Posted on August 29, 2022

Eight Challenges You’ll Face While on Tour

By Barbara Drews

Touring and performing live may be incredible experiences.

On fantastic evenings, when everything is going well, you get to enjoy the rush of singing your music in front of an appreciative audience.

Yes, outstanding concerts may result in new fans, merchandise sales, more gigs, and positive publicity.

But, no matter how prepared you are, there are always SOME parts of performing live that are beyond your control. What if THOSE things don’t go as planned?

Here are 8 challenges most touring artists will face:

Sound Issues

Perhaps the PA is malfunctioning. Maybe you arrive and learn you have to run sound yourself. There are insufficient inputs. There is just one monitor available. The microphones are gone. Perhaps the sound engineer is simply dialing it in.

On tour, you will experience sound problems at some time. 

Can you persevere and yet put on an excellent show?

Venue Problems

Staff who are rude. Regulars who are hostile. The acoustics are terrible. There is no green room. “You can’t obtain your drink tickets until after your show ends at 1 am,” says the bartender.

Every musician has experienced walking into a new setting and instantly thinking, “Oh, this isn’t good.” Can you still put on a good show?

Tiredness and grumpiness

Touring is physically and mentally demanding. Long days on the road. Sleep deprivation due to late nights. Every day, for weeks on end, I’m in close quarters with the same folks.

Can you find space, rest, and maintain communication clear and healthy in the meantime?

Outdoor concerts take place… outside

Excessive heat or humidity. Frozen fingers. Computers and effects that do not function. You can’t see the LEDs. Listeners might be found in a park or plaza. The sound is leaking into the outside air.

Outdoor performances are terrible. Can you get through it without sucking?

Wildcard performers on the bill

The other act might be critical and cliquish. If you want to impress them, you may feel intimidated. After the first set, all of their supporters were free to depart. The band may rage at each other onstage, scold the crowd, and then split up in the parking lot (true story).

The other performers might have a significant influence on the overall vibe of your performance. Can you still deliver?

Gear failure

Your in-ear monitors do not pick up on the click. A beloved synth fails in the middle of the concert. During a solo, your guitar string snaps.

Your tools will fail. Can you continue with the show?

Vehicle failures

It’s not just about your instruments. Your car or van may also fail you. Your flight or train may be delayed or canceled. Anyone who has traveled knows that you can’t always get from one place to another on time. If you break down in a small town on Sunday, you’ll be much more delayed.

Can you keep your cool and solve the challenge as soon as possible?

The “stage” does not exist

Of course, this is part of the venue issues, but it deserves its own area. When you arrive, you see the stage is an 8×8 piece of plywood. The band will not fit. The performing space is partially obscured by a massive pillar. 

Worse, there is no stage at all. You’re in the corner of the room, and some drunk is certain to knock the mike into your teeth.

Can you handle it?

These are just a few of the things that are guaranteed to go wrong on tour. You won’t always be able to “fix” these problems, but you should be prepared to work around them.

Know that if you put on a terrific show, the audience will have a great time.

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Posted on August 8, 2022

Ape Rave Club Performed At Tomorrowland Music Fest: What Does This Mean For Web3?

By Yvonne Martin

Tomorrowland; one of the biggest EDM festivals on the planet, welcomed the first-ever NFT artist to perform at this festival. Ape Rave Club captured the attention of the global dance-music community, which was seen by over half a million fans. 

The exciting and groundbreaking performance was the first of its kind, and a one-of-a-kind visual spectacle as Ape Rave Club bridges the physical world with the metaverse. 

Steve Aoki also made a presence! He wore a jacket with the image of a bored ape on the back.

nft now posted a picture on Instagram saying: “@aperaveclub made its debut today on the main stage of Belgium’s @tomorrowland, one of the biggest dance music festivals in the world. 🙌 Which festival will NFTs take over next?”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by nft now 💭 (@nftnow)

According to reports, the concert was headed by an “NFT Artist.” 

Ape Rave Club released photos of the performance on their Twitter account, showing an artist wearing a BAYC NFT mask performing music with the caption “A @BoredApeYC on the @tomorrowland main stage. We are just getting started! 🍌🔊”

A @BoredApeYC on the @tomorrowland main stage. We are just getting started! 🍌🔊 pic.twitter.com/pdOIiAUXoX

— Ape Rave Club 🍌🔊 (@aperaveclub) July 24, 2022

Tomorrowland and NFTs

Tomorrowland, a well-known music event, has been being held for the last 17 years. However, Tomorrowland is now entering the NFT arena with its Medallion of Memoria collection, which will grant unique admission to its events, according to a recent blog on its website.

So what does this mean for Web3?

Tomorrowland and Ape Rave Club collaborating might be seen as a minor step toward Web 3.0. It remains to be seen if this will signal a dramatic change in entertainment toward a “decentralized internet.” 

For the time being, the wider cryptocurrency and NFT industry are in a highly restrained phase, with asset values falling drastically. 

Only time will tell if Ape Rave Club’s NFT artist status will have a long-term impact.

About Ape Rave Club

Ape Rave Club is one of the world’s first blockchain artists. The idea of Bored Ape Yacht Club, one of the most popular NFT communities in the world, with members including Steph Curry, Mark Cuban, Justin Beiber, and Paris Hilton. They join Wuki’s Wobblebug as one of the world’s first decentralized artists, with intentions to distribute original music via NFT platforms.

Ape Rave Club is here to introduce a new generation of musicians to the world of electronic music. They are delighted to define the future of music on web3 with the support of some of the most interesting producers and creatives in dance music and NFTs.

Tomorrowland’s website indicates that Ape Rave Club is tied to the iconic BAYC (Bored Ape Yacht Club) NFT project, which is established on the Ethereum blockchain. According to Tomorrowland’s blog, BAYC #9184 is also behind the Ape Rave Club. Ape Rave Club has made headlines following a recent performance on Tomorrowland’s stage.

In other news…

Ape Rave Club also released a new single “Dance Alone”

Ape Rave Club showcases a clean-cut modern production approach with distorted vocals that create a mesmerizing trance while a rhythmic kick keeps a solid tech-house beat, as one would expect from a rising generation artist.

While the first intriguing build collapses into jackin’ electronic bursts with strong basslines, Ape Rave Club surprises with vibrant keys that pay homage to early dance music traditions.

Ape Rave Club is an artist to keep an eye on, with the possibility of NFT drops with real-world utilities, extraordinary experiences, and an entirely new method to combine the music business with blockchain technology.

With Ape Rave Club’s appearance on Tomorrowland’s stage, he just made history, and many more will follow in the artist’s footsteps as he raises the bar.
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Posted on August 5, 2022

How And Why Billie Eilish Won Glastonbury

By John Reynolds

Glastonbury returned to tremendous excitement following a pandemic-induced hiatus, making it the first one since 2019. Since then, the music industry has evolved dramatically, with streaming becoming more popular than ever and TikTok firmly established as a cornerstone of the industry. 

Back in 2019, the typical practice was to examine how much Glastonbury increased streaming statistics for artists on the bill, but in today’s climate, the influence on an artist’s fans is perhaps more essential.

The BBC and Glastonbury partnership is a fandom engine room

Glastonbury is significant because it is aired (on TV and radio) and streamed in the UK by BBC, which is unusual in today’s on-demand world: it is a cultural event.

Cultural moments in music have mostly vanished as a result of cultural splintering and fanbase fragmentation, being replaced by the asynchronous paradigm enabled by streaming. Summers used to be soundtracked by classics that everyone recognized; now, thanks to algorithms and personalization, everyone gets their summer hit.

Meanwhile, streaming has transformed music into a utility, more of a background soundtrack to our everyday lives than a cultural touchstone. If streaming has transformed music into the water, we now require cups to sip it from. 

In the United Kingdom, Glastonbury provides a counterweight to that dynamic, offering a few days for everyone, from casual viewers to die-hard music enthusiasts, to witness amazing music – music that is, significantly, frequently outside of what they would normally listen to.

This is significant because streaming algorithms give more of what we enjoy, narrowing our cultural breadth. Glastonbury’s curated and diversified lineup, augmented by the experienced curation and programming of a national broadcaster, frees music lovers from the algorithm cage. 

There aren’t many algorithms that would show Wolf Alice next to Diana Ross. Thus, the Glastonbury/BBC collaboration provides real-world evidence of how true discovery may be reintroduced into music. It is enhancing rather than replacing streaming.

Finding new audiences

So much for the consumer case; what about the artist? What an artist (and labels) want is a long-term increase in fanbases, not simply a transient spike in streaming. Big streaming counts are a terrific calling card, but they do not stack up for most artists unless they are massive. 

A weekend increase is only valuable if it lays the groundwork for a longer-term fandom rise. So, what is truly important is how a one-time event fosters fanbase growth. But how does that work? It just so happens that MIDiA is presently developing a fanbase assessment tool called Music Index.

Let’s look at some MIDiA Index data to see how big of an impact Glastonbury has already had on the musicians that played there.

Index creates artist cohorts to permit comparisons among comparable artists, with the best performing artist in each category indexed as 100 and the others against that basis. So we created a Glastonbury cohort to measure these artists’ fanbase and engagement impact. Looking at the top five artists in our ‘engagement’ metric (a hybrid measure that incorporates streaming, YouTube, and so on), Kendrick Lamar was the obvious victor, with AJ Tracey a close second and Wet Leg a close third. These three artists made the most money during and after Glasto.

Because the great majority of established musicians do not rely on streaming as their primary source of revenue, gauging engagement is merely one piece of the puzzle. That gets us to our next statistic, ‘fandom,’ a hybrid metric that encompasses a wide range of fandom and social behaviors. 

The rankings are significantly different, with Billie Eilish, who was not even in the top five for ‘engagement,’ not only coming out on top but much ahead of the rest. In comparison to engagement, the distance to second and third place is substantially greater. Regardless, Kendrick Lamar takes another podium slot and had a bigger uplift than Megan Thee Stallion, who was already more highly regarded before Glasto and continues to lead.

Wikipedia is a crucial input for MIDiA’s Music Index. It is a significantly underappreciated artist measure that is top of mind for music marketers. Wikipedia is so helpful since it reflects a customer’s desire to learn more about the artist. It’s a fandom engagement metric. A Wikipedia perspective is the first step towards a higher degree of fandom, but a Google search may merely be aimed at going and finding music.

Taken as a whole, the Glastonbury effect is as follows:

• Kendrick Lamar may have seen the greatest increase in consumption, but Billie Eilish is likely to have seen the greatest long-term increase in her fanbase.
• The Glastonbury/BBC partnership makes a compelling case for the power of expanding artist reach to wider audiences through tentpole, live performances broadcast, and online.

Just ask Sam Fender how Glastonbury can produce career-defining cultural events for artists in the UK. However, the case should be made less about Glastonbury and more about how the live/broadcast/stream paradigm gives a worldwide use case for reinvigorating cultural events in an era of divided culture.
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