Beware! The Leopard

Sonicbids response

You probably saw a post I made a couple of days ago regarding Sonicbids and the concept of Pay to Play.  While I still disagree with the overall concept of pay to play, they have responded to me, via email, and I commend them for doing so. 

Here's the response in uncut form:

"Hi Alex,

David from Sonicbids here. I saw your post and wanted to drop you a line.
 
Aside from the Sonicbids piece, one of the first things I noticed about your site is how well-presented it is, and the great job you’re doing chronicling your experience as an independent artist. This is interesting content for potential fans, and we love seeing artists who understand what good online storytelling can do for their music careers.
 
There were a few things in the Sonicbids post I hoped I might be able to help clarify and share with you.
 
I think the biggest misconception out there is that application fees to submit to music festivals and contests are a new creation – or as you mentioned, something old that’s recently come back. Submission fees for songwriting contests and festivals have been around as long as colleges have charged for their applications. What many people in the music community don’t know is that when a festival decides to use Sonicbids, the submission fees do not increase, and in many cases they’re reduced. In Canada, a good example is the Spring Music Festival in Hamilton. It charges $25 for bands to submit their materials offline, and $15 for bands to submit their materials online using Sonicbids.
 
On the number of slots, while it’s true some festivals only have a few slots open for independent bands, very often, those opportunities for self-submitting indie bands didn’t exist before Sonicbids worked to open them up.
 
We’re very proud of what we’ve helped Canadian bands accomplish at festivals. This last year, NXNE booked 370 indie bands using Sonicbids. Canadian Music Week booked 199. Pop Montreal booked 81, and Indie Week (Toronto) booked 74.
 
We also work to educate bands about these festivals, so they can seriously consider if the opportunity is right for them, given where they are in their career as a band. We just launched a new feature that tells bands how picky a promoter is when they’re considering applying for gigs (http://buildersblog.sonicbids.com/2008/12/pick-o-meter-and-photos-added-to-gig-listings/), and we’re producing educational interviews with festival promoters, like this one with NXNE: http://lounge.sonicbids.com/603/
 
We listen very carefully to our members – and our non-members – to continually make Sonicbids the best resource for musicians it can be.
 
If I can help answer any other questions you might have, please give a shout.
 
Keep making music, keep up the blogging, and feel free to share this note with your readers.
 
Take care,
David"

Giggity giggity

Beware! The Leopard will be performing tonight at the Eagle near Old Street tube station.

The full address is: 2 Shepherdess Walk, N1 7LB

This is the 2nd last gig in London, with the last happening on February 22nd.

In other news, I've booked the first of many gigs in Canada, April 23rd in Cambridge, should be fun!

Sonicbids and the return of Pay to Play

Alright, really it shouldn't be "return", 'pay to play' schemes have been around forever.  For those of you in the know, a P2P arrangement is where an artist pays a venue or promoter to book a gig, hopefully recouping that payment through ticket sales/door fee.  Normally this is done without any money changing hands at first, but the artist doesn't get any cash until the chosen amount of tickets have been sold, and in the case of not enough tickets being sold, the artist has to pay the venue the difference. 

This was a very popular method used by smaller venues to lure uninformed artists to play their joints.  In the 1990s and early noughties, p2p largely disappeared to be replaced by what I currently call the "free" gig.  Although the artist will never have to pay out of pocket to play, many venues require the artist to bring a sufficient crowd to warrant being paid for a gig.  I'm not entirely against this, although I do think there are some promoters out there who make good coin on the backs of artists who aren't savvy enough to book their own paying gigs.  I have played many gigs in Ottawa and London where the pay was conditional on how big a crowd I managed to get out.  In the case of unknown artists, like myself, I think this is probably an appropriate way of doing business, as my customer (the venue) doesn't pay me until I have rendered the service (of providing paying patrons to their establishment).  Once you become a known act, and essentially guarantee a good night for the venue, then these types of arrangements become moot, although by that time you will probably have a manager or label looking after these things for you. 

However there has been an increasingly worrying trend, particularly in the large festival market, of using Sonicbids as the only method of booking gigs.  Sonicbids acts like an application service.  A band signs up for a fee and they get to host an electronic press kit on the site.  Then when they want to try and get a gig at say North by Northeast or other large North American festivals (Ottawa's Bluesfest, Montreal's PopMontreal, etc.) the artist has to pay another fee to "apply" to get a gig.  In my understanding, both Sonicbids, and the festival themselves get a cut of this fee (which can range anywhere from $5 USD to $40).  Essentially the artist is paying for a chance to get a slot at one of these shows.  To me this is even a worse situation for the artist than traditional pay to play schemes, because at least in the latter there would be a gig to play and hopefully some fans.  Using the Sonicbids scheme artists are being forced to pay a fee for a gig that they most likely won't get.  None of the headlining spots played by the big names in the business will be using the Sonicbids service as the festival promoters will have searched out the artists they want and booked them separately, so the smaller bands are competing over a few showcase slots. 

I can understand why a festival would use this scheme.  It generates revenue, it weeds out bands who don't "want it enough", and it saves them the time and hassle of having to open hundreds of mailed in press kits.  However, I can't help but feel that the vast majority of people using the service are being screwed out of hard earned cash without a very good chance of getting a show.  It's almost like a lottery except the tickets are expensive and your chance of winning isn't random.  There is a real chance that if festivals keep using this service to "book" their independent acts, that consumers and concert goers will lose out on those really good acts that just don't have the financial means, or flexible morality required to buy into this new pay to play scheme.

Pictures!

From the last gig taken by the lovely A from Altphoto.net

New tunes and the last concert

Ok, so after much humming and hawing, you will notice that new tunes have been added to the player in the left side bar.

The first is called Gaza, and I wrote it a month or so ago when the Gaza incursion was at its height.  I didn't really know what else to do as I felt really upset, disturbed, but couldn't really take any meaningful action (I don't think destroying Starbucks in central London is meaningful action).  So I did the only thing I could think of, and wrote a song. 

The second song isn't really new, it's a version of White-Coated Wolves that I played at the River Bar last week.  I dedicated the song to Stephen Fry, because besides being an incredible wit, the man is also at the forefront of a mental health campaign, and as someone who wants people to understand mental health issues, I thought it only fitting that I dedicate that song to him at this time.  A brief description of the campaign is here.

Lastly, below you will find the full performance at the River Bar last week.  Hope you enjoy, comments are always welcome.

Cheers,

The Leopard

Download R09_0003

Hark! Snow!

Due to adverse whether conditions* I have been unable to update the blog with Thursday's gig.  I promise to give you a proper post when I get home tonight.

* this is the current line being used by everyone from couriers to customers to explain why they haven't accomplished anything this week.