BTTV BLOG

Really interesting stuff. It’s not all hundred dollar billz and expense accounts. You favorite band may just be scraping by, even if they are playing amazing shows. This is just a little bit of the post, click through for more.

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The idea that musicians—even well-known musicians who sell out large club shows—have money is a misconception for the most part. Financial concerns and viability obviously vary from artist to artist; no two musicians are exactly the same when it comes to money and how it’s made and spent. But what most fans fail to realize is how much it costs to be a musician and how much more it costs to be a musician on the road.

THURSDAY vocalist GEOFF RICKLY is fully willing to admit that his personal income last year was less than $10,000. Rickly spent months of 2010 working a retail job in Brooklyn to make ends meet; and thanks partly to living in New York City, he hasn’t owned a car in seven years. If that surprises you, you’re not alone. “I saw something online once that said, ‘Oh those Thursday guys don’t care, they’re driving their fancy cars and living in their big houses,’” Rickly says. “I thought that was so funny. In our biggest year, when we were all over the radio and on TV, I made less than anyone with a desk job makes. It’s a weird misconception. But I remember when I was a kid, I saw Snapcase; and they were the biggest hardcore band I’d ever seen at the time.

Read More @ Alt Press

You gotta take plastic. When the cash runs out from the bar tab people are more than willing to pull out the credit card to make a purchase at the merch table. On top of that, they’ll probably buy more than one thing since they may have had a couple. Not a bad plan, just be prepared.

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Selling merch at gigs is an essential source of income for many bands and Intuit made it more profitable by lowering both startup and transaction costs for mobile credit card processing. Intuit now offers free card readers compatible with most mobile devices and is waiving monthly fees for most customers who sign up for GoPayment by mid-February. Even better, the deal actually favors artists who don’t sell big quantities:

Bands doing a smaller or intermittent credit card processing won’t pay a monthly service fee and be charged a rate of 2.7% for a swiped card and 3.7% a keyed in card or for non-qualified transactions plus a 15 cents per transaction fee.

Bands doing a higher volume will l be charged $12.95 monthly, but with a lower transaction rates: 1.7% swiped, 2.7% keyed in, and 3.7% for non-qualified transactions plus 30 cents per transaction.

via Hypebot.

That crazy man Martin Atkins has another book out about the music biz, touring and all that jazz. Some of it’s good, some of it’s so-so. Either way, there are some good tips if you’re getting going with this whole rock n’ roll experience.

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Martin Atkins has recently released a new e-book called “Welcome To The Music Business…You’re Fucked”. If you’re in a band and have never read his last book, “Tour: Smart”, just stop what you’re doing, get the book, and start reading. His point of view is a slap in the face as well as the most practical information you can find on running a band. So, when I saw that he released something new, I immediately downloaded it and read it in just a few hours.

Since every page of this book is worth reading, I will cover just a few points that stuck out for me.

via How To Run A Band

We love some “how to” stuff so here’s one that we found in the old “drafts” folder from earlier this month. Some good tips here. Click through to We All Make Music for the full list.

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There are several factors that may influence a poor turn out to your performances. It may be a wide range of happenings, or it may “only take ONE … to keep you from packing the house.”

In the latest issue of Indie Connect Magazine, there’s an article by founder and CEO Vinny Ribas called “50 Reasons People May Not Be Coming To Your Shows.” As you’d expect, it’s incredibly thorough, and to tease it, we thought we’d share ten bullet points.

* (5) You play too many slow songs. This might work in a piano bar, but in many venues promoting an upbeat, happy atmosphere is imperative. It can be fatal if people are falling asleep at your shows. Evaluate and revamp your set list and insure that you keep the pace alive and moving.

* (6) You haven’t given your fans a reason to come to your shows by creating some form of anticipation. You can hold an online contest and announce the winner at your shows, or announce that you’re going to play new songs that you’re working on for your next CD and you want their opinions. Play ‘Don’t Forget The Lyrics’ with one person who claims to be a real fan (use your original songs). Give away free mementos at your shows. Give your fans a real reason to be there!

Read more @ We All Make Music

Mergers and conglomerations! Not really but this is handy. Now Songkick syncs up with your Bandcamp page so you’re not pulling double duty entering in those tour dates. Though, when we get new version of Better Than The Van up (look for it January 15th) you’ll have to get all manual on those show dates again. Uggggh. We know!

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Rather than create yet another place that artists have to post their live performance listings, music sales and marketing platform Bandcamp has partnered with Songkick.

Songkick already collects shows data from ticket vendors and venues globally, and provides that data to Bandcamp as well as YouTube, HypeMachine, Yahoo, and others. and they appear automatially on the artist’s Bandcamp profile page. If a show is missin you can add it via Songkick.

via Hypebot

Hey, hey. We love numbered lists and WAMM has a good one about touring. Good stuff that takes a little planning and leg work but will make your tour/shows better, bigger more bad ass as it were. We give you two, and click through to WAMM for more.

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Every time a band has a gig, there are certain guidelines they should follow. This checklist of 10 items will help bands ensure each show runs smoothly and is as successful as possible.

Advance The Show

There is a lot of information that trades hands when setting up a show, and sometimes that information gets jumbled and isn’t communicated correctly. Make sure you are on the same page with the venue by advancing the show 1 to 2 weeks before your date. That way, no one gets surprised when the band asks for its $200 guarantee and the venue thinks they only owe $125. Print out those advancing emails and bring them to the gig, just as back up.

Show Your Promotion Efforts

As one might expect, venues love bands that promote hard, so make sure your hard work gets noticed! If you get a plug about your show on a blog, send it over to the venue. Use all of your social networks to link up with the venue online so both of you can cross promote. It is okay to toot your own horn in this situation.

Get 10 more tips @ We All Make Music

So some crazies decided to use Reddit to promote some upcoming shows. It appears to have worked. Yes, there are complaints that it’s too “gimmicky” or whatever, but in short it shows some solid creativity. Plus, it was basically free…which we all like, yes? The link clicks through to their Reddit page where other ideas have been crowdsourced. Go get some and blast off!

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So I want to get other people’s successful ideas for promoting shows. I’ll give two that worked for us. Post more of your own so we can all steal from each other.

1. Snuggies. I know, I know…it sounds stupid. People freaked out about it though and word spread like wildfire. “They’re giving away 2 snuggies at the show with their logo on it!”. It was so lame that people loved it.

2. Free Breakfast. This was an all day festival that we made a good chunk of money off tix sold through an online link. We found a caterer that wanted to promote their business and help us out. I set it up so that if people texted a certain google voice number after buying tix from our link , they would get on the list for a delicious omelet, potatoes and coffee. We got most of the actual food donated and filled 100 slots probably sold 75 tix with 25 freinds/fam.

Lets hear your ideas.

Edit: There’s several people complaining that these promotions are gimmicks. I just don’t see it that way. It’s too damned easy for people to stay home and play videogames/watch a movie. You have to entice them to come and so they’re reminded how awesome live music is. Once you do that, they don’t need the “gimmicks” anymore and you’ve built yourself a fanbase.That is all.

Read more @ WeAreTheMusicMakers

No magic formula here. Just hard work and a willingness to sacrifice a lot. But it doesn’t hurt to be smart about it.

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The idea that skipping a label and giving $50 to TuneCore iswhat makes a career. Not even Corey Smith believes that. Do you?

The numbers are telling a completely different story, over and over again. So which is better, a fairy tale or a realistic assessment of the terrain? “I feel like there are a lot of people in my position frankly – in the software space – who just said ‘yeah, you’re going to make it,’ and it’s definitely statistically untrue,” Rogers recently told an artist audience in Santa Barbara.

How untrue? Rogers himself revealed a stat showing that less than 30,000 artists are actually making a living. Soon thereafter, the UK-based Musicians’ Union revealed that 87 percent of its members are making less than $25,000 a year. Earlier this year, Tom Silverman found that about a dozen DIY artists (if that) were selling north of 10,000 albums.

Read more @ Digital Music News