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Comment by mr_toad | Hacker News Reader

I don’t get why artists even use record labels anymore.

Is there something that Facebook/YouTube/iTunes etc doesn’t provide?

It is a lot more complex than it seems from the outside.

If you want to play a live show somewhere big (reach the most fans, sell merch and earn the big bucks), Live Nation owns the venue. Live Nation is Clear Channel and Ticket Master. Live Nation also owns radio, where your show would be advertised.

The big labels all have deals with Live Nation.

It is all super super shady.

Who wants to build a competitor?

The entity you’re trying to compete against has enough money & reach to have your body dissolved in acid & dumped in the Mariana Trench within a few hours if they so feel. The incentive to do so as well.

If you’re not already part of the family, your chances of successfully competing against is nil

Competitor to what, Live Nation? It is a wide range of different businesses. There is nothing to compete with since you're competing with everything. Any time something infringes on one of their areas, they just buy it or put it out of business. Them being a global company makes it impossible to even get started.

Case in point, check out Insomniac...

  Insomniac produces some of the most innovative, immersive music festivals and events in the world. Enhanced by state-of-the-art lighting, pyrotechnics and sound design, large-scale art installations, theatrical performers and next generation special effects, our events captivate the senses and inspire a unique level of fan interaction.  The quality of the Headliner experience is our top priority.

  Insomniac produces 10,000 concerts, club nights and festivals for seven million attendees annually across the globe. Since its inception, Insomniac's events have taken place in 13 countries across five continents. The company's premiere annual event, Electric Daisy Carnival Las Vegas, is the world’s largest dance music festival and attracts more than 525,000 fans over three days. The company was founded by Pasquale Rotella and has been based in Los Angeles since it was formed in 1993.

Little do they tell you... "In 2013, Insomniac entered into a creative partnership with Live Nation."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insomniac_(promoter)

Such a close creative partnership that LN hosts the jobs page for Insomniac... for example...

https://livenation.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/InsomniacExternalSi...

If your record label isn't in cahoots with these guys, you aren't playing anywhere public. There is nothing that YouTube and TikTok can do to help you there...

For anyone who wants to take a crack at building a competitor on the ticketing side: https://seatgeek.com/jobs

How does SeatGeek get around not owning the venue?

Almost as a rule, in the US at least, large multi-purpose venues sign exclusive contracts with their ticketing provider. That means that all events, including any concerts that come through the building, are ticketed by the venue's chosen ticketing provider.

While we're probably better known as a consumer app for buying tickets, SeatGeek also builds the full set of software you need to run a major venue. Everything from issuing and managing season tickets for the resident pro sports team, to working with promoters in selling tickets to their national tours and hosting the big, high-demand concert on-sales that accompany them.

A big component of our path into the market is that it's often the resident pro sports team that operates the venue and makes the ticketing decision. They tend to be very focused on the fan experience, particularly for season ticket holders, and that's our strong suit.

Thanks Eric.

I'm pretty intimately familiar with the whole industry. I once owned a small (~2k person) club / live music / multiuse venue in San Francisco as well as built a ticketing SaSS for USCF (us cycling federation) sanctioned events.

From the club days, I got subtly screwed by Clear Channel on an event once and it really left a bad taste in my mouth. From the cycling ticket stuff, I got to deal with another type of promoter and that was horrible in a lot of ways too. Both businesses eventually failed from external factors.

I don't envy your sales team at all.

Very cool (well, not the getting screwed part). Most of my experience so far is on the sports side, with music exposure being more indirect.

It's amazing how many ticketing systems of various forms have been built over the years. It seems like one of those things that should be simple, but there are just so many ways to slice it.

The UX for setting up events and selling tickets was some of the most complicated stuff I've ever built. The logic is extremely domain specific and difficult to implement. Good work.

I realize that your primary target is major venues, but do you have any plans for expanding to 200-500 cap venues? A management solution is desperately needed in that space!

I'm guessing you mean music venues? The short answer is yes, eventually.

The slightly longer answer is that we'll probably be the strongest option for smaller venues that want to do more complex stuff. To the extent that there's always some tradeoff between simplicity and power, we're likely to continue to lean pretty heavily on the power side for our core ticketing system.

please make a "We're hiring!" submission instead of hijacking conversation to shill for the poor man's StubHub

(smart move bailing on Billy Beane’s SPAC btw)

Heh, I may get overly excited to tell people that we're building a Ticketmaster/Live Nation competitor... The sentiment that one is sorely needed is so common, and yet so few people know we're doing it (the StubHub comparison is more typical)

Lots of people have tried and failed. Live Nation is an abusive monopoly.

If you're a popular enough artist you can still get to big venues, even on important dates.

Vulfpeck, an independent funk band, played a sold out show at Madison Square Garden with no label and no manager and that was in 2019. Things are slowly changing.

Those are incredibly large venues, to the extent that if you're selling tickets to those, you aren't struggling monetarily.

Facebook/YouTube/iTunes doesn't give your band a $200,000 advance and fund a tour schedule across the USA eastern seaboard.

Perhaps they should rebrand to “angel investors”

Record labels don't do that either unless you're already massively successful.

Upfront funding to get you going. Recording, traveling, promoting all costs money. We're getting better with cheaper tools, and cheaper promotion platforms (tiktok and all), but still there is a need for capital

>> The singer Halsey put up a TikTok last week complaining about her label’s obsession with TikTok. “I have a song I love I wanna release ASAP,” she told fans on the platform, “but my record label won’t let me. I’ve been in this industry for eight years and I’ve sold over 165 million records, and my record company is saying that I can’t release it unless they can fake a viral moment on TikTok.”

-------

The article is talking about how Record Labels are no longer doing upfront funding. The artist has to become a viral sensation on TikTok __BEFORE__ the record labels put up the money for them.

Oliver Tree told the same thing on a number of podcasts on YouTube

they’re not gonna let him make an album unless he reaches a million followers on instagram and then changed this number to 6 million

he just accidentally made a hit song “Life goes on” and only then was he allowed to make the next album

Authenticity. Once you can fake that you’ll really go places

That doesn't make sense. Halsey is already signed. She doesn't need the capital or really even the label any more. But at one point she did - so she signed away those rights and the record label is holding it over her right now.

I hate to parse words but the article isn't about artists. It's about pop stars. Corporate puppets. Literally, tools of the trade.

Who gets the massive streams for the next release? It doesn't matter to label. That's the nature of pop music. There's always the next big thing right behind the current big thing, which pushed out what is not the last big thing.

Artists? Artists don't play these type of games.

Edit: now that I skimmed the article, I overall agree with you.

You realize you can't just show up to a big venue with your gear and start playing right? It's like wondering why famousactor$ doesn't just make his own movies. Behind every artist there's like 1000 people behind the scenes making it all work.

Money.

It's neat that your song went viral on TikTok, but that didn't get you any dosh.

So, your band just went mega-viral and you need to do a tour. How do you get Ticketmaster to call you back so you can book venues bigger than 100 people?

"I just want to release songs" is great. Just release songs. Easy.

Ah, but I see you want to release songs and actually not starve while doing so. That's a completely different problem.

So, what are you willing to trade for that?

The label pays (via cash, favors, festival tickets, etc) for Spotify / radio stations / ads / tv-shows etc etc to play your song.

Discoverability is a huge issue, more songs get made every year.

How do you recon the ”Hot new artists” list on Spotify is created? There’s a ton of deals, payments and polics behind it - and getting placed on a list can make/break a career.

Yes,

- Marketing - Industry Connections - Cashflow

The majority of the modern Musician's job is marketing through social media. A label helps to alleviate that burden.

I mean, it even goes the other way: I recently talked to someone who works for an "influencer agency", not sure what the proper term is. They sign up YouTube creators who have done everything themselves and became quite successful on their own. But they apparenlty see value in the agency managing their ad contracts, advising with video production, doing promotion, finding new topics to cover, and give them a good cut of their revenue. Sure, they probably don't sign over the rights to their content (or do they?), but it's a similar arrangement I think.

Yes, a team of professional composers who call themselves "producers" who will "make suggestions" for how to change your songs from having potential, to being actually high quality music.

Renting a studio, musicians, engineers, etc.

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