Live Music Blog

Have you ever seen a performer, singer, artist, or favorite sports party on TV and you just really enjoyed it? Heard an artist on the radio, and you were wanting to hear more? I has been that way when I 1st heard Jennifer Nettles the performer Sugarland. Jennifer’s influential voice and the vibe of the music and performer just clicked with me.

It seems that anybody at all has a preferred singer, performer, sports team, or band that they really enjoy. When the time comes that you want to see an gathering where they’re playing or performing live, where do you go to get tickets? Well, these days, it’s so simple to get things Web, that it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to travel to a box office far from your home, to try and get tickets for an event. It’s much, much easier to turn on a PC, get on the Web, and find ticket suppliers that carry tickets for the gathering you want to attend. It could be cheaper too, with the price of gas these days!

Of course as with so many other things Internet, there are many scam performers out there, and plenty of Internet ticket dealers that can not be exactly what they seem. It’s important to know the ones to deal with, and the ones to avoid.

I am an avid performance goer, and have seen a lot of, a lot of live performances over the years. I’ve even performed myself as a singer and musician in a lot of performance s. It would pain me to know that some unscrupulous ticket dealer cheated individuals trying to buy tickets to a performance of mine. Consequently, I’ve done the research over the years, and found what I think about to be the Top 3 Web ticket sources.

What you are looking for when considering purchasing performance or party tickets Web is really what I call the “Big 5 Reasons to Use a Particular Web Concert or Ticket party Supplier.”

1. Security – Their website has a secure ordering process (No ID theft worries.)

2. Pricing – Their prices are competitive and the service offers a good worth.

3. Selection – They have a large selection of tickets for all sorts of events with great seats.

4. Reliability – They have a track record showing excellent customer service. You may trust them.

5. Navigation – Their website is simply accessible, easy to use, and the ordering process is intuitive.

In my opinion, there are three website sources for performance and gathering tickets in specific that go above and beyond the call. These sources are TicketsNext, PurchaseTix, and RazorGator. I have assembled even more info while searching for Sugarland performance tickets, that applies to anybody searching for Internet tickets to any performance or major event.

• To see more information on the top 3, feel free to go to:

• Sugarland Concert Ticket Source Review

Are you tired of missing out on tickets for your favorite band? If you are like the majority audiences, you’ve been forced to purchase high-priced tickets on eBay or from On-line ticket brokers because the performance you wanted to see sold out before you can get tickets.

Take heart! That is all about to vary. I’m going to let you in on some information that can literally take you to the front of the line the next time you want to buy concert tickets!

But before I do, I need to make sure we are alone.

Why all the secrecy you ask?

It is simple. I’m about to divulge the remarkably same information that the ticket sellers on eBay use to buy their performance and sports tickets for face benefit all over the country. I’m about to tell you little-known information that will take you from customer to competitor. In short, I would be in significant trouble If they found out I was practically giving away the store.

Think about it this way. If you had a hidden gravy inform that let you purchase tickets for as little as $35 each and then sell them later for 200-300 % profit, wouldn’t you be pretty ticked off if someone told the whole world about it?

And how do I know about this valuable information?

Simple, I have been using it to buy and sell performance and sports tickets for everything from WWE wrestling shows to Kenny Chesney to Beck to U2. This proven information has been refined and developed over the years to make people many money. I recognize it could do the same thing for you, too.

While this can all sound like typical marketing hype, I can assure you it is absolutely true. Concert promoters, radio stations, fan venue s, booster venue s, and other groups sponsor ticket presales or special promotions for their members. These sales typically occur Internet a few days or weeks before the tickets go on sale to the general public.

The special advance ticket sales are offer ed as either an incentive to join in the case of a fan club or radio station mailing list, or as a perk for a loyal group of fans prefer season ticket holders of an NFL team.

Passwords can be distributed by the Venue, artist, team, fan club, promoter, radio station, etc. Whoever is sponsoring the presale will handle the distribution of it. During the presale, a portion of tickets is made available to this choose group of people so they could purchase tickets before anybody else has a chance. As you could see, this gives them a large advantage over the general public. In fact, the group sponsoring the presale only wants members of the intended group to purchase tickets during the presale. So in an resolution to limit the presale, these special sales are, in essence, password protected.

Back in the day, virtually all presale passwords were a easy word, and anyone who knew this word could purchase tickets. These were considered generic passwords.Recently, in an quest to further limit who could use presale passwords, some groups have begin to utilize unique passwords. A unique password, as the name implies, is specific to each buyer, and could not be used for multiple purchases. Once the password has been used to purchase tickets, it is no longer valid. Unique passwords are used frequently by sports teams for season-ticket holder presales or by fan venues of the more popular musical groups and performers. Due to the additional requirements vital for unique ticket presales, the majority of the passwords you find on the Web are generic passwords, but you need to be aware of the type of password you receive.

Generic passwords are uncommonly usually used during radio station presales or presales sponsored by performance promoters or Venues. Traditionally the majority passwords have been generic, but more and more performers are employing unique passwords to thwart ticket scalping. Keep this in mind on your quest for a password. I would hate for you to think the password you scored for your preferred band was generic when in fact it has been unique.Here are several things to keep in mind.

• Presales are regularly sold from a specified block of seats or a certain price level.

• an party could have more than one presale with its own password selling tickets from the same or different ticket pools.

• The tickets available during the presale won’t necessarily be the same sections that will be available during the general sale to the public.

• Presales offer the advantage of exclusive buying links which oftentimes solutions in less individuals competing for the pool of available seats.

• Presales can have limited seating available in various areas. Since presales are intended as advance purchasing opportunities, they don’t always offer access to better seats. In fact, it is possible that better tickets can be available when the tickets go on sale to the general public, but there will also be more competition for those tickets.

• Presales again and again have stringent purchase limits that restrict purchasers to 4 or fewer tickets each.

• Presales can be restricted to “will call” only.

• Presales could require you to purchase with a certain credit card or other form of payment, ex American Express.

• A presale can require an additional fee to join the artists fan club.

Hopefully I have shown you the worth of presale passwords and how they could endorse you score tickets to your favorite band. With this information, and a little time and endeavor you, prefer me, could skip to the head of the line the next time you want to buy concert tickets.

Stay tuned for part two of this persuade to learn more specific tips for locating and using presale passwords. Until then, I’llbe seeing you on the “inside!”

Concert promoters might readily be thought of as major gathering planners. Every detail of the performance has to go off in the absence of a hitch and that responsibility lies solely with the promoter. Concert promotion is a demanding career that requires serious attention to detail. In order to be an effective and successful performance promoter, a high level of organization is important. Losing track of important contact names, dates, telephone numbers or Venue information might prove disastrous.

The world of concert promotions is full of contracts, legal agreements, insurance policies and riders. In order to make the perfect business decisions, a concert promoter has to have a working knowledge of all of these legal documents. Not understanding parts of a contract or rider can drive to confusion and c venue enging ies down the road.

Concert promoters may make a huge amount of money, and then, they may lose money as well. Most individuals don’t realize that quite a number of times, concert promoters actually use their personal money to fund a concert event. All of the get together expenses are his or her responsibility up front. Once the tickets have been sold, the band gets their cut and the bills get paid. It is only then that the promoter gets what’s left. For this reason, it’s of the ut the majority importance to get as a lot of paying customers in the door as possible.

Some of the major costs involved with performance promotion are the Venue rental and event insurance. The promoter contacts the Venue and works out a cost for the duration of the event. Some Venues will require up-front payment while others can require a down payment with the remainder due at the end of the performance. Insurance is absolutely vital and endorses to protect the Venue owners, performance promoter and performer from possible litigation.

In addition, the performance promoter bears the cost of all advertising promotions and other marketing expenses. promoters these days have a variety of options for marketing. They might use the Web, radio, television and even flyers to get the word out about their event. Marketing, when done properly, generally takes up a fairly substantial portion of the performance promoters budget.

A successful concert promoter understands how to advertise to get the most individuals to buy tickets for the show. They’ve got to have a good sense of the performer that they are promoting as well as their listeners. Whether a concert attracts a very big listeners or a small one depends on how well the event has been encourage d, plain and easy. Concert promoters really have one objective; to make sure that enough tickets sell to make a profit. Ideally, all the tickets will sell for every night or day the event will run, but that’s not guaranteed.

The location, size and even layout of a Club has to be taken into consideration by the performance promoter. In order to put on a great rock performance, everything has to be just right. Everything must be considered, from performer dressing rooms to the house sound system and lighting. Pleasing the performer is only part of the story though. The fans has to be taken care of as well, both inside and outside the Club. Things prefer security, parking and even restroom facilities all fall under the performance promoters watchful eye.

At some performance s, the performance promoter will have to pitch in and stimulate in other ways. Concert promoters are generally responsible for making sure things are ready for the band. This may include performance ting up the stage, doing sound-checks and lighting a disc jockey ustments. Quite generally it furthermore means they will have to decorate the Club to suit the performance.

At smaller gatherings, the performance promoter is ofttimes responsible for collecting tickets or working the merchandise table. At certain types of gatherings, they can even have the task of checking ID’s at the door the day of the event. promoters are ofttimes furthermore responsible for advocate ing to break down the stage used by the band. Clean-up after the performance can furthermore be the promoters job, depending on the negotiated contract.

Being a concert promoter can be interesting, rewarding and risky, but it is benefit it. Concert promoters have wonderful jobs because they work directly with the artists. Besides that and the fact that the income can be excellent, remember, they’ve got some of the optimum seats in the house at every show.

In this day and age, a country music musician who doesn’t have their personal Web site is missing a vital business tool. A Web site offers information about you, a way to sell your CDs and merchandise, a way to connect with your audiences, and a way to connect with potential business partners. When designed properly, a Web site makes you look like a pro and is an amazing tool in help ing you achieve your goals. When designed badly, the website could be driving away potential audiences and business opportunities.

I research every musician that goes into my Web site, the International Country Music Database, so I have been to many country music musician websites over the last few years. Some have been exceptionally well-developed while others have been, to be honest, nightmares.

Indecipherable navigation, slow-loading graphics, and lack of contact information make it extremely c hall enging to get the information I need. Because I need the information, I try harder than the average surfer to figure out a web site. Virtually all individuals probably just leave, never to return.

The goal of your website should be to provide your visitors with what they’re looking for. You want them to spend time on your website because they have found the information they’re looking for and find it useful, not because they cannot find it.

In order to attract visitors to and keep visitors on your website, you need the following:

• A professional look – I am not saying this has to be boring or designed by a high-priced expert. What I am saying is that it can’t look prefer you just threw it together in a day. furthermore, avoid cutesy animations and graphics. You want the web site to express who you are, but you furthermore want it to indicate you are a pro (even if you are just starting out!).

• Simple /intuitive navigation – If I can’t figure out how to get to other pages on your web site, how’ll I learn more about you?

• Clean design – Make it easy for me to read the text that you have on your website. Use colors that contrast well (black on white, for example). If I want to know about you, I need to be able to read what’s been written!

• Easy access to the information I’m looking for – This ties in with navigation, but is also about what information you include on your web site. What are your listeners or potential business partners looking to get from your web site? That ought to drive what information goes on your web site.

The above points are beginning standards for creating a professional country music Web site. Don’t forget, you want to look prefer a pro and let individuals know you are meaningful about your career. For more ideas on how to create your website, see the next article in this series, Optimize Your Country Music Web site : Part 2 – What to Include.

Music, prefer speech, must be recognised as one of the important elements of humanity. It’s impossible to conceive the existence of a race of people unpossessed of at least some rudimentary form of music, and certainly no such race has yet been located. Wherever explorers have ventured, they have invariably found a more or less definite national music esteemed and cultivated. In the remotest corners of the world, among the Indian tribes of the Americas, the most barbarous of the African tribes, the least known peoples of the far East, anytime travel and exploration have opened up the recesses of a strange land, it has been found that music existed there, and ofttimes in a curiously forward state of development compared with the useful arts of life.

Of the beginning of music we know no more than we do of the beginning of speech. The most primitive nations have each and all their personal national music, just as they have each their personal national form of speech. Music is thus an immemorial thing; for the sculptures of Nineveh, and the sculptures and paintings of the ancient Egyptians, the oldest records of life and manners extant, represent musicians and musical instruments in such a way as leads one to the conclusion that, even in the period to which these carvings and paintings belong, music had already traveled a long way on the path of development. What the music from which the comparatively finished art of the Assyrians and Egyptians was evolved was prefer, we may perhaps be perfect able to judge from a brief survey of the music of various uncivilised nations as current at the present day.

All the world over, the music of the more primitive of the uncivilised races may be said to move on parallel lines, and it’s only as tribes and nations rise somewhat in the scale of nature that their music starts to display any marked degree of varying iation. Down on what might be called the bed-rock of humanity they’re all pretty much a like, and in the national music of the most broadly removed races the same phenomena present themselves with but trifling modification. Singing or any kind of vocal sounds is common everywhere on planet earth. The primitive human being gives expression to the primary emotions and passions by means of the voice or speech as a matter of instinct, just as is done by the brute creation.

The 1st step in advance is taken when the savage becomes conscious, as it were, for the 1st time, of the sounds which are born of certain circumstances, and resolutions to reproduce these sounds irrespective of the feelings from which they arise. This is the 1st recognition of sound that has any meaning; and from it to early stages of the rhythmical narrative, and to the song, is no inconceivable transition. With the sense of rhythm, which was most could evolved from simply walking, footsteps themselves are rhythmic, whether in walking or in dancing, it is as natural to early man as to walk-comes the 1st hint of a musical instrument; for, with all races, musical instruments must have been rhythmic 1st, and evolved to be melodic when a higher standard of life has been reached.

A year ago, I wrote a passionate article on the merits of charging $15 when you sell your compact disc s. Some of my reasonings included: It’s tough for indie artists and you have a nice music, so don’t short- change yourself; you could always discount the compact disc for special reasons (2-for-1 special); and, the “high” sales prices furthermore includes your many costs. I made several addendums, but that is the gist of it.

But now, if you head over to http://mp3.com/thebards and check out the Brobdingnagian Bards page at MP3.com, you’ll notice something kinda hypocritical…none of our compact discs are priced at $15! What gives??

Well 1st let me say, yes, I do still believe in a $15.00 sales price for many artists. Certainly, it works optimum for folk artists, and singer/songwriter types. But my reason is not hypocrisy it is a dramatic differ in our marketing plan.

You see, when all of us started out, I knew that the only “real” income available to indie artists comes from CD sales and merchandising since royalties from ASCAP and BMI are a joke. So our plan was to record every six months or less and put out new material. By then end of final summer the indie process was leaving us drained, and all of us were thinking all of us overextended. Then along comes MP3.com.

One of the things I have been raving about for the past few months is that MP3.com provides a new marketing model by provide ing “royalties” for listens to your music. And if you’re getting paid from people listening to your music. Then it needs to be quickly available right?

Well, we have followed the footsteps of many of the top MP3.com musicians and have about 40-50 tracks available on our web site and more are coming every week. In doing so, all of us make a solid $20 a day from our web site.

Now with each listen, the songs are tracked on MP3.com on their music charts. You sell a CD, the songs on that CD will rocket up the charts. So you want the CDs to sell, because higher charting equals higher payback. As a result, our low price on MP3.com.

Now think for a second. If you’ve 40 songs on your web site like the Hillbilly Hellcats, you are the majority like ly going to make your 15 unique listens because your songs are located all over the charts. There are plenty of songs to pick from. Accordingly the new marketing model no longer relies on CD sales of $15.00, but listens. When you realize that you open yourself up to a whole slew of, in my opinion, simple marketing tactics that will make you more money from listens than selling CDs from your web site.

I know this all seems simplistic, but the vast reality is most performers on MP3.com are still running their performer with an older marketing model that does not yield the highest payback. So think about that for a bit, and next week, I have a guest writer who will give you an interesting promotional idea that might send your listens over the top. Then the week following that, I am going to betray my secret that has my song “Tolkien” at #35 on all MP3.com…

Stay tuned. Same bard time. Same bard channel!