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On the subject of musicians making money...


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Ran across this and thought I'd throw it in:

 

Slashdot digest of the state of streaming income

 

For those who aren't familiar with Slashdot, they're a sort of feeder for news of a geeky/nerdy nature. They provide links to the original articles or you can just read their synopsis of whatever's going on.

 

Grey

I'm not interested in someone's ability to program. I'm interested in their ability to compose and play.

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Seems like every musician has signed up for patreon. And some have tried at least once to charge for seeing a live stream. But are fans/followers willing to part with their $ for a virtual experience? That"s the question. I"ll read the article as I am curious to see what they know.

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But are fans/followers willing to part with their $ for a virtual experience?

 

I think the answer is essentially no - at least not to an extent that makes it a viable income stream. I'd actually go as far as to say that the majority of musicians probably don't try to support other artists, let alone the broader public. Aside from a worldwide boycott of ripoff streaming platforms, I can't see an obvious answer to the issue aside from the internet disappearing....

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I don't see a path forward for live streaming that generates significant income for musicians. There will be exceptions.

In my experience, the presentations in general are at a lower level of connection, both with humans and in terms of function.

Most musicians are not sound technicians, lighting technicians, videographers, producers, etc. There are uncountable numbers of musicians live-streaming pretty OK sound, lighting, staging but commercial television/movies have raised the bar on video production so far above the usual that it is difficult if not impossible to be "impressive" and it's not what audiences want to do with their time. At the bar there is social interaction, alcohol, dancing etc. to bring the scene to life, live-streaming offers none of that - those are all value-added features.

 

Escalating your game is probably futile unless you can go so far over the top that your streams are incredible multi-media experiences - which is near to impossible to pull off live in a small space with a limited budget. That would be a waiting game at best to build a clientele if you can even be noticed. Chasing rainbows...

 

Up here a sound company who suddenly found all of their gigs cancelled set up a nice looking studio set with full lighting, multiple cameras, excellent sound.

My band has played 3 or 4 of those. I think the most watched of those shows had a bit over 100 people and donations of about $35, which doesn't go far with a 4 piece band and 4 member sound/lighting/camera production crew.

The videos would make a good reference point for the band if the clubs were hiring, which they have sort of started to do on a very limited basis around here.

 

I've mostly ignored live-streaming completely. I can make more money buying cool stuff at thrift stores and selling it.

With live performance gigs still being few and far between and attendance limited (which hinders tip jar growth when clubs can even afford a band), live music is in the corner, getting it's face beat in. The "referee" cut a deal with the face beater, no help there. The crowd doesn't know where to turn, the barrage of music options is overwhelming.

 

Some more bad news here, this was on the first page of KC for a bit - https://forums.musicplayer.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/3088840/9-depressing-spotify-stats#Post3088840

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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I think live stream is going to grow and more professionally light, sounds, and camera work. It will be big name acts that drive it and it will have a trickle down. The big act say the aging Rolling Stones or any globally big act can now to a high production live show and sell tickets for the feed and then tickets for replay for people who hear about it and want to see it. Touring is really expensive and wears out the artists and crews. With streaming they can do have a near perfect show and be done. They also have a potentially larger audience for people in countries and cities they normally don't play. That will get the ball rolling for live streaming becoming a normal then and friends with great home systems having live stream parties.

 

That will trickle down and smaller scale productions for regional shows. So the world of live music will become that of the bar band the small club and more local entertainment. Like you have big sports bars with all sorts of game being shown on TV all over, you could see Music bars with name bands and DJ video being fed in to great sound systems at bars.

 

Covid has already changed the world and how we move forward. As we go into year two we'll see some things return, but my guess we moving into a more and more internet dependent world. Not a lot is going to go back and some that does people will say ya know the internet version was pretty good to me. Covid is making big changes now in how we live at a rate that would of taken a decade or more to happen. The only constant is change.

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I think live stream is going to grow and more professionally light, sounds, and camera work. It will be big name acts that drive it and it will have a trickle down. The big act say the aging Rolling Stones or any globally big act can now to a high production live show and sell tickets for the feed and then tickets for replay for people who hear about it and want to see it. Touring is really expensive and wears out the artists and crews. With streaming they can do have a near perfect show and be done. They also have a potentially larger audience for people in countries and cities they normally don't play. That will get the ball rolling for live streaming becoming a normal then and friends with great home systems having live stream parties.

 

That will trickle down and smaller scale productions for regional shows. So the world of live music will become that of the bar band the small club and more local entertainment. Like you have big sports bars with all sorts of game being shown on TV all over, you could see Music bars with name bands and DJ video being fed in to great sound systems at bars.

 

Covid has already changed the world and how we move forward. As we go into year two we'll see some things return, but my guess we moving into a more and more internet dependent world. Not a lot is going to go back and some that does people will say ya know the internet version was pretty good to me. Covid is making big changes now in how we live at a rate that would of taken a decade or more to happen. The only constant is change.

Nice analysis Docbop

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How about we get back to live music. Streaming is kind of bullshit. Most bands I know that are kind of even doing it hate it. My band is hanging on a string right now. It's time to get back to some kind of normalcy if possible.

"Danny, ci manchi a tutti. La E-Street Band non e' la stessa senza di te. Riposa in pace, fratello"

 

 

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People paying to watch a live stream of the Rolling Stones is one thing â a stream of a local bar band playing cover tunes? You might be a wee bit optimistic on that front, I think.

 

I might be wrong but to me it's the experience of being at a live music show is what people are paying for â being in the room with the band as it happens. Sitting on your couch in front of your TV isn't gonna cut it, not for me anyway. You go to a bar to socialize with others as much as listen to music. We want to experience connection. I've watched a few live streams â my nephew did some duos and trios playing from a piano store. The music was excellent and he actually made good money (WAY more than a typical local jazz club gig), but it was ultimately depressing to know they were playing in an empty room, with nobody reacting after the songs ended â just silence. It was actually a little sad. I don't know if they even knew how many people were watching them. This is a pale substitute for a gig in front of an enthusiastic crowd.

 

My hope is that after the drought of live music, there will be a bigger demand for the real deal. I'm sure streaming concerts will be here to stay too, but the idea that we're all going to embrace some new paradigm of live music consumption is wrong, imo.

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I had colleagues at the beginning of the pandemic who thought livestreaming was the income-stream of the future. I didn't and don't see the path. Sure, we all did nicely on tips doing those streams, but that's completely and solely wrapped up in the overarching narrative of the pandemic. It's still just busking. Without some way to expand your viewership at a rate proportional to or greater than your current viewership's burnout on sending venmo's to buskers, it's just a (welcome and much-needed) flash in the pan.

 

My rooftop concerts went from nearly $300/man for two of us, down to maybe $75. Sure, even that's fine for a couple of hours under the blue sky without any real cartage except up a ladder. But the trendline did not bode well. Why on an internet that includes all the songs and performances ever released by every musician ever, would people really commit to popping for yours on the regular? Some will, but I don't see the business model as a stand-alone option. Just me.

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Streaming is essentially musical masturbation that you're desperately hoping someone will pay to watch. Just as sex is more fun with a real, live human, a band on stage with a crowd on the floor is a whole 'nother level from watching a band cavort in an empty room, pretending to have fun.

 

Maybe they could put a bunch of inflatable sex dolls in the seats, watching the band...no?...I didn't think so, either. That would only serve to emphasize the unreality of it all. Not to mention being tasteless.

 

Yes, you can record a song as a studio recording--an ordinary music video--but lacking an MTV-like platform to push the video it will be lost amongst all the other music videos that other earnest bands are releasing in hopes that their band will be the one that magically floats to the top of the heap. Meanwhile, there are a thousand other bands that are also releasing their music videos. The end result is that no one gets heard sufficiently to generate momentum.

 

As I said elsewhere, the only way out of the morass is to have a curated stream where one or more people separate the wheat from the chaff and promote it, even if only passively. It could, in theory, be done by John Q. Public, but it would take a lot of time and work. A company could do it more easily, simply because they have more resources. A good AI algorithm would be a godsend, but the oddities that YouTube coughs up show that it's pretty hard to get that to work.

 

Honestly, my bet's on the AI approach in the long run, but it's going to be a while before that's "radio ready," so to speak.

 

Grey

I'm not interested in someone's ability to program. I'm interested in their ability to compose and play.

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One of my favorite singer/songwriters is Tim Bluhm of the Mother Hips. He's a pretty prolific songwriter so he has a bunch of solo albums and other collaborations beyond stuff he's done with the Mother Hips. Just about a year ago, when the lockdown first got super serious, he started doing weekly Facebook streams on Friday evenings. He has mastered the form - audio and video quality are great, he sometimes talks about the genesis of some of the songs, sometimes he has guests, sometimes it's just him solo. It's all free, with a virtual tip jar with Venmo and PayPal. Highly recommended. He seems to have found a way to make it work.

 

Here we are a year later, and it's the one stream I do not miss.

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Streaming is essentially musical masturbation that you're desperately hoping someone will pay to watch. Just as sex is more fun with a real, live human, a band on stage with a crowd on the floor is a whole 'nother level from watching a band cavort in an empty room, pretending to have fun.

 

Certainly there is some truth here. However, without dragging the metaphor too far, online porn has become a technological and economic mainstay by all accounts despite the absence of a real, live human partner.

 

With regard to streaming, I agree for folks "of a certain age", there will never be a replacement for live music. However, there is also a whole 'nother generation who has not really grown up with sentimental attachment to live concerts, loves to "watch" some dude with headphones playback MP3s, and could give a rat's azzz if there's anyone on stage playing real drums, bass, keyboards or guitar. Or actually singing.

 

The only real predictor in business is...whatever users are willing to pay for in sufficient scale will earn enough revenue to sustain itself. I have no idea or sense what tomorrow's post-pandemic user will be willing to pay for in terms of musical entertainment. Certainly some of that will be defined by what no longer exists / is accessible / is possible as we emerge from COVID. And tastes and preferences have already changed, and are changing. People trust influencers, not celebrity endorsements. People have surrendered privacy, objectivity and truth for convenience and screen addiction.

 

While I believe there will always be a place in society, culture and life for live music, I don't think that necessarily means streaming will always be the orphan stepchild peering in from the window. It may become a thing unto itself, and someday a dominant, primary way that musicians reach an audience. Crazier things have happened.

..
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I think you are better off trying to develop something like a YouTube channel, create a following, and build up a revenue stream over time. I'll never pay to watch a streamed concert when I can watch 1000's of concerts on YouTube, or pull out one of my many DVD concerts. I do watch several forms of entertainment on YouTube. Everything from musicians to skate boarders to photographers. Those that are interesting and entertaining build up large followings and make decent money.

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There really are very few (from my understanding) who make money off of YouTube ads as income. Apparently they are all diversified with selling merch, getting people to come to shows, something, some product other than the videos themselves.

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Streaming is essentially musical masturbation that you're desperately hoping someone will pay to watch.....
Reference aside, is not recording music for distribution audio or video live or lip-synced the same thing as streaming in the sense that live streams are recorded and made available for viewing after the performance?

 

Maybe the difference is how desperate you feel about the platform?

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Streaming is essentially musical masturbation that you're desperately hoping someone will pay to watch.....
Reference aside, is not recording music for distribution audio or video live or lip-synced the same thing as streaming in the sense that live streams are recorded and made available for viewing after the performance?

 

Maybe the difference is how desperate you feel about the platform?

 

If all the production values were more or less at the same level as most live streams, then yes - the 2 are indistinguishable.

Watch a dozen typical livestreams and then watch a Taylor Swift video and get back to me on that.

 

Even Gangham Style was a professionally produced piece of work. The guy in his spare bedroom with an $80 video camera on top of his monitor streaming his latest songs while sitting down at the upright piano or strumming an acoustic guitar? Not so much.

Compare the hits on those sorts of videos to the "Cats Being Assholes" videos or "Fail" videos. That's the sort of home-made video that can work, not so much production values then as special moments that would be difficult to capture.

 

There just are not many Jenna Marbles out there live-streaming. Too much is same-old same-old. That can work in a club with a dance floor and alcoholic beverages, not so much on YouTube...

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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People paying to watch a live stream of the Rolling Stones is one thing â a stream of a local bar band playing cover tunes? You might be a wee bit optimistic on that front, I think.

 

I might be wrong but to me it's the experience of being at a live music show is what people are paying for â being in the room with the band as it happens. Sitting on your couch in front of your TV isn't gonna cut it, not for me anyway. You go to a bar to socialize with others as much as listen to music. We want to experience connection. I've watched a few live streams â my nephew did some duos and trios playing from a piano store. The music was excellent and he actually made good money (WAY more than a typical local jazz club gig), but it was ultimately depressing to know they were playing in an empty room, with nobody reacting after the songs ended â just silence. It was actually a little sad. I don't know if they even knew how many people were watching them. This is a pale substitute for a gig in front of an enthusiastic crowd.

 

My hope is that after the drought of live music, there will be a bigger demand for the real deal. I'm sure streaming concerts will be here to stay too, but the idea that we're all going to embrace some new paradigm of live music consumption is wrong, imo.

 

 

You said it better than I could. I can't believe this is an actual topic being discussed seriously on here...I mean I get it but things have become so bad..........

"Danny, ci manchi a tutti. La E-Street Band non e' la stessa senza di te. Riposa in pace, fratello"

 

 

noblevibes.com

 

 

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If all the production values were more or less at the same level as most live streams, then yes - the 2 are indistinguishable....

In either case you are performing isolated from the physical presence of the audience "hoping someone will pay to watch" or listen to your music at some point in time.

 

Streaming is essentially musical masturbation that you're desperately hoping someone will pay to watch.
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I'm sensing that there's a disconnect here...the simple observation that Person X has a YouTube channel or perhaps only a couple of videos is not the same as being able to say--of certain knowledge, not guesswork--that they're making anything like the money they would be making if they were gigging regularly and bringing in, say...pick a figure...$500 a week? $200 a week? Are you guys really saying there are that many people bringing in that sort of money streaming? Really? I'm not talking about Pat Metheny (who YouTube's AI seems to think I want to see*). I'm talking about the dozen local bands in Your Town, USA. Are they making even $50 each per week online? Is there anything like a realistic possibility that all the members of all the bands in all the towns in all the world will even make $1 this week? How about next week? The week after?

 

It ain't happening and it ain't gonna happen.

 

The money stays in the streaming companies. It doesn't make it to the bands.

 

To be brutal about it, the vast majority of those bands aren't good enough to make it out in the world anyway. They're fine in their element, meaning the local bar scene, where they play loud music that people can dance and drink to, but the world doesn't want or need to see a video of them performing the four billionth interpretation of Free Bird, because that's what they've put out there. I'm not saying they don't have a right to post that (let's leave the legal-beagle copyright stuff out of this for now), I'm just saying that the sheer volume of mundane posted material makes it difficult...nay, impossible to find anything of greater import. And if there's another Led Zeppelin or Rolling Stones out there, we'll never know it because they're buried under the dross. And more to the point, that hypothetical Great Band won't make any money because:

 

a) They're not going to find their audience, so they'll get some views, but not enough

b) To the extent that they're able to gain some momentum, the streaming company keeps the money the band would otherwise rightfully earn in a fair world

 

Which means the members of the Great Band can't even buy a meal, much less new gear.

 

Which just plain sucks.

 

Grey

 

*I want to make clear that I have nothing against Pat Metheny. In fact, I like some of his stuff. But dayuuuum, YouTube's AI is friggin' obsessed with Metheny--thinks I need to mainline his stuff 24/7. Uh, no thanks. There are several observations to be made, but I'll restrict myself to one for the moment--Google (YouTube's owner) has vast amounts of money with which to hire very smart programmers, and yet they still can't quite get me hooked up with the kind of thing I want to see/hear. How much longer will it take to get the AI thing sorted out? One year? Five years? Ten? I'm thinking five to ten and wouldn't be surprised if it was longer. AI has been "almost there" for twenty years or more. Progress is being made, but it's slow. Neural networks may be the ticket. Or maybe this could all turn into some sort of dystopian hell by the year 2025. Let's make a date to start a thread in 2025 and have a retrospective as to how things turned out, looking back to 2021.

I'm not interested in someone's ability to program. I'm interested in their ability to compose and play.

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I don't have anything against streaming as its own entity. I've run a YouTube channel for a while and I've done a few livestreams on various platforms. However, streaming can't replace the live ambiance of a live performance and never will. It doesn't matter who's performing, it's just not that great. Why bother listening to a clean, more-or-less produced production of a song when I can find a better live performance or studio version on YouTube? The livestreamed groups I've seen, like Dua Lipa and Paramore, just haven't been worth my time to watch, despite the music itself being good. I just don't see people paying for that like they would for an actual concet.

 

Maybe home audio installation will become a booming market in an effort to make livestreamed concerts more "live".

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If all the production values were more or less at the same level as most live streams, then yes - the 2 are indistinguishable....

In either case you are performing isolated from the physical presence of the audience "hoping someone will pay to watch" or listen to your music at some point in time.

 

Streaming is essentially musical masturbation that you're desperately hoping someone will pay to watch.

 

False equivalence. Are you saying we should all eat just as often at the worst restaurant in town as we do at the better ones?

Do we now take our vehicles for repair to the sub-standard mechanic simply because he has tools and a shop, just like the better mechanics?

 

Nonsense, sorry.

 

Taylor Swift can put $50,000 into production costs for a video. EVERYTHING on that video will be perfectly lit, all costumes, hair and makeup will be flawless and the song will have been recorded and produced by talent who make more in a month than the small town band makes in a year playing bar-band gigs. The video may not break even but it pays off as advertising for the next Taylor Swift tour.

 

The local band may get a few hundred hits and dozens of dollars, if they are very social and the town has enough people.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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I think you are better off trying to develop something like a YouTube channel, create a following, and build up a revenue stream over time. I'll never pay to watch a streamed concert when I can watch 1000's of concerts on YouTube, or pull out one of my many DVD concerts. I do watch several forms of entertainment on YouTube. Everything from musicians to skate boarders to photographers. Those that are interesting and entertaining build up large followings and make decent money.

 

Agree with this. A lot of youtubers establish a patreon to access deeper content. They get a couple hundred people or more to subscribe and it adds up to a significant revenue stream.

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This is like anything and everything else in the music industry. Some will be incredibly smart and creative with this idea and will do real well, and for some it will be a complete waste of time and resources. Regardless, it won't stop or discourage anyone from attending an actual live concert....once they become available again.
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Interesting thread. But one thing keeps going through my head: All this talk about how streaming can't compete with the live concert, etc.... Heck, I remember being a kid, sitting in my room listening for hours on end to vinyl recordings.... and they did not even have any video! Assuming reasonable quality, streaming at the least should be able to compare to a recording - which most already spend many hours listening to. At one time in my life, I used to spend WAY more money on recordings than I did on live performances. It was another much different time, I know. But I can't help but think that streaming, in many ways, could be at least as good as listening to a recording.... and, at best, could at some point be even better than all the negatives of going to a live concert. Just my thoughts.

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False equivalence. Are you saying we should all eat just as often at the worst restaurant in town as we do at the better ones?

Do we now take our vehicles for repair to the sub-standard mechanic simply because he has tools and a shop, just like the better mechanics?

 

Nonsense, sorry.

Forgiven, it makes no sense to you and you missed the point.

 

You need to go back and read for the concept of musical masturbation hoping someone will pay for the performance.

 

Playing isolated from the people you hope will pay for the performance is not exclusive to live streaming.

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I find it interesting that the people who are saying that streaming "could be" or "will be" profitable are all speaking in hypothetical terms. Can they even come up with a handful of examples of bands who are making money...a handful against the thousands of real world bands who aren't? Set the Stones and Led Zeppelin aside--I'm talking about someone who started from scratch and built a following without a TV show to boost them or being someone's kid brother...you know, real people. Ordinary people making non-miniscule money. Using ONLY the internet. Gonna be a short list, I suspect. Really short list.

 

My point seems to have been missed, somehow, though I've stated it several times in several ways: No, I don't think mediocre bands should make money--after all, they're mediocre (at best, and some are just flat-out execrable) and I don't see any benefit to the world at large in rewarding mediocrity. The problem I see is that the bands that might actually have something to offer are buried under the vast numbers of bands who are--at best--me-too bands. They clog the channels with boring, useless performances that are not worth watching in anyone's estimation, except perhaps their wives and/or girlfriends. They have a perfect right to post their stuff--I'm not saying otherwise--but what's needed is a way to filter out the music that's not even worth a 5/10 rating. The thing is to find a consistent method of rating the performances that are out there so people who don't fall into the wives & girlfriends (husbands & boyfriends?) category can save hours and hours and hours of their time for not having to wade through the crap.

 

Grey

I'm not interested in someone's ability to program. I'm interested in their ability to compose and play.

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In my little old home town of Adelaide, this mob have risen to some prominence:

 

HSCC

 

I'm not one million percent clear on their backstory (have invited the keys player on to our podcast but he's a busy chap) but it's essentially a collective of high quality local musicians who have been putting together a bunch of "soft rock" covers. Their most popular video has had 7 million hits - they probably average around the 200-500K mark per video these days. Of course the challenge for them is to turn this into $$$, particularly when I imagine all their videos are demonetised due to them being covers.

 

As such, they're still very much attempting to rely on live gigging to create an income. I went to their first ever live show and they were very strong on thanking the punters for their support and STRONGLY encouraging them to keep fronting up to future gigs.

 

I also believe they were in negotiations to do a stint in Vegas when COVID put the anchors on everything. They were also booked to do some shows in Sydney but that also fell through thanks to COVID - the Sydney music scene is a super tough nut for bands to crack for various reasons, so that would have been very annoying for them. Now that things are starting to loosen up a little they've immediately started to book gigs again and they're advertising hard.

 

I have no clue about their financial situation but what I take out of all this is the assumption that it's really hard to earn a decent income from YouTube. Particularly when you have a few mouths to feed.

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Streaming contribution 2:

 

A couple of local bands invested heavily in putting together "live streaming" concerts when COVID first hit. One is a very high-end and internationally known tribute show, another is an above-average pub level tribute act with aspirations to be more.

 

Everyone I spoke to about it was saying "Why would I pay to watch a concert stream of a tribute act when I can watch the real thing on YouTube any time I like?"

 

I watched some of the footage when it was subsequently released on social media as a highlights package, and frankly it was a bit of a difficult view. Remembering these aren't people who are used to playing to an empty room with just cameras in it, the band members looked somewhat awkward on stage not knowing if they should pretend they were performing for an audience or instead mug for the camera. Despite considerable investment in production it came off looking a bit amateurish. I have no insight on the financial success or otherwise of the venture, but neither band repeated the experiment, nor did any other local acts.

 

The moral is similar to my story above. It's hard to make money streaming.

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In my little old home town of Adelaide, this mob have risen to some prominence:

 

HSCC

 

I'm not one million percent clear on their backstory (have invited the keys player on to our podcast but he's a busy chap) but it's essentially a collective of high quality local musicians who have been putting together a bunch of "soft rock" covers. Their most popular video has had 7 million hits - they probably average around the 200-500K mark per video these days. Of course the challenge for them is to turn this into $$$, particularly when I imagine all their videos are demonetised due to them being covers.

 

As such, they're still very much attempting to rely on live gigging to create an income. I went to their first ever live show and they were very strong on thanking the punters for their support and STRONGLY encouraging them to keep fronting up to future gigs.

 

I also believe they were in negotiations to do a stint in Vegas when COVID put the anchors on everything. They were also booked to do some shows in Sydney but that also fell through thanks to COVID - the Sydney music scene is a super tough nut for bands to crack for various reasons, so that would have been very annoying for them. Now that things are starting to loosen up a little they've immediately started to book gigs again and they're advertising hard.

 

I have no clue about their financial situation but what I take out of all this is the assumption that it's really hard to earn a decent income from YouTube. Particularly when you have a few mouths to feed.

 

Their analytics estimate $2k - $32k monthly and $24k - $389k yearly.

These estimates usually come in at the higher side of midrange, so I'm guessing they are doing well.

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Yamaha C7D

Montage8 | CP300 | CP4 | SK1-73 | OB6 | Seven

K8.2 | 3300 | CPSv.3

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