Music crowdfunding has clearly established itself as another form of financing for musicians leaving crowdfunding critics looking increasingly out of touch. Much has already happened in 2013 with Girlie Action's Kevin Wortis dropping knowledge at midem, the launch of Radio Crowdfund, Songkick's ongoing experiments with their concert crowdfunding project Detour and lots of successful campaigns including those of Protest The Hero, Ariel Hyatt and Kosha Dillz.
Before I get into some interesting music crowdfunding news, I need to let folks know that I will be putting Crowdfunding For Musicians on hold while I focus my non-Hypebot activity on All World Dance which I recently relaunched as a work in progress. I'm getting a lot of positive attention for CFM but there's just a limit to how much of this kind of writing I can do without burning out. Plus I miss the world of dance. But I'll continue to share music crowdfunding high points here as will others who write for Hypebot.
Midem 2013: Girlie Action's Kevin Wortis on Label Services, Crowdfunding & Direct-2-Fan
Digital Music Trends' Andrea Leonelli sits down with Kevin Wortis of Girlie Action for a half hour interview chock full of knowledge. Though it's not just about crowdfunding, it's a nice example of how crowdfunding fits into the life of music artists navigating the wilds of the 21st Century.
Check Digital Music Trend's Midem 2013 page for a number of other interviews with music tech companies and indie music insiders.
Radio Crowdfund Launches
Former NPR online producer Paul Schomer recently launched a weekly podcast called Radio Crowdfund. Thankfully for people like me who prefer print, blog posts are also part of the mix. He said in an email:
"The main idea behind the blog and podcast will be to surface several bands and/or artists from Kickstarter and Indiegogo every Thursday at around 10PM CT (I'm in Austin, TX)."
Looks like he's off to a solid start.
Songkick's Detour London Launches With Curators
Songkick continues to iterate their Detour concert crowdfunding project that began by bringing Tycho to London. Since then they've continued to experiment and, with the recognition that "some of the coolest stuff we've seen has been lead by fans," recently launched Detour London in private beta.
This new experiment focuses on bringing bands to London and includes a group of curators in the mix. So I guess there's still a gatekeeper process before the fans get to choose but, if that works, all to the good. Songkick's building up valuable domain knowledge here and is definitely worth watching especially for the slowly growing number of platforms focused on concert crowdfunding.
Successful Campaigns: Protest The Hero
In the land of outperformance, Protest The Hero, whose official domain may be for sale, crowdfunded a new album and have already more than doubled their request for $125,000 with 14 days to go. Fans pledged $265,497 so the much loved band could fund their first DIY album:
"We have completed all of our obligations to record labels. It's time to go it alone and take control of our careers. It's now or never!"
Successful Campaigns: Ariel Hyatt
Well-known music marketer and digital marketing educator Ariel Hyatt of CyberPR recently exceeded her request for $50,000. She received pledges of $61,137 to support the publication of 3 new books on social media marketing as well as the creation of what she believes will be the "BEST Social Media Mastery Course for creative minds available in the world."
Successful Campaigns: Kosha Dillz
Rapper Kosha Dillz, who recently shared what he's learning from his crowdfunding campaign for production of a documentary and a series of music videos, successfully exceeded his request for $8000 by $445 with 3 days to go.
Note that these three successful campaigns all appeared on different platforms, Protest the Hero on Indiegogo, Ariel Hyatt on RocketHub and Kosha Dillz on Kickstarter.
More:
- Björk Crowdfunds Biophilia App For Education But Will It Reach The Poor Kids?
- Music Crowdfunding Predictions for 2013
- 2012: The Year Music Crowdfunding Broke
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (Twitter/App.net) also blogs at All World Dance: Videos and maintains Music Biz Blogs. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
