Idea #12: Crowdsource band bookings

The 20th century music industry continues to perform one of the most dramatic death scenes ever witnessed. For years it has been stumbling around like a wounded bull in an empty record shop, occasionally charging outside to gore a passerby caught Napstering – for instance, Jammie Thomas-Rasset, mother-of-four (shared 24 songs, fined $1.92 million).

The Death of the Record Industry

Ok, so CD sales might be finished, but what about concerts? They’re still going to happen. In fact, live events are probably going to rise in value, because they provide a unique experience that can’t be effortlessly replicated on the web (like everything else can). But the model is probably set to change, and you can be the one to change it…

eHow’s article on how to organise an international concert tour starts like this:

Start planning at least a year in advance. You’ll save money and have a better choice of destinations and venues. Poll your members about their interests before you start planning.

Sorry, eHow – in fact, record industry – sorry, let me stop you there. That’s not how things are done anymore. You don’t need to poll fans – the fans can arrange a tour all by themselves:

Idea #12: Crowdsourced band booking

The basic idea is to create a website where fans can club together to book their favourite band for a concert in their hometown.

If I was going to do it I’d nab Nababand.com for the domain name – it’s available.

Do I have to do ALL the work here?!

How do members nab a band?

It’s simple:

1. Someone proposes a band they’d like to see and where they’d like to see them. This is effectively a promise that if the band decides to play, this person will buy a ticket.
2. Other members can then add their support by voting for the event – like saying “I’d buy a ticket too”.
3. Members can spread the message themselves by inviting friends to add their support. It’d be a similar system to Pledgebank.com (…go and sign my pledge on there!) Members could even get a discount on their own ticket or a share of revenue from the concert if they get a lot of people interested.
4. Venues list themselves on the website, stating their rental price and capacity when they register. Nababand can use this to rate the venues for relative cost, allowing fans to vote for their favoured venue.
5. When the support for a particular concert reaches a certain level – say, 75% capacity of the favoured venue – the band is contacted on behalf of the fans and invited to play.
6. The band has the option to accept the invitation and name their price, offer an alternative date / venue… or even negotiate with the fans about things like the length of concert and set list!
7. Nababand handles the bookings and ticket sales, taking a service fee from every customer. In other words: the website makes a disgusting amount of profit for very little work, and no risk.

When you think about it, this is a natural way for band bookings to work. But it doesn’t exist yet. It’s up to you to create it.

Similar idea = huge success

Sellaband helps to illustrate how successful crowdsourced band bookings could be. It’s a site where fans can buy shares in bands, who use the the crowdsourced funds to create an album. Fans pledge a certain amount of money towards a band, and can withdraw the money at any point until the band has reached it’s goal – at which point they get the money (which could be a good model for Nababand’s crowdfunded concerts). Once the album is complete, the shareholders (‘Believers’) get their slice of the revenue.

Since it launched in 2006, Sellaband has already amassed a following of 62,000 fans, 3,000 artists and $2,500,000 in revenue. Public Enemy are currently using it to crowdfund their next album.

Crowdsourced everything

Crowdsourcing is already a huge trend that is changing the relationship between companies and consumers. You can find everything from a crowdfunded cycling team (currently seeking members) to crowdsourced ideas while you sleep (if you want to come up with some ideas while I sleep, send them to me here).

Music fans everywhere would fall over themselves to band together and Nababand!

Before you set it up you’d do well to read these books: