Category: Music

Live Nation strikes again.

Per a Live Nation memo, obtained by Rolling Stone (and provided at the bottom of this piece): “Artist guarantees will be adjusted downward 20% from 2020 levels.”

They want artists to take a pay cut. 

In a perfect world where the artists and fans are the priority of this business..

Ticketmaster takes the pay cut. 

For a $134.50 ticket to a Harry Styles show, Ticketmaster is going to charge $37.70 in fees.

That is a whopping 28% fee.

Technically….$5.00 per ticket for a “facility fee” – but Live Nation owns most of these facilities and is already expensing a rental fee on the promoter end.  ($5 * 15,000 capacity = $75,000 per show)

Let’s take 20% from Ticketmaster instead of the hardworking artists.

If they can’t survive on 8-10% of every concert ticket, they should get a new CEO and a new business model.

Ticketmaster is owned by Live Nation and used as their tool for taking money from the fans and artists. Ticketmaster has often taken the heat, while Live Nation could be a part of solving the problem. When they charge more in fees, the artist gets less of the cash you are spending.

In a perfect world, if we freed up 20% of this expense for the consumer, the artist would be able to charge more for the actual ticket. If you’re actually willing to spend $172 to see Harry Styles, would you rather give that money to Live Nation or Harry Styles?

The other option would be for artists not to increase the price. Their fans would likely spend more on merchandise. Or they’d spend this money on supporting independent artists at smaller venues. The best thing for this industry right now would be to facilitate spending, not reduce the incentive for the artist.

The fact stands: Ticketmaster does not need $37.70 to process that ticket order.

Billboard reported that in 2019, “Live Nation’s revenue grew 7% to $11.5 billion”

Who do you think needs to take the pay cut?

—

Live Nation Memo to Talent Agencies

The global pandemic has changed the world in recent months and with it the dynamics of the music industry. We are in unprecedented times and must adequately account for the shift in market demand, the exponential rise of certain costs and the overall increase of uncertainty that materially affects our mission. In order for us to move forward, we must make certain changes to our agreements with the artists. The principle changes for 2021 are outlined below.

Artist Guarantees: Artist guarantees will be adjusted downward 20% from 2020 levels.

Ticket Prices: Ticket prices are set by the promoter, at the promoter’s sole discretion, and are subject to change.

Payment Terms: Artists will receive a deposit of 10% one month before the festival, contingent on an executed agreement and fulfillment of marketing responsibilities. The balance, minus standard deductions for taxes and production costs, will be paid after the performance.

Minimum Marketing Requirements: All artists will be required to assist in marketing of the festival through minimum social media posting requirements outlined in artist offer.

Streaming requirements: All artists will be required to allow their performance to be filmed by the festival for use in a live television broadcast, a live webcast, on-demand streaming, and/or live satellite radio broadcast.

Billing: All decisions regarding “festival billing” are at the sole discretion of the promoter.

Merchandise: Purchaser will retain 30 % of Artist merchandise sales and send 70% to the artist within two weeks following the Festival.

Airfare and Accommodations: These expenses will be the responsibility of the artist.

Sponsorship: The promoter controls all sponsorship at the festival without any restrictions, and artists may not promote brands onstage or in its productions.

Radius Clause. Violation of a radius clause without the festival’s prior authorization in writing will, at the festival’s sole discretion, result in either a reduction of the artist fee or the removal of the artist from the event, with any pre-event deposits returned to the festival immediately.

There are two types of thinking when it comes to being unsigned, independent or DIY:

Learn how to do it OR pay someone to do it.

Which one should you do? That depends. When you are just starting out you need to consider keeping your costs down. Make sure you can afford the avenue you take. For example, when you first record songs. Some bands are self produced; they record themselves instead of paying a producer or engineer.

A great compromise would be to reach out to students at a local recording school. Often times, students of a recording or engineering school have to do projects that include doing either a live or tracked recording of a musician or band. This means you get someone who has some experience under their belt (more, if you are me) and you can keep costs low or free.

Pay Someone To Do It

Get referrals. Ask similar bands or friends of yours for recommendations on who they have worked with. The worst thing you can do is look for a producer blindly. Some work to collect the hourly rate and others have a spot in their heart for new artists.

Make sure you can afford it. Don’t hire a producer who is out of your budget. Don’t hire a graphic designer that will charge more than your potential profit on a run of shirts. Don’t hire a manager if they charge more than they are helping you bring in. It isn’t always about what you want to spend, or how much you can afford. If something is unrealistic or depletes your profits, don’t do it. (There’s a reason younger bands tour in vans and not busses!)

Hire someone to do something if you can’t do it well. If you know how to do graphic design or you know how to record music, make sure you are producing a quality product. Even if you can professionally record music, an experienced producer and engineer may be able to do better because they do it for a living.

**For taxes, I highly recommend hiring a CPA. Things can get complicated if your band is filed as an LLC and you begin paying taxes without prior experience.

DO IT YOURSELF

As previously mentioned, make sure you are producing a quality product. If you can book your own tours, but get an offer from a well connected agent, you should at least consider what you could gain from it.

If you are die hard DIY, there are so many ways you can learn to do things without even taking a class.

Read a Book. There are so many books out there. Spending $10 on a book and learning a very valuable lesson, even if it is only a single lesson, is worth it. This book taught me many of my networking skills. Never Eat Alone, Expanded and Updated: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time

Watch Tutorials on Youtube. You can learn so much on Youtube these days. If you are a vocalist wondering how you can get improve your vocal abilities, you can look up videos about vocal warm ups or exercises. (ex: Professional Vocal Warmup 1 – “Opening Up The Voice”) Eric has a number of videos that can help any vocalist. Trying to figure out a new trick on Photoshop to help cut down merchandising/advertising costs? (Ex. Spotify Duotone Photo Effect Photoshop Tutorial)

Ask someone for help. Reach out to someone who knows how to do something rather well and wouldn’t mind giving you advice. Ask other bands for help! Seriously, you’d be surprised how many bands might be willing to share their advice. Especially touring bands, although they made be a little preoccupied at a show to sit down and walk you through their pedal setup. Going back to step 1 always helps, a solid referral should be much more open to chat.

Best of luck!

-David

ps. I may do a blog on booking tours if anyone would like to see a simplified explanation of my process.

#1 – Streaming is the Future

Bands

The future of music lies in streaming. Don’t try to fight it, and don’t be afraid. I highly encourage artists to be on Spotify and Apple Music. These services will help your music be accessible to millions of people across the world. Next? Encourage your fans to follow you on these platforms and to add you to their playlists. You want streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music to do well because then you will do well. (Increased streaming = increased exposure, increase in subscribers = higher pay)

Don’t know how to get your music on these services? Try Tunecore (this link will get you 20% off your first purchase) or CD Baby.

Fans

The future of music lies in streaming. Don’t try to fight it, and don’t be afraid. I highly encourage fans to sign up for paid subscriptions. If you care about music, paying for these subscriptions is an affordable way to support your favorite artists and the future of the music industry. (How? When you pay for an app like Spotify, you are giving that company money to grow. As streaming services grow, the music industry gets stronger and smaller bands will start to get paid more.)

Enjoy an ad free, all-you-can-eat music buffet for the price of 1 album a month. After you subscribe, stream your favorite bands and add them to your playlists.

(Tip: Downloading/saving the songs to your phone won’t give smaller artists credit for streaming, stream unsigned/DIY bands whenever possible from wifi/data)

#2 – The Music Industry is Growing Again (Thanks to Streaming)

“U.S. Music Industry Sees First Double Digit Growth in Almost 20 Years as Streaming Takes Over” – Billboard

Bands

This is HUGE news. If you want a career in music, this is a breath of fresh air. Revenues have been falling for years and we have all been wondering how we can make a living in that type of industry. The industry appears to be growing again, and keep in mind…streaming revenues are higher than actual sales revenue. Translation: streaming is making more money than the sale of CDs, mp3s and vinyl COMBINED. Please, make sure your music is on Spotify!

Fans

When the music industry prospers, the fans get MORE! When bands are doing well, they often tour more, come out with more merchandise and put out more music. Get paid subscriptions to streaming services, buy concert tickets and keep supporting artists. Everything you do for your favorite artists is being seen by the music industry as a whole. You are giving hard working artists the opportunity to keep doing what they love.

#3 – Streaming is the new radio

Bands

The radio DJ’s used to be the gatekeepers – now you need to focus on playlist curators. The new radio hit is landing a solid spot on an official playlist with a lot of followers.  It’s a tricky game and sometimes you just get lucky.  Example: Check out the AP Discover made by curators from Alternative Press or Pop Punk’s Not Dead made by the awesome curators at Spotify.

Seek out playlists and try to attract attention from the people that make them. Create new playlists and use it to network with other bands by sharing their music with your fans.

(Tip: Record labels pay attention to streaming numbers. Keep your fans listening, post links, or even run a contest based around streaming.)

Fans

Streaming is a great way to find new music. Check out playlists, Beats 1 Radio on Apple Music, Discover Weekly on Spotify, and “similar artists” sections on either platform. If you remember MTV music video countdowns, you’ll get the same kind of excitement from Spotify’s official playlists. (My favorite? Pop Punk’s Not Dead). Instead of hearing the same 10 songs on the radio all day, you can plan out hours of awesome music to access whenever you want it.

For those of you who are still not sold on streaming..  Yes, you can still buy CD’s. Just stream the songs when you don’t have the CD.We are losing the CD drives in our laptops and now, even in our cars… Join the dark side, before it’s too late.

-David

http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/7744268/riaa-us-music-industry-2016-revenue-double-digit-growth


Photo by Taylor Bryant

“Songwriting – Break Up With Your Girlfriend” 

Friendly Disclaimer: The title isn’t meant to be gender specific, the statement I’m quoting just happened to be direct at me – a straight male.

Yes – there’s an explanation for the weird title, but we’ll get to that…

At risk of appearing to take advantage of well known name, I admittedly hesitated from writing this months ago. The advice I received was just too relevant and beneficial to ignore. This wasn’t a formal interview, or an interview at all, so I will simply call him “John”. 

Back in March I had the pleasure of sitting with a man many know most recently for producing multi-platinum records for the band 5 Seconds of Summer. I was familiar with him from his earlier years, helping some of my favorites from Good Charlotte to the Used put out great records.

There is not one secret to great songwriting, I’d consider it more of a recipe. John gave me a few vital ingredients…

Write Everyday

Simply put, practice makes perfect. John asked me what kind of writer I thought I was. Despite anything my answer was, he said “You should be writing a song everyday…if not more”. He has written countless songs, and says he still does at least a song a day.

Write the Chorus First

This specific piece of advice, stems from what he described as the lifeblood of the song. Every great song, has a great chorus – one that should hold a universal message. He made it clear, always start with the chorus. If you don’t have a strong chorus, you don’t have a strong song.

Run – Clear Your Mind

Going for a run, he said, was a great way to clear your mind. He spoke of his earlier years, spending time on his Vespa commuting around town, which turned into a great opportunity for him to clear his mind and come up with some of his best ideas.

Listen to the Beatles…a lot!

This one is pretty straightforward. Everyone in the room could agree that the Beatles are some of the greatest songwriters of all time.

Want to be great? Do as they do.

I learned a few daily habits of the band 5 Seconds of Summer, ones that are well reflected in the previous points. Everyday, the guys wake up and spend multiple hours at the gym. This helps them to stay physically fit, and for a vocalist, this is very beneficial. Then, they spend time in the studio every single day writing music. (Refer to the first piece of advice in this blog!)

“Break Up With Your Girlfriend.”

Right? If this caught you off guard, don’t worry, you aren’t alone. I’ll never know how literal is was meant to be, but I found my own meaning for it. My first question to you is…when is the last time you heard an amazing break-up album? Anything by John Mayer will do, but there are countless others. What I took from this statement was, great songs are written during times of heart break. Often times, I find myself writing when I can’t express that feeling any other way. Write when the emotion is so overwhelming that you just want to escape it. It’s the best escape I could ask for.

by David Kleinebreil

Photo by Roberta Sorge

My bias should appear obvious. I will first and foremost say, I have never formally worked with Green Kite “Records”. I know bands and have talked to bands that have. They offered my band a slot on Warped Tour once…but first we had to PAY an agent to watch us. Yeah….no.

I do not lay claim to all the knowledge about this company, but I will tell you what I do know:

They are not a record label. Only 2 bands have been “signed” by Green Kite – one of the bands is the owner Kerry’s son – weird right? And BOTH are conveniently “on hiatus” – where is this label?

This company will specifically message young, emerging artists, posing as a record label. “I think this song _____ is great, I’d love to send it to _____ of our A&R team”

They will schedule a call with you, without you requesting it. Some bands, take the call, because hey, it’s a record label. (it’s not a record label!)

You will conveniently be deferred to their mentorship program. This mimics something called bait and switch-  an illegal marketing technique. They make you think you have potential to be signed, then switch out what their services are really intended to be.

After the call or audition, they will say “hey you’re great, but we think you need work before we’re ready to sign you, how about our “mentorship program?”. (Read more: http://www.greenkiterecords.com/mentorship.html#&panel1-3)  The website says “The goal of this program is to ready the bands to the level of acceptance from either a major or indie label”. But wait, I thought YOU were a label?

They will proceed to take percentages from your shows and give you advice for the low, low price of $200-$300/month. Some band may pay more or less. Sure, managers have to take a percentage right? Yes. But they are not a management company, they are a mentorship program. If you are ready for a manager, spend the time seeking out a legitimate one.

****I know for a fact they message hundreds of bands. Think even if 20 bands paid $200-$300 a month. $250 x 20 = $5000 a month. $60,000 a year. Maybe they fool 40 bands and she is making six figures. Sounds like these bands are AT LEAST paying her rent.****

You should hire her son. If you want to record, you are told to hire Kerry’s son, the producer. If you need a sound guy, you are told to hire Kerry’s son, the sound guy. You get the idea.

Keep the money in the family. If you want to play their shows in Arizona you either: buy on to a show guaranteeing ticket sales OR take a mall gig where she takes 20% and you pay her son half your earnings to do sound.

***IF you are seeing a pattern here, so am I. I suspect the whole thing was started as a revenue driver for her son’s band (I know, there he is again.) ColdFusion. (www.facebook.com/coldfusionband)***

IF you think I’m attacking a friendly, family business, I’m sorry. My goal is not to defame – I’ll admit, I used the word “scam” in the title to get people to pay attention. I am addressing this publicly out of concern for young, talented artists. (11 one star reviews should also back up my point.) Sadly in this industry, you need to be careful. People will lie to you to appear to be something they are not.

IF you are a band just starting out and you need help. Please reach out to me anytime. I’ll give you all the knowledge I have, and if I can’t answer your question, I’ll gladly direct you to someone who can. And I’d love to refer you to a band in your region so you can learn and grow together.

David Kleinebreil

dkleineb@asu.edu

http://www.facebook.com/davidkleinebreil

Disclaimer: My advice does not cost hundreds of dollars a month. 

Also, if you have screenshots or an experience you’d like to share, you can email me.Anything shared will be done so anonymously and only with your permission.

 

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