MIXONIC
Touring and the live experience make up a huge piece of the revenue pie for musicians today, sometimes more so than simple CD, DVD or merch sales alone, making it a fact of life that if you want to be successful as a musician, not only do you have to record albums, start a twitter account and facebook page and interact digitally with fans – in order to build your audience and make enough money you really have tour constantly as well. Until now that is.
Welcome to StageIt.com, a website created exactly to solve this problem. Created by Evan Lowenstein, a frustrated musician who wanted to be able to ‘tour the world without leaving home,’ StageIt.com offers a way for artists to do just that.
Setting up a show is easy, all you need is a laptop, webcam and your weapon instrument of choice, whether that is simply an acoustic guitar for a stripped down intimate show, or a full orchestra. Setting up an account is quick and painless, and scheduling a show barely takes minutes. Artists can not only name the show whatever they want, and upload promotional trailers and digital merch for sale, but you also get to choose your own price – and that includes the ‘pay what you want’ model which is where you set a suggested donation and the fan pays whatever they feel they can afford (In the site’s currency known as ‘notes’ where 50 notes = $5US ) – including paying nothing at all! The artist sets a certain limited amount of tickets for sale – say 200, promotes it on twitter, facebook or other online avenues and away you go. There is also a ‘tip jar’ function that allows fans to tip the artist for playing their favorite songs or just being generally awesome. As an artist you get to keep over 60% of ticket sales which is more than what tends to happen in real life on the road.
Fans can comment during the show, tip and interact with each other and the musician all while ‘watching the concert in their underwear’ giving fans what StageIt calls a ‘front row seat to your ‘backstage’ experiences’ stating that ‘the front row seat is the most expensive in the house, but the place everyone wants to be is backstage’ which judging by the success of the site seems to be exactly what fans want. All kinds of artists from Lisa Loeb to Korn to Cisco Adler have used the site to sell tickets to and stream their live shows successfully, as well as many other lesser known artists. While the digital may not quite replace the real thing just yet, StageIt.com is proof that with a little ingenuity and a bit of technology, you might just be able to tour the world without leaving home – and actually do a damn good job of it.
Watch a step by step video on how to create a show on StageIt.com here.
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