M Linden’s now-infamous labeling of music as a “killer app” for Second Life has led to a lot of discussion and blowing of hot air. Even when some very specific and relatively easily-implementable suggestions were made during the Looking to the Future of Live Performance in Second Life session at SLCC (Really, how hard would it be to repurpose an unused subcategory in Events?), they were automatically put in the “Not in 2009” pile. In the end, the live music community has been left to its own devices to feel its way along.
I’m pretty much a nobody on the Second Life live music scene. I don’t own a venue. I am not a musician, since I can’t tolerably play an instrument as well as sing. So why is the current music venue “to cover charge or not to cover charge” drama bothering me? Maybe it’s because I’m the supposedly deep pockets that it feels like some music venue owners and musicians seem to want to reach into for cover charges.
So in the interest of market research, let’s take a look at a few facts about Feline, a representative individual among SL Live Music Target Market:
I attend live music events inworld. Recently, it has only been 4 days a week , attending at least one event, often two. I tip both the performer and the venue. I usually tip a host/hostess, but only if they don’t annoy the crap out of me with chatspam.
I enjoy interesting chat during events, and will participate in it if I am not listening while cooking dinner or chasing naughty cats. I also will not try to participate in chat if it’s just a bunch of chatspam, because, well, that’s not chat. If your venue is full of nothing but gesturespam, it doesn’t offer me anything that listening to a musician via WinAmp does, and it will impact how (and occasionally if) I tip the venue’s tip jar.
I have also purchased music from several SL musicians via Amazon, CDBaby, and iTunes.
So, to summarize your market research so far: Feline pays for her live music entertainment in Second Life.
By now, I seem like a prime candidate for the not-new-but-new-again push for cover charges in Second Life. Venue owners and musicians who read this (as if anyone actually reads this blog!) will think, “Feline won’t have a problem paying a cover charge.”
I have one more fact about me for your market research: I’m about to be laid off in real life. My entertainment budget is going to be taking a hit. My ability to tip be impaired. Tips will likely become modest, and they could possibly dwindle to nothing at all. So having cover charges being championed now feels a bit like a slap in the face to this representative individual in the SL Live Music Target Market who has dutifully paid my way in the past.
Perhaps the musicians and venue owners who are championing cover charges will feel that it doesn’t matter what I have been a Good Live Music Citizen in the past. If I have no ability to pay my way, I have no place enjoying the product they produce. Maybe goodwill counts for nothing and the almighty dollar everything.
In a time when, at least in the US, half a million more people were unemployed last month, when the job market isn’t expected to get better any time soon, is it a good idea to move from a “pay what you can” to a “pay or go away” model for live music in Second Life?
If you’ve read my rambling so far, you have already figured out that I think it isn’t a good idea. Lest you think this is all about me, I think we should widen the view a little. By its nature, Second Life population has attrition and turnover. To continue to maintain attendance at performances, new people constantly need to discover and get interested in the “killer app” of live music. Or, as Zorch Boomhauer put it, “The most prudent course of action is to take steps to build the numbers of residents interested in Live music in Second Life.” Cover charges — paying before someone even knows if they like live music — is a barrier to cultivating new faces in the audience. And the tighter everybody’s entertainment budgets are (remember that 9.7% unemployment?), the higher that barrier looms. The live music community needs to break down the walls and welcome new people to discover live music, not lock them out.
Then again, what do I know. I’m just a nobody on the Second Life live music scene. A face in the crowd. What’s the value of that random face in the crowd? We’ll find out if it turns out I’m unable to peek in the window after cover charges close the door that leads the way to live music in Second Life.
A very nice post, Feline but let’s clear up a really important point: You are the farthest thing from a “nobody”.
You are an active and important part of the community (okay I hate that word since it’s abused, but let’s go with it for now).
You participate, you care, you help when people need it and you share with others, all of this in addition to being someone who tips kindly and routinely.
If you aren’t around, I miss you and your wit. You have made me laugh, encouraged me when I really needed it and made me feel damn lucky that someone that cares is listening.
Several people have asked me to comment on the current state of affairs after SLCC and since the MKT CCS deal, but your post has motivated me to get beyond “thinking” and on to writing and maybe even standing on a soap box shouting at the top of my lungs because if you think you are a “nobody on the Second Life live music scene” then it’s likely that there are many others that are sitting quietly but feeling the same, and that to me is pretty much a tragedy.
And if you stop going to live music because you’ve been made to feel like “If I have no ability to pay my way, I have no place enjoying the product they produce” then I’m going to be pissed.
And nobody likes a pissed Grace, trust me.
Please don’t piss off Grace..sheesh. She’s cranky when she is pissed!
Paying for music in Second Life can be done in so many ways and I’m sure than many in the music scene have. From spreading the word about musicians and music being offered, to teaching the newbie where to find the current events that are offered. This “payment” needs to include the millions of snapshots taken and sent to Flickr, Twitter, Snapzilla, etc. Each of these promotes the live music industry happening in Second Life. Yes, buying their music and tipping venues and musicians is a major benefit and it is my hope that those of us that can afford to continue appreciating the artists, will do so. Those that can’t tip as much as they like or can’t at all, come, enjoy the fun, the music, and the possibilities. Promote and “pay for” the music in any way you can. It will take all of us involved in the music scene in Second Life to keep it alive.
All faces in the audience matter: they are the people we share our music with. It would be a disgrace if anyone were to be forced to stay away from live music events, simply because they can’t afford to pay the cover charge.
Music shouldn’t be about greed.
Feline thank you very much for writing this post.
I am going to repeat what others have said — you are not a nobody. You are a friendly face in the audience at many of the shows I attend. You consistently take fabulous photos of musicians and share them on flicker. Any “system” that makes you feel like you don’t belong at a show because you can’t pay is not something I can support.
Feline, without an audience, there is little point in performing at all, venue or no venue. Thank you very much for adding clarity to what has become such a murky debate.
And, given the current state of the world economy, what better time for performers and audiences to come together? To sing together, to dance together, for a short time to forget the wolves that lurk outside the door.
You also talked about the many ways an audience can support a performer– tipping, buying downloads and CDs, etc. I wonder if we should start talking more about how performers can support their listeners. It nothing to do with the exchange of money. It’s everything to do with the exchange of good will, friendship and hope.
Now there’s a killer app.
What’s the value of that random face in the crowd?
~1/x [x = musician’s ego on a scale of 1-100]
We’re all individually just a nobody… and then again together, we are everything and everybody.
Don’t sell yourself short (anyone). Everyone’s impact is a necessity, and it makes the sl music scene thrive.
Although everyone is going to have their own opinions as to what should be done, where do we go from here, what needs to happen, we all must not forget the whole point to this… which is to play live music for people all over the world, and have a great time doing it.
Thank you for posting this Feline. I read it from my phone in bed when I woke up this morning following GM’s twitter link (I love this day and age).
I second Grace’s objection to your “I’m pretty much a nobody” statement. You have been a delightful, integral and ever supportive member of the SL live music scene for as long as I can remember. Your support for me and other live musicians in both SL AND RL has been obvious to anyone paying attention.
Your voice on this matter is a vibrant one. We need you. If *you* feel that you are not important to our little live music society then, as Grace has pointed out, there are others that may feel the same way and I assure you …
I want to help you to annoy the cats your heart’s content. 😉
I totally agree with Winston Ackland’s perspective.
Feline, Sorry in advance for the long post, but you’ve brought up a topic of great interest to me, and I’m uncomfortable that you might be feeling like you’re a “nobody” like this. Its not true. Please don’t feel that way.
We occasionally have high-value, three-to-four act ticketed shows in the French Quarter. Maybe twice per month this year at most. The ticket price is really low, no more than L$500 for all four acts, or L$250 for just two of them. We also try to line up really good acts for the value, too. All the musicians are paid a fee, and the promoter makes some money for organizing it, while those attending get a great value for their sum total of $2.00 US they would spend should they buy an all-day pass to see all of the acts.
While some attending have chosen to tip on top of that, they did it by directly tipping me, not because I put out a tip jar, as I would never put out a tip jar at a ticketed event. I can’t speak for other performers, but whenever I’ve do one of these ticketed events in the French Quarter, I’ve sent notices to my group thanking them for all of their support over the past two years, and offering them the chance to IM me in private and to very discretely allow me to “put them on the list” so to speak by giving them the money to pay the cover if they are short of funds. Nobody knows but them and me that way. And I am happy to do it.
Some of my wonderful attendee-patrons over the years are very well off, paying the fee means nothing and they have tipped well over that whole day’s cover charge routinely. Others, I’m very aware that they can’t afford to pay, don’t have many $L let alone many US dollars. I don’t want them left out of any performance that they wish to attend because of money. I am of the “widow’s mite” mindset when it comes to people tipping me, in that I appreciate that sometimes people have tipped me literally all they had at the time because they enjoyed what I gave them back in the show. So to me, every tip, be it L$1000 or L$1 is appreciated all the same. I don’t keep tabs on who tips what or how often or anything else. Its not relevant to me performing in SL to know that level of detail. I have no idea if somebody came and tipped nothing. I do not pay attention to it, not at all.
I also have routinely, I’d say at least once per month, announced 100% free, no tipping, no ticket, no nothing but fun “fan appreciation” shows at my own club in the French Quarter, and think that’s a good idea for every musician to consider doing from time to time.
Twice before, I’ve done two special events that were ticketed and were very successful. One was a limited-attendance of 40 house party with a venue owner who could no longer pay musicians to perform, so I offered to do a special event house party and split the ticket income 50/50. Tickets were $L500, and came with a gift-bag of nice stuff, worth well over the ticket price, that people gave to us to put in as promos for their business in SL. That show sold out in about 10 days, if I recall correctly.
The other was a four-hour show with my blues-loving friend in Japan, KT, where we each played a solo set, and then played together using Ninjam for 90 minutes or so. That particular show found KT and I scheduling probably five or six rehearsals to get the Ninjam thing down and make sure it was unique and special. That show sold out in about 48 hours. We put in a solid five hours on the day of the show, and several hours in-world dealing with pre-sales of tickets. We sold 77 tickets at L$1000 each, 7 more than we swore we would sell, because people were begging to get them and we had a waiting list of others. In retrospect, we should have done that in the sky on a sim border, but live and learn. We split that money, and after the rehearsal time, in-world list-management time, and total performance time, I think we calculated that the sum total-per hour we actually earned was about $3.00 per hour. That doesn’t show us doing this for the money in my opinion. 🙂
There is a time and place for ticketed events, but I won’t ever do them as my general rule of thumb. I appreciate the intended mindset of why somebody might want to try this, but I try my best to perform at places where I know that my being hired is not some real life burden on those doing the hiring. To the best of my knowledge, my patron promoters are people who can afford to use their personal, disposable income to hire me to provide them with two or more hours of live music at a really good price. They freely invite everyone in SL to attend, and usually get most if not all of the fee they pay me back in venue tips, making a fun evening for them of both very cheap personal entertainment, and the fun of sharing it with others while getting a shot at getting most if not all of their money back for hiring me. That’s something they can’t do for the cost of a couple of pints at a pub and a tip for the bartender if real life. No DUI risks, either! 🙂
I ask my patron attendees to tip the venue before the tip me, when I talk about tips at all during a show, which is seldom except to say thank you en-mass to those that have. My job is to deliver two hours minimum of the best performance I can muster, not to ask for tips for anyone.
I don’t want people hiring me who’ve decided to open a venue, self-fund hiring lots of musicians, who’ve put themselves on the spot financially by spending money they should not be spending that will cause them personal problems. So one of the solutions the well-intended musician in question here is proposing is that we band together and do cover-charge only shows to help some of the venue owners who’ve put themselves in a pickle doing this. I won’t do ticket-only shows only, because its just not necessary as long as I’m dealing with people hiring me who fit the above description of responsible, disposable-income-spending SL residents who choose to hire me, can afford to hire me, and don’t feel any kind of personal burden in doing so. I do need to charge a fee to perform. I do have real costs, and my time is worth something to me to do this. If other musicians feel different, that’s OK with me. That’s their business, and none of mine.
The genesis of this problem is where I’ve seen some sim owners in SL incur the cost of a sim, build a venue on it, then start hiring musicians to play two, three or more shows a day, some of the several days a week. When the reality hits them that they’ve spent several hundred dollars a month and the tips in return to the venue are not covering even the sim rental, some have gotten upset and blamed the people who sell a service for them letting themselves be hired. That, I don’t understand. Nobody made them do this. Misspending one’s money and making yourself a financial martyr is silly. Its simple. Don’t spend money on ANYTHING, be it a prim object or a service, that you can’t afford to spend. I don’t want anyone ever hiring me who can’t afford to do so as a personal disposable entertainment expense that they would choose to use otherwise to go to movie or whatever in real life. I don’t want anyone tipping me who does so to their own personal detriment.
Charging my modest fee keeps my expenses paid as well as modestly rewards me for my time, paying hidden costs that a lot of folks don’t know to consider, or other costs I’ve chosen to incur to make sure the shows sound really good sonically, the stream is steady, and the instruments are well-maintained. I also think my time has a value, and that I’ve offering it up at a very low price because its convenient and fun for me to do so vs going back into the RL world of playing gigs. Been there, done that, from Canada to half the states in the USA. No interest in doing it again. Ever. Period.
Bottom line, Feline, is that you’ll never be left out of a show I do if its a rare cover charge event, you’re one of my patron-attendees and you say “Hey Von, can you put me on the list?” It ain’t how I roll. And on top of that, there will always be other chances to come hear me play where there is no cover at all, and some kind soul who is spending their personal disposable income to hire my services throws a concert and invites SL residents to freely attend.
Thanks for letting me fill up your comments page. If anyone has issue with what I said, I’ll thank you in advance to please IM me in-world, I really do not want to go tit-for-tat on Ms Slade’s blog. Thank you! – VJ
Feline, how the average long-time listener will be affected by the mandatory pay option is one of the most under-discussed issues of this whole debate, and you did a great job of representing what I think of as the only type of audience member I’m interested in attracting to my venue.
As for the “nobody” aspect, all I can say is that I’d rather have 1 of you in the audience than 1000 mindless scrolling woo-hoos. You contribute warmth, laughter, support, wit, and any number of things a performer and venue owner would be insane to overlook.
I’ve also tempered my tipping over the years in SL quite a bit for a variety of reasons, some of which you touch upon here, but then I’ve also tempered my SL spending in general. I know many others in SL who’ve done the same.
Any plan that runs the risk of alienating someone like you is missing the point on several levels. Luckily some of us get to keep you no matter what
…just keep the cats out of the crow’s nest.
and what von said;-)
Another quickie from a posting I made the other day.
The new paradigm music interaction model goes
Musician True Fans -> Venue|Label.
Can you figure out the redundant variable?
Redundant meaning they will be if they don’t understand fully the implications of the first half of the equation and structure their business accordingly.
Talent exploiting sausage factory vs boutique value added service model? rl or sl or vw no matter.
So it also goes for musicians that do not understand Feline’s ?:
What’s the value of that random face in the crowd?
~1/x [x = musician’s ego on a scale of 1-100]
{1 = 100%}
The artist/[true fan/audience/potential fan] relationship is at the center.
ack, something key dropped off when I posted that.
Should be:
The new paradigm music interaction model goes
Musician True Fans -> Venue|Label.
Sorry about this, not sure why but for some reason your blog is deleting the symbols I put between Musician and True Fan.
Left arrow, hyphen, right arrow to illustrate the two way nature of the relationship under the evolving model of Direct 2 Fan we are now seeing.
More than simplistically tagging true fans as “groupies”, and not without it’s own unique management challenges for the new paradigm musician.
Reading Von’s post above, I think it sounds like a good balance that most folks would find acceptable: some guaranteed revenue shows (if they continue to sell out), mostly ‘tips appreciated’ shows, and then some ‘no tips, just enjoy them, please!’ shows.
Now, I’ll be clear: I’m a capitalist SoB, in that I think peoples’ time is worth money. That said, I’m also a proponent of ‘give away a bit of product to expand and keep your customer base’ and a firm believer in music being enough of art that there’s a huge component of it that *includes* the audience. Live Music in Second Life is a situation where half the performance comes from or is in response to the live audience, and without that, the artist might almost as well drop their CD in and go get a burger.
I don’t have a personal issue w/ cover charges per se. I think an artist and/or a venue doing some on a semi-regular basis is a perfectly valid and reasonable way to ensure that they have a known revenue stream in uncertain times, so long as their fanbase supports it. I do think if someone makes them the ‘only way to go’ they’re not doing themselves any favors, and that they’ll see exactly the type of disaffected fan syndrome that Feline describes so well above, as well as the ‘vastly more difficult to obtain new fans’ situation.
As a fan of many artists in SL, it’s common for me to attend more than 1 show in the same overlapping hour, splitting my time between them (half hour here, half there) and tipping both venues, both performers, etc. And while I tend to make fairly modest tips, I think the fact that I tip *so often* means I’m a reasonable revenue stream to a lot of folks, all on my own (for those who are curious and are looking for hard numbers, I spend several hundred bucks on live music a month in tips). And to me, that’s the beauty of a micropayment system: it allows for a sane balance of ticketed/non-ticketed events, as determined by the fans (and their tips/ticket payments). As a fan, I get to choose how many shows and tips I can handle, and an artist and venue can choose how many shows they want me at to provide this stream. I think the issue is partly self-regulating 🙂
The day I force someone to pay a tip in SL is the same day you’ve got a right to ask me to hang up my axe. No way.
It’s very much a matter of professional pride to me that if my stuff bites then I don’t get paid. It’s really huge to me as I can tell myself over and over that some tune is good but so what if no-one else thinks so. The audience is everything.
It’s specifically the SL live audience that is everything. I don’t much care about uploading my songs to Web sites where people can award hearts or kittens or whatever if they like your stuff. I don’t much need hearts or kittens but I do need to play for you even if I don’t make a dime on it.
You’re not a nobody. I’ve said thank you for almost every tip I ever got and many jammers try to do that. I also try to thank people for support in chat but that’s more difficult to track in a gig. Then try to keep up with IMs on top of that (laughs).
As a part-time professional musician in real life, I was thrilled to come to Second Life and discover that it was (a) much easier to find places to play where people who would like my music were gathered and (b) really easy to find ways to play in front of people who wouldn’t ordinarily come out in RL to hear what I like to do. That first is always a challenge in RL — outside of festival stages, there are not many places where acoustic folk musicians who like traditional music can be heard. As for the second, in RL people go to places where the genre they like is found…and the venue owners generally don’t bother to take a chance on performers who don’t fit that genre. Coffee shops and private parties and house concerts are about the best someone like me can hope for on any regular basis. That’s why we are only “part time” professional musicians 🙂
As far as musicians in SL feeling as though they should be able to demand a minimum, I just don’t go for it. There are venue owners who view themselves as patrons of the arts and are willing to pay me for performing, and that’s fine. And I know of at least two communities that budget specifically for performances and it’s a real privilege to play for those extremely attentive audiences. But in most cases, I’m just happy to have the opportunity to perform in front of an appreciative audience in a “no risk” environment that encourages me to try things that I might not dare in a RL performance. Don’t get me wrong — I love being paid, and was thrilled to find that I can finance my SL “lifestyle” on tips and fees. But the real point for me is that when my audience sticks around and tips, it’s a clear indication that they like what I’m doing. So if I sang something that I hadn’t yet dared to try in RL or tried a new arrangement of an instrumental and the tips were good, that’s positive feedback, and I’ll keep working on it until I feel good enough about it to add it to my RL repertoire. The value of that improvement in my RL ability goes way beyond anything that I might earn by demanding a minimum payment. Playing what pleases me and sharing my “daring” with an audience is a real creative thrill that I can’t afford in RL. And in some ways a minimum payment inhibits that process: if I’m being paid to perform at a certain level (as is always the case in RL) I can’t afford to take big risks so will stick with the tried and true…and maybe bore myself to death.
So put me down on the side of resisting the trend towards cover charges. I want anyone at all who cares to pop into any venue I happen to be at to be able to stay and listen for as long as they like. If they like it, they’ll stay and if they know the custom is to tip the performer and the venue, if they can, they will. And even if they can’t tip much, if they REALLY like what they hear, they’ll join my list and come another time. I love having fans who do what they can to support me — those tips enable me to make my “presence” in SL more “real” and more interesting and encourage me to stick around. And having fans who show up to hear me is encouraging for the venues too — they like having people come, and since fans generally learn that they should tip the venue as well as the performer, the venue owners can expect to have some of their costs defrayed.
Whoever it was who commented that the best thing we can do is to get more SL-ers interested in the live music scene is right on. I don’t think that live music is the “killer app” in SL, but it’s certainly the one that I’m interested in, and I do what I can to introduce it to others.
Cindy
KT, you’re amazing…. Australian Jewish Blues Singing Japan-Living, Sky-Diving Computer Programmer and all that fancy math stuff that just went way over my southern-fried brain on top of it. If ya ever say that stuff in front of me, I’m going to smile, nod and pretend I know exactly what you meant.
Hey, the moral to this whole drama story? To each, his own.
The bottom line is MKT is just a loud opinionated voice of 1.
The truth is each performer and each venue will sort out what they want to do for themselves. MKT, nor anyone has any control over this.
Well Von, I’ve said my piece long and loud on enough web forums and also vocally in my gigs in SL.
I just thought I’d see if I could compress a couple of key points into math like formula’s for fun;-)
Roll on teh Metaverse Music Machine in all it’s glorified diversity!
There’s only one rule I see btw. Lets think about where we are going and not replicate any of the exploitative talent and audience practices of the dying mainstream RL record and event industries.
Actually scratch the word “rule”, as it has too many harsh connotations associated with it.
Guiding principles may be a better term.
Any more?
And I’m also not Jewish btw, not that it means anything either way…
I could have swore you said you were Jewish. Oh well….. scratch that. My mistake. 🙂
By ancestory perhaps, but that would be like calling an American with an African ancestral name an African, when they are American…like Obama for example;-)
http://lingamish.com/2009/01/barack-hussein-obamas-name-is-african-not-muslim/