Concerts Where Everyone Gets a Front Row Seat
Posted on February 8, 2008 – 10:37 am | in » Articles, Music
By Mark Levy CEO of MaxxoMedia
18 months ago two friends had a conversation about how technology has been changing the landscape of the music business.They agreed that companies like Pandora, Amazon and iTunes were changing how people experienced artist recordings. But, they were concerned that a very important part of the music business was not being addressed - the live performance. They talked about how no one was really focusing on this aspect of the business. So it was decided they would.
What makes this conversation interesting is that it took place between Danny Socolof, a 25 year veteran of the music industry and Jeff Henshaw, a founding member of Microsoft’s XBOX team.
Socolof is a pioneer in pairing brands and music with The Who, Led Zeppelin and well known brands like Pepsi and Apple’s iTunes. He has been responsible for some of the most memorable live performances in the past quarter century including Woodstock ’98. Henshaw was with Microsoft for 18 years and last lead efforts to bring new entertainment experiences to the XBOX.
Both men are firm believers that a powerful platform of great software and services is the key that unlocks amazing entertainment scenarios. DeepRockDrive.com is the brainchild of that conversation.
The two are very passionate about making a difference. “To engage fans and artists in a new community and platform that bring the live performance into the digital media age and create value all along the way – value to fans, value to the artists, value to the labels – that’s what DeepRockDrive is all about,” said Socolof.
In the past six months they’ve built a state of the art HD studio, launched the site, raised $3 million in capital and ramped up to 25 employees. They currently produce 20 to 30 shows each month that are broadcast live around the world.
Fans can request an artist perform for them on DeepRockDrive and artists can invite the fans to participate in the live show. DeepRockDrive provides a tool set including digital concert posters and widgets that allow people to create demand and spread it out over the web on Facebook, MySpace and any other website. The widgets link back to DeepRockDrive to report to fans and artists how the demand is building.
Once a band has attracted 1000 votes, the band is invited to the Las Vegas studios for a very unique performance experience. Entering the DeepRockDrive studio puts the artist and fan in direct contact. Fans get to choose the playlist and the band receives incoming interactive feedback from fans while they are performing. For the first 45 shows, fans have attended from about 25 different countries.
“Anyone with access to broadband has a front row seat at DeepRockDrive,” said Socolof. “We intend to build out partnerships with radio and other media around the world. Any time a show is promoted, it’s applicable to everyone in that Internet audience or local listening audience with access to broadband.”
Currently artists need to come to the DeepRockDrive studios to perform. But the larger plan is to expand beyond the Vegas studio to providing tools that will enable the DeepRockDrive experience from venues around the world. Henshaw said, “The current studio is a lab to experiment with, perfect and innovate around the experience, so we can deploy those tools economically and enable venues around the world to participate around the platform.”
People can experience the show on their terms rather than forcing them into one narrow vantage point. Four real time HD streams over the internet represent the four cameras which the fans can switch to in real time to get different angles. If viewers want to focus on the guitar player or drummer – they can just switch the camera.
The artists agree to bring in their set list and let the fans in the audience decide which order to play the songs. Fans use tools developed by DeepRockDrive to combine digital applause and shout outs with user name and location information that gets pumped directly onto huge monitors on the soundstage. The goal is to create direct conversations in real time during the show between the fans and the artists.
Fans can also snap screen grabs during the show featuring the band and share those photos on their web pages, Flickr, Slide and other sites. In the works is a photo snapshot application that users can use during the show to take images of the band and post to a gallery. Then the band can vote and fans win prizes like free tickets to future shows.
In late February, DeepRockDrive plans to launch a Facebook application expected to extend the reach of the site and the experience. We are going to “unleash it on over 60 million people to let the requesting and inviting happen a lot more fluidly as a part of their everyday lives.”
Socolof says DeepRockDrive is building a long term viable economic model for everyone in the chain. All shows cost $6.99 and the ticket price is shared 50/50 with the artist. The content created during the show is given to the band so they can they can post to their sites that same night. Deals are in the works to help bring the HD content to DVD, get released as video singles and shared from fan sites.
Henshaw admits that artists come into the studios a bit apprehensive – “They tend to take a song or two to realize that the audience is out there, on the Internet, and master the interactive experience. After the shows, we frequently hear artists announce that they’ve never experienced anything quite like it. They really get off on the real time, global access to the fans.” Users and artist feedback is strong – but they admit they have a ways to go. “We are constantly innovating to enhance the experience for both fans and artists.”
Lately they’ve had a lineup of potential partners including charities, bloggers, both major and indie labels and they are looking to partner with media – radio, print organizations.
The opportunity for the radio industry is to consider DeepRockDrive as an online experience extension for big events they present. “Radio is so important for building up affinity for music – but radio needs to be relevant in the new digital age and DeepRockDrive can be a partner,” said Socolof “and we are very open to these type of partnerships.”
http://www.deeprockdrive.com
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