to everyone here… Sooo:
    Kevin English – Thank you, appreciate your enthusiasm muchly, I’ll look forward to your blog on the subject.

    As for http://oneframeoffame.com – very cool. I’ll be sharing that on twitter shortly. I don’t think it’s the first, but the idea of a video made up of fans (particularly with Facebook tagging) is great. @bendenison has a post on something similar here:
    http://bit.ly/8EqccW

    Brian, Jeff – Thanks also.

    Janet – I really don’t mind if anyone else creates a great night in an intimate venue then creates an artefact to commemorate the night. In fact, I’m sure it’s been done before in similar ways; it’s an open source idea.
    
    We do intend to do more fan-involved stuff in the future, and if we were to build on this, and do another crypt gig, we probably wouldn’t recreate this event exactly as you say. It needs to be unique. We have one particular news-worthy and fan-involving plan for later in the year. I hope to be able to post that by the end of this month.

    Robert and MusicBizGuy: Your points cover a similar ground so I’ll try to expand on the article as I respond to your comments:

    I fully appreciate that the Crypt Gig/Be The Architect event was not immediately financially lucrative, however I do not think that means it was a business failure. The goal of the event was to unite fans, do something amazing, not lose money, increase fan-base through generating news (and here we are, people who would never have happened upon Hope and Social) commenting on a blog about about the event. Additionally, as the ticket price was paid in advance, there was no initial outlay, no-one got in debt and every box set we sell from here is profit.

    The changes in costs were due mainly to getting the box, the book and the CD ready for Christmas. We wanted our fans to have the book for Christmas, and printing an 80-page hardback book is expensive, let alone when you’re trying to get it rushed for Christmas delivery. It’s also important to us that everything was ecologically sound and recycled wherever possible, so while we could have shaved pounds off the manufacture costs by using bleached fresh paper, and leaving it until January, sometimes, you’ve just got to make a stand. We could have used a cheaper printer, we could have cut other corners but we wanted to ensure that everyone receiving their copy was ecstatic. Your fans are your biggest asset, they spread your word.

    It’s important to not lose sight of the old/big music model though. It’s wrong to hold that up as the success story. “Invest in ten bands, lose money on 9, the 1 big hit artists pays for the other 9″, and if I was was one of the 9 bands, I’d have a huge debt to the label hanging over me still.

    An artist’s first goal is sustainability, and this means not spending more than you bring in, and we had no up-front outlay. The question may not be “How do we make money?”, but first and foremost “how do we stop losing money?” (more of that kind of thinking from http://stevelawson.net).

    As for paying for all the man hours, that’d be nice (and we’re getting better at time spent Vs money in), but a critical point of what makes Hope and Social worthwhile financially is that it’s the hub that brings in a lot of work outside the band.

    Ed and I work as producers and people who love the sound of our records, and love the space we record in, pay us to make their records. Similarly, I speak at universities and colleges, as well as mentoring/coaching bands, helping bands with their web-presence. So, for me, all my work is now in music, and through being “interesting” (whatever that means) on the internet, I keep spreading the name of the band, bringing in more sales for the band and for me.

    Ed from the band gets a lot of photography work through the band shots (of us, and other bands), they have a bigger audience because of Hope and Social. Simon gets a great deal of design work through contacts of the band who love his web work, and the design work of our records. So, although the band stuff itself does not pay the mortgage (we do make some money from the band directly – nowhere near £20k [or even $20K] per year though), it affords us a lot of additional opportunities, and vitally, experiences [is my life and those around the band richer for this experience? Yes].

    I look at it like this – I guest blog here, and have my own – http://www.thehuxcapacitor.wordpress.com
    “I don’t get paid for the words I write, for what I write… I get paid because of the words I write” (quote from @dubber). My blogs and my band put me in front of an audience I may not otherwise reach, and some of these people buy from me (for which, I’m grateful).

    Similarly with the band, I spend enjoyable time making music, which pays me some money, but puts me in front of an audience who can choose to buy from the band, or from me for the many and varied things I do.

    The Future:
    Hope and Social now are looking to continue to build our fanbase, we’re only one full album old really, plus 2 EP’s (one as a commission for a theatre piece) and the box set.

    Our band based income is indeed increasing (I’m glad to say) and we choose when and how we work on our music; a success for any musician I’d argue.

    This year we intend to release 3 records and to play to new people through supports and festivals ideally – therein lie the hard bits. There’s rarely enough hours in the day however. I’d like more time to be able to contact festivals for example; to be able to organise a twitter tour of Europe and the US. I’m not saying that we’re at the epitome of streamlined business here, but we are talking about art here.

    Immediate plans are that for the next 3 to four weeks the band get to spend three or four full days a week writing and recording a new album, a privilege I’m glad to be able to extend to myself as the work I do affords me that time.

    MusicBizGuy – my end goal used to be to make my living entirely through music. Now that I’m doing that, I hope that I can capitalise on that, make more money working less hours and propel the band to double their audience or more in the next 18 months. Ambitious? I hope I am.

    Hope I’ve answered all the questions and thoughts posed there… anything else, don’t hesitate to ask.
13. 

    Ben Denison
    

    16. Jan, 2010

    I was lucky enough to be involved in Be The Architect from its conception, and it has been a joy. It has also confirmed to me that my beliefs in some of the the concepts of music2.0 are justified. I’m delighted you have shared this case study Rich, I think its the near perfect embodiment of a concept

    A unique event – Check
    A unique product – Check
    A desirable product – Check Check Check
    Financially viable – Check
    An positive online footprint – Check
    Word of mouth – Check
    Involve fans in the creation of art – Check
    Connect with peers and industry specialists – Check
    “Build your ship” = Check
    In line with you and your style – Check
    Don’t be evil – Check
    Talk about what you do – Check
    Be open about what you do – Check
    Make art – Check
    Be creative – Check
    Ready by Christmas – Check
    Something to be proud of – Check
    Inspiring for you and others – Check
    Dam good fun for everyone – Check (See track 10 for summoning the spirits of Rod Stuart.)
    And last but most importantly……
    Commemorative T-Shirt (I am The Architect) – Check

    Looking forward to the next experience.

    “I don’t get paid for the music I write, I get paid because of the music write” (mashup quote from @dubber and @bendenison)