Show HN: local independent band discovery service | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: local independent band discovery service

14 pointsdreadsword11 comments

http://stagetrip.com/

Born from my frustration at finding good music and shows locally. This isn't a simple mapping aggregator, its (intended to be) a hand-curated local music discovery service.

Right now its really just a shell, as I haven't had a tonne of time to get music into it. The eventual vision is that navigating to a "place" (i.e.: your hometown) on stagetrip you'll be able to find local bands, download some of their music (free), and see when/where they're playing (via songkick api for now).

The other side of the experience is that it (in time) will provide a place for bands to connect with local fans and build traffic to their local shows.

For instance, there's 4 bands in LA: http://stagetrip.com/places/united-states/california/losangeles 7 in california: http://stagetrip.com/places/united-states/california Etc.

Individual song pages include a bunch of stuff: http://stagetrip.com/song/dont-move_416 http://stagetrip.com/song/faces_645 Obviously the download link, but also voting, location, genre, concerts, etc.

Where available, concert listings show up: http://stagetrip.com/artist/phantogram http://stagetrip.com/song/dont-move_416 ...as do links to their social networks etc.

You can browse by: Location: http://stagetrip.com/places Genre: http://stagetrip.com/genre Popularity: http://stagetrip.com/charts.php Artist: http://stagetrip.com/artist

Something tells me that there's already someone doing this out there on a better/larger scale, but if there is, they're still pretty fragmentary.

There's no business model implicitly built into this - its really a "scratching the itch" scenario. Over time, with traffic, I'd like to monetize it with paid promotion by location - i.e.: "Promoted bands in Chicago this Week" sort of thing - a low cost, targeted way of driving traffic to shows.

Thoughts? Comments?

I'd suggest automatically detecting location and display local content on the frontpage. Also, I'd put some more focus on live events -- There is so much music out there that I won't bother to listen to, but if a band is playing at a local venue I'd be more keen to check it out.

Also, you spelled 'independent' wrong in your call to action at the top.

Promoted anything would cause me to avoid your service. It is very rare, for example, a promoted Youtube video to be relevant for my interests.

Figure out a way to efficiently crowd-source your content and place unobtrusive ads on the pages. Google is good at not annoying me with their search page ads.

Fair ball on "promoted" content, though I wonder if there isn't a balance point that could be reached - i.e.: Reddit Ads. But that's a ways down the road anyhow.

I regards to crowd sourcing: part of the value proposition of stagetrip was always intended to be "curation" - i.e.: as soon as its opened up to the internet firehose, I'd be worried about the quality of what's posted. In that sense, the music selection is really my voice as opposed to an impartial location-map of independent bands, which isn't a good thing - so I hear what you're saying. That being said, my intent is that every song on the site display some sort of instantly recognizable merit.

Perhaps fowkswe has the right idea - open it up to a select group, or require a "membership application" or something.

I would love to see you succeed with this as the area I live in is really lousy for live music if you're not constantly tuned in to the buzz.

I am a musician and have a fair number of musician friends who tell me about shows happening locally but it tends to be a repetition of me going out to see the same 3 or 4 bands all year...

Another trap to avoid is having someone that has close to a monopoly on bookings in an area do your curating. There's an agency here in South Florida that has bookings tied up for 90% of the good clubs in the area. If they're curating, you only see their acts. :(

Again, great idea, I wish you success.

I know what you mean about being tuned into the buzz. I'm a suit wearing accountant, and about as far from the buzz as one can get. StageTrip is supposed to be an end-run around the buzz, right to the music.

Thanks for the head's up about being selective about who gets involved.

South Florida, hey? Point me to some of your friend's bands (or your own) and I'll start building up FL.

OK, Thank you.

Here are some friends/acquaintances to get you started.

J.P. Soars - Boca Raton FL - Blues, 2009 International Blues Challenge winner. http://jpsoars.com

Deecode - Lake Worth FL - Classic Rock/Rock/Alternative. http://www.facebook.com/deecodeband

The Dillengers - Ft Laud FL - Eclectic Roots Music. http://www.thedillengers.com

The Shakers - Jensen Beach FL - blues, rock ‘n’ roll, country, southern rock, motown. http://shakersrnb.com/

Do you intend to curate the listings? That seems like alot of work for a single person. Have you considered reaching out to regional music bloggers to give them a 'seat'? They could in-turn promote you with a embeddable widget for their blog.

Nice work. I like where its going.

Oh, and a plug for a friend that has a regional blog - i know http://nocountryfornewnashville.com/. I'd venture to say he'd be happy to have one of those 'seats'.

Hey, thanks - I'll reach out to him! And I can add a "posted via" type link to each song to drive traffic back to contributors as well. Do you think bloggers would view stagetrip as cannibalizing traffic to their own blog?

I think show listings and contextual blog posts work in, ahem, concert :)

Thanks for the kind words and the great suggestion. As I noted in reply to fredsanford, curation = quality -- your idea of enlisting "qualified" people might be just the thing to drive some volume.

Cheers!

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