Here's what Ryan has sent in to far: The discussion at NMS this morning started on gigs, and asking, "whats the right ticket price" in an an economy where the difference between $12 and $15 matters to a lot of people?
"Free" came from a few voices in the crowd. The panel brought up that more and more people are waiting until the last minute to buy tickets--the last 24 hrs--and the venues are nervous because they don't know until the last minute if they'll break even. Filling a club with 300 attendees was talked about as a "magic number" for "sustaining." Martin Atkins especially stressed "going to the people."
If it's cold, then go play outside, offer free hot chocolate, and "exchange information." Talk to people. Atkins also suggests gig swapping and making friends with other bands. Comparing social media to Japanese table manners he exclaimed, "You pour everyone else a drink and at some point they'll pour yours."
"People are going to come to you first through song" said Jay Frank this morning. "Make sure you search your own song"-- search the title before you release it. Based on what you see in the search results you can tweak your titles to be different or to tag-along existing popular search terms.
John Simson from SoundExchange: "It was a penny business. Now it's a micro-penny business." He's referring to streaming. The current $0.00097 per play Pureplay webcasting rate takes 720 plays to equal the revenue from one download. If your music is getting streamed, then SoundExchange "has money for you." He says the average check to an artist is 5k/year, and that satellite radio makes up about 2/3 of the revenue through SoundExchange.
