We hope to provide you with as much information we can put together about the Music Biz. It's a work in progress at this point in time, but what you will find will help with promotion and music industry management issues. It's really a simple thing the music industry and that's why mongrels like BMG can control it so easy. There is plenty of the pie left and as a muso, if you do things right, you don't need a very large piece to support yourself and your passion for music. Entertain Us!
Getting your recordings out to the industry.. easy
AIR provide a service in conjunction with D Star that anyone can use at a reasonable fee. The service is an electronic delivery system to get your music to the right people. What they are providing is access to the system. Compared to sending out CD's to everyone you think is important, this comes in very cheap indeed. What you need to remember is that if you're going to knock on all these doors you'll have to have your stuff together. Industry want to be able to see your stuff right away. If they can't access info about your act then why are they going to be interested to take the next step. These days the music industry can create what ever the market wants on their own. If they get stuck something crap, they can usually create a market for it as well. So, why do they need you, or your act; authenticity. Not everyone is going to get sucked into the next 'IDOL' winner, but a pop performer with authenticity is a little easier to stomach. Besides there are plenty of genres out there that require pure authentic performers.
Anyway, follow some simple rules.
Profile your act, and develop your image, place it in a pigeon hole (even if that pigeon hole is one with title of can't be pigeon holed, and you better be sure about it).
Have as much media available as you can get together such as press releases, bios, images, videos and make sure it's accessable on the net.
Show some evidence of fan base. If you have 100 people willing to die for your band then you may have something a label or industry 'friend' might want.
Make sure when your act's name is googled someone can find your site and other references to your act on unassociated websites without too much problem.
Have your act together, make sure you are good enough and committed enough for the biz.
Have representation of some sort, no good just having the lead guitarist or singer's phone number on the bio. Contact local tafes and universities that run music biz programs and grab a newbie if you have to.
Don't be scared of contracts, just make sure that what's in a contract you're signing is what you really want. Start by putting one together between your band members (deed) and then put one together with your manager. It's better for all involved to know their responsibilities and expectations!
AIR has partnered with D Star to bring the Play MPE system to independent labels and artists around Australia.
Play MPE is the industry standard for transferring music digitally to media for airplay, review and other promotional uses. Currently used by Universal, Warner, EMI, Shock, Inertia, Stomp and a range of other companies, AIR levels the playing field by giving all labels equal access to media contacts.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Play MPE is an account that is held by most media outlets in the country including music directors, editors and other users of musical content. They have a small piece of software that allows them to check new releases that have sent to them for the week, listen to the new tracks, download them in CD quality, burn CDs, export to ipod, read the release notes and download photos and biography material. Labels send radio tracks, EPs and even albums on the system.
WHY USE PLAY MPE?Play MPE is a fantastic way to get your music to media. Not only does it obliterate your postage costs, but it means no more burning pro-CDs, packaging costs and you'll never have to stuff packages for hundreds of media again, making it the perfect solution for both the environment and your sanity! Media love Play MPE because it means that all of the week's new tracks are in one place, making it easy to sample and less likely to get left in the “get to it later” pile.
IS PLAY MPE A PLUGGING SERVICE?
No. Play MPE does not take the place of a plugger and is not a promotional service for your release. It simply gets your release to the media outlet. AIR still strongly recommends the use of a radio plugger and/or publicist to work your release and ensure it gets listened to.
WHO GETS MY TRACK?D-Star has lists of media contacts which are utilised by AIR. These lists are extensive and include radio, print, internet and television media. You may also use your own media lists to send your tracks efficiently for easy media followup.
WILL I GET A REPORT?
Yes. You will be emailed a report every week from when your track goes out. It will detail when a media outlet listens to, downloads or export/burns a track which you can use to pass on to your plugger or to follow up yourself. Please note that Play MPE is a professional tool and therefore you are responsible for any PR / plugging activities following the send. Specific contact details will not be provided of media outlets who access your track if you utilise D-Star's lists.
WHAT DOES IT COST?
You will be charged 'per recipient'.
AIR Members pay $2.00 (+GST) per recipient
Non-AIR Members will $2.40 (+GST) per recipient.
AIR send tracks to a minimum of 200 recipients.
This means for example, sending your latest single via Play MPE to our full list of music directors and playlist managers at Commercial radio Stations (222 recipients at the moment) will cost AIR Members $444 + GST.
We also have mailing lists of various sizes for Alternative Stations, ABC, Community Stations, Dance/Electronic, Country, Print Media and Satellite Stations.
For more information please email nick(at)air.org.au
Keywords: AIR Dstar independent recording promotion
PPCA tariff increase
Last year the PPCA announced that tariffs for everyone using recorded music in a business will be increased. Now, if you haven't been watching this debate, or don't know what this all about I'll give you some simple background.
If a business uses recorded music as a part of it's entertainment then a fee is due to PPCA. PPCA collects the fee on behalf of the big labels. Use their recording, pay a fee. All that is fine to a point. The fee increase is set to close down clubs all over Australia. I personally know of two that have closed because of the fee increase. How big is the increase? Well, a simple RSL playing music in the background of a restaurant that seats 150 (regardless of how many people actually eat there) will have their fee increased from $124.19pa to $9277.40pa. That might be able to be absorbed by an RSL, but take my friends old nightclub.
The club is licensed for 200 people and he used to open 3 nights per week (2 nights would be bands and no recorded music was usually played). When opening he would only open half of the club on most night and have about 50-100 patrons for the night. His old fee was about $900pa. A club like his comes under Tariff E1. This states that the fee payable is 67 cents per person according to the license and not actual patronage, per night of operation. So, 3(nights) x 52(weeks in a year) x 200(licensed to hold)x0.67(tariff E1 fee). Thats almost $21,000 per year.
Let's put together another equation. A small 100 patron pub has bands and DJs throughout the week. The average patronage over the week is 40 per night and the bar takes $1000 per day as an average and is running with about 200% mark-up on drinks, staff costs are $200 per day, rent is $1000 per week. The bands struggle to split the $7 covercharge. Maintenance and insurance costs are $250 per week and the power is $200 per week, promotion $200 per week, miscellaneous items of $200 per week. Already, all of this equates to a gross profit of about $1370 per week. Which is really not very much considering it probably cost over $100,000 to set-up, and the licensee is working 7 days a week to manage the place, not even taking into account that it might of run at a loss for a number of years when first started. So that gross profit is going to equate out to $71,240. The new PPCA fee for this place would be 7(days) x 52(weeks in a year) x 100(licensed to hold) x 67cents. Now, that's $24,388 bringing the profitability of the business down 34% to $46,852. At this point the licensee has two choices, take a huge cut off the door or pack it in, because I don't know anyone that is able to run a pub 7 days a week that would work for such little money and wear the risk of owning the business.
Enough of all that, a major nighclub might have a bill of over $200,000 dollars each year. That would be regardless of what their bottom line was. But here comes the fix! Not only is the fix great because our venues keep pumping but it will allow for independent artists to get a promotional leg up. On the surface this looks great. Clubs Australia are going to be supplying music to venues that is out of the realm of PPCA and as long as the venues don't play a single piece of PPCA music (BMG SONY, UNIVERSAL, EMI etc.) they won't have to pay the fee. Under the surface US releases aren't usually covered by our PPCA so the 'American Top 40' is most likely still going to get some play.
In a media release from Clubs Australia they stated, "Clubs Australia will set-up a program to source and distribute the music of artists not signed to major record labels and who are consequently exempt from the restaurant tariff. As part of the new scheme, local musicians will be given the opportunity to sell their music in clubs while money earned from the sale of background music CDs will be used to establish a fund for talented Australian musicians." What this means is that independent artists are likely to get a piece of the background music in RSL, Social Clubs, Gyms and maybe even eventually the Nightclub scene.
What this makes me think. Get together with local artists and put some CD's together and hit the restaurants and bars with some info about how they can avoid the new PPCA fees.
Subscribe to my RSS feed and I'll update when I hear more from Clubs Australia.
Keywords: ppca independent music clubs australia
How much should a manager get paid?
In general management and agents get to share in 20% of the gross (10%
each). A manger with notoriety may be able to ask for more. Also, if a
manager has taken over from a previous manager, the previous manager is
entitled to a cut for a period of time (say a couple years, if they have
been responsible for increasing the income potential of the artist). All
this is negotiated within a contract at the beginning of the term. Any
percentage paid to a previous manager is deducted from the new manager's
entitlement.
Managers are also entitled to claim back direct and reasonable expenses but
this does not extend to general 'office' expenses such as stationary,
insurance, registrations etc.. To work out if the manager is actually
entitled to claim an expense it usually needs to be considered that if that
manager was to be managing more then one artist would the expense only
relate to an individual artist or not. An example of this would be, office
rent expenses would not be related to a single artist and therefore would
need to be paid from percentages and could not be included as an expense to
any of the artists under management.
Just an extra note, Managers should not be responsible for artist finances,
such as bank accounts, or tax accounting. This should be undertaken by a
separate entity. It is my understanding though, that if a manager does
undertake these duties, it would not entitle them to an extra fee.
Having stated all that. In some cases, certain managers will demand a
retainer (this is completely negotiable). An artist could request a manager
of some notoriety to take them on and some managers of this sort may not be
interested if it is 'a ground up build'.
Keywords: manager,artist,agent,pay,rates
Randy Pausch Last Lecture
You can search around the internet for this man's life story but you really need to watch this lecture. The music industry can be hard and some of things in this lecture will either mentally shut you down or inspire you to try harder at what you are trying to achieve.
Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch (Oct. 23, 1960 - July 25, 2008) gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving presentation, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals. For more, visit www.cmu.edu/randyslecture. Below is the 'Last Lecture' on You Tube.
Keywords:
Managers for Artists
There a few ways a manager can be involved with an artist. The first, and considered the older method, is partnership. This arrangement is an easily established one and the maintenance of the relationship can also be simple. The manager is a member of the artist group and being so is entitled to equal share in revenue, advances etc.. Problems can occur though along the time-line if there is a point where the manager, for any reason, is ceasing to be a part of the act. If a band member were to leave then that person would only be entitled to what they have contributed and assets such as the band name will remain with the band, no further income could be derived directly from the artist’s profile other then royalties for performance or copyright in works and performance whilst that artist was with the act. When a manager has been responsible for creating value in the act, the manager would want a continuance of some of the income of the artist for a period of time, this is where there can be a large problem. Therefore, these days it is more common for the manager to be an individual contractor on commission or a fee. The individual contractor scenario sees the manager working for the band in many areas, having set responsibilities and receiving a fee but most likely a commission for their service. In many ways this builds a similar relationship as a partnership but there is complete autonomy. The manager is free to develop other artists, derive income from other services and generally be a professional business person that has no right (generally) to the songs, artist name, likeness, materials or assets other then what the manager contract allows.
There are many factors to consider when shopping for a manager; not least of all is trust. The manager / artist relationship is essentially reliant on trust and even in the eyes of the law a personal management contract can be subject to exit by a party if that trust ceases to exist. Then there are the factors of experience and enthusiasm. It is possible for a manager with enthusiasm to provide a good service to the artist without any more then basic experience, and for bands that haven’t established a profile would be a good choice. Although, this manager, at a later stage, may not be able to handle the tasks at hand. An experience manager will have the contacts in the industry to make ‘things’ happen. They would be able to get the artist into good venues if undertaking booking duties, and generally will be able to expose the artist to the ‘right’ people in the industry in an effective manner. An experienced manager will be able to organise touring, nationally and internationally, negotiate contracts, and look after all the other business affairs of the artist as the artist increases profile and income potential.
Keywords: managers,artists,music,contract
Getting gigs and promoting yourself
Getting Gigs, Promoting Yourself and Stuff.
It really isn’t rocket science and if you put yourself out there you’ll get the gigs. The number one thing for artists to realise is that us bookers on the front-line are concerned more with how many heads are going to roll in the door rather then how brilliant a band sounds. Harsh, I know, but it is the truth for emerging artists. I would enjoy nothing more but then to book great bands, playing music I enjoy, but reality needs to be adhered to from time to time. A booker’s job is to assure their venue of a financial rewarding evening. The next thing is that most bookers will be more impressed if you’re willing to do the hard work and put a line-up together. Going to a venue booker with a set line-up and a claim of how many numbers you will pull, in most cases, gets you in the door. Be aware that an Irish themed pub is unlikely to book metal bands, but if you’ve got the heads then you’re in for a chance not that I would expect that any themed venue is about to ‘flip flop’ on their image. I hope you understand that the point is that you are not selling your music to a booker, in most cases you’re selling potential bar revenue. This is all beginner stuff but the basics are all the same in the big time. You may be trying to get a gig at a small pub or convincing a touring company that you’re worthy of a national tour, it’s all about whether or not people are going to come see you perform. A couple things to remember is that if you promote yourself and fill rooms the industry ‘biggies’ will notice you. The music industry, although not very organised, has a pretty intense grapevine and you want to get in on it; industry people such as major agents, labels and publishers find their artists via ‘word of mouth’. All these types of people generally accept demo recordings and jazzing the release up is advantageous although this is not the way an artist is going to be taken up by a major agent or a publisher. So, get together with other bands and put line ups together, get your friends down to your gigs, don’t gig too much – keep your friends and fans fresh, create an image for street press to write about, be personable and have enthusiasm, do volunteer work for places like Vicmusic, Liberation and Shock; just get out there. Your greatest promoting asset is yourself, meet other bands, talk to people; this is a business and although you may not look like a businessperson (may you do), you need to adopt the systematic values of one. Gerard Schlachecke, from Premier Artists adds that when he wants to make a decision on an artist, he looks to see “Would the band have fans that would die for them”. Okay, you need fans, but there’s a benchmark to aim for. A former publisher Colleen Zulian said that they like artists to be polite and have a point of difference. Others in the industry say they like to see people be themselves and didn’t mind a bit of carnage and attitude. The thing to remember is that bookers, agents and publishers are real people that are in business and in many cases they’re self-employed with families, bills and mortgages. Ask yourself, are you viable? If the answer is ‘yes’ then you prove it.
Keywords: gigs,promotion
Offer and Acceptance part 1
Offer and Acceptance when present become an agreement. Courts, when deciding if a contract exists will attempt identify an Offer by one party and a unequivocal acceptance by the other. With the identifiable elements of Offer and Acceptance the matter will cease. A contracts first elements must be Offer and Acceptance.
At the point the Offer and Acceptance has been established it can be determined that an agreement of some sort does exist. Following this a court will then proceed forward to consider the element of the agreement.
To promise to do or to refrain from doing something in exchange for something from another party is considered an Offer. An Offer is a proposal where the acceptance of it will lead to an enforceable contract. Not all things that seems to be an Offer are in fact an offer. There is something known as an 'invitation to treat'. An example of an invitation to treat is displaying goods for sale or advertising. These are not Offers when acceptance of the deal constitutes a legally binding contract.
An offer can be made to an individual a group, or to the 'World at Large'. An offer must be a clear proposition and on the understanding and acceptance of the offer by an offeree a contract can be created. The acceptance of an offer must also be clear and uneqivocal.
OFFER (INDIVIDUAL)
If one is to make an offer to another, the offer is only valid to that individual. Another person can not accept an offer made by someone to another. Here's an example:
Bill advertises his car for sale for the amount of $5000
This is an invitation to treat! This is not an Offer. Bill is only notifying potential purchasers that he would be willing sell his car for $5000.
Teddy responds to the 'invitation to treat' He looks at the car and and asks Bill if he's firm on the $5000, Bill say 'you can have it $4900.
This is the the Offer. We can identify that Bill has offered his car to Teddy in exchange of the consideration of $4900.
If at this point, Bill's neighbor over hears the conversation and says 'I'll accept that, here's the money', this would not be Acceptance as the offer was made only to Teddy to purchase the car. What is actually happening is that the neighbor would be making an offer to purchase the car from Bill.
A question to consider at this point is that if Bill accepted the Offer from his neighbor where would that leave Teddy. This is where we get into the area of the withdrawal of an offer or the expiry of the offer. If Teddy had have counter offered $4800, then Bill could simply accept either offer. Bill has made an Offer to Teddy, Teddy can respond to that offer within a reasonable amount of time.
Teddy says, okay, I'll take the car for $4900.
Now we have Offer and Acceptance!
If Teddy was to counter offer $4800, Bill would be free to contract with his neighbor as a counter offer negates the original Offer. At this point Teddy cannot say, okay I'll have it $4900 and be Bill be bound as that would not be acceptance, the counter offer canceled the original offer. This would not be considered acceptance but rather an offer from Teddy to Bill to purchase the car for $4900 and it would be up to Bill whether to now accept the deal or not.
This can be a bit confusing at first and may take a bit of thinking to comprehend what an Offer actual is. You can test an offer with the following points in everyday terms.
Is the 'offer' clear and concise?
Is the 'offer' legal?
Has there been no withdrawal of the 'offer'?
Has there been no counter offer?
Does accepting the 'offer' close the deal?
If you ask thos questions and you have answered yes to all of them then you can safely say that there is an Offer.
Keywords: Contract Offer Accepatance
Introduction To Contract Law
The Music Biz is a bit of a mine field and doing it properly is important. Really, we want to all just get down to the business of playing music but it is important to understand contract law. The first thing you need to know is that if you are carrying on in a way that it seems there is a contract and all the requirements of legal contract are met (you'll learn about this on the site) then you are, in fact, in a contract.
Most of us just play music, some of us promote it, and others are there to exploit it. Now, we need to define exploit, it is not a naughty word by any means. Exploitation is the function of anyone involved in your music, so don't run away from it. You want your managers and your promoter to exploit your music. With-out this exploitation, you miss out. Here's the proper definition:
Exploit: make use of and derive benefit from - Oxford Dictionary.
There is a second definition and that seems to be the one conjured when the term exploit is used and that has something to do with being treated unfairly. As a muso you want to be involved with the proper definition and as a music manager etc. you want to act with the first definition.
WHAT IS A CONTRACT?
A contract can be defined as a legally enforceable agreement. To go a bit further with that we can say, a contract is a legally enforceable set of promises in return for another set of promises.
A music or business to business contract is usually written but as I stated earlier if you behave as if a contract exists then it does. Most contract are verbal or through action. An example of this is that when you purchase goods from a store you are entering into a legally binding contract with the outlet. You agree to pay a price for an item, the store agrees to supply it and the item is fit for it's purpose and free of any encumbrances. You'll understand that sentence a little better when you have worked through all the will be written here about contract law.
Simple Contracts!
Well it isn't all that simple but that is the definition of most contracts. They are known as 'simple contract'. There a few other types such as Formal Contracts which are ones that are executed under seal. These are deeds, and the most of common of them are used in property (land and the such) transactions.
Simple contracts can be very complex, so don't be fooled by the wording of 'simple'. Put simply, the term Simple Contract is given to contracts which are not formal deed. Throughout this section of musicbusinessmanagement.info, we will explore the construction of a contract. I will write about the essential ingredient required in a contract which are:
Offer
Acceptance
Consideration
Intention to be legally bound
Capacity to contract
Legality of the Promises
I'll also cover form, warranties guarentees and remedies.
One last note - courts will not enforce a contract that have been formed for an illegal purpose!
Goal setting disturbs me. I have found that, not only in myself, if one is not able to reach a set goal regardless of reason the actual result is a feeling of failure. This is factually correct as well; a person makes a goal to swim the English Channel, they suffer frostbite and need medical attention ¾ way across, they failed and therefore are a loser. That is the fact, in reality this person achieved something not many could. They might even be proud of the effort, but that doesn’t change the feelings of failure.
Having studied goal setting formally on many occasions and participated in the concept, I have surmised that the result of such activity creates a daily routine that has the intent of producing the desired achievement. With this knowledge in hand I propose that an effective way of achieving ‘goals’ is to analyse what is required to achieve those ‘goals’ and amalgamate that requirement into daily actions. An argument may be; if a person doesn’t have a destination they will never arrive there. My response is this; if I build the road and travel along its path I will arrive at its end as a matter of course.
To summarise; planning is the key. Setting a destination is restrictive and potentially mentally harmful. Regardless of why a goal is not met is irrelevant when considering that a failure has occurred. Unfortunately I do not possess any formal training to make this analysis a part of modern teachings but would appreciate your entertainment of this, a new concept of self improvement through affirmative and constant action rather then creating a destination of achievement.
How do you identify strategically important retail outlets?
There are a number of factors to consider when one is looking for what stores to get product into.
Location
There isn’t any point stocking a store in Brisbane, AUstralia if you are not known in that area. It would be important that your cd is accessible to your fan base. So, getting product into stores in the local area is essential.
Promotion
If a promotion or tour is to be undertaken in a specific area then it would be advisable to make sure that the product is available prior to the promotional activity and for a little while after in that specific area, not restricted to location as there could be demographically targeted marketing.
Positioning
Appropriate niche stores need to be identified and stocked with your cd. These types of stores have the ability to promote your product to their clientle through basic word of mouth. This type of positioning of product is a very simple grass roots marketing ploy (to be cynical about it).
Charting
If charting is important then what charts are you going to push for, remember there has to be enough units on hand to support it. Kmart has it’s own chart as do other affiliate stores. Pick the chart you want to hit and stock those stores that submit sales numbers to those charts.
Reputation
Some stores have reputation for different genres and being seen in one of these stores can increase artist profile. This is a little different from niche store positioning as it is taking into account that the outlet may sell varied product but may be able to set trends.
Have you got a question about music business management?
At the bottom of this page there is a contact us link and you can ask a question using that form. We'll try to answer your question within a day. Please remember we can't give you legal advice, or financial planning information but we can clarify terms, industry related situations.