See a Show, Listen on Drive Home

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mikenycLI
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See a Show, Listen on Drive Home

Postby mikenycLI » Sun Jun 15, 2003 10:37 pm

Courtesy of Reuters/Billboard....

See a Show, Listen on Drive Home

Sun June 15, 2003 09:20 PM ET

By Paul Bond

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - An upstart company is selling CDs of rock concerts just minutes after the bands finish their encores, offering fans a legal alternative to a product pirates have been hustling since the invention of the cassette tape.

DiscLive tested its proprietary software and custom-built, high-speed CD burners at shows a few months ago. It started its business in earnest two weeks ago when it recorded a Jefferson Starship concert near Niagara Falls and began selling CDs of the show almost immediately after it ended.

"The bands don't get a chance to edit or even listen to it; that's part of the fun," said DiscLive CEO Rich Isaacson, who was formerly president and co-owner of Loud Records, the hip-hop label purchased last year by Sony Music.

Mostly the company intends to sell the CDs at the concert venue and only to attendees; that way, bands and their labels need not worry about cannibalizing sales of official releases. But for Jefferson Starship, currently unsigned, there's a limited number of CDs from the Niagara Falls show available at DiscLive.com to anyone wishing to purchase them.

The number of CDs produced is usually limited to about 20% of a venue's capacity, and they are meant to be "high-end concert memorabilia," Isaacson said. Concertgoers unwilling to risk not getting a CD may purchase a copy in advance at DiscLive.com, print a receipt and trade it for the CD after the show. Whether purchased on the spot or online in advance, the price is the same: $25.

Since that first Jefferson Starship concert, DiscLive has been at two others. Of the total 900 showgoers, 220 bought a CD, and 30% of them did so in advance online, Isaacson said.

Such numbers, though, represent fairly insignificant revenue and don't come close to covering costs, especially considering that DiscLive pays the appropriate fees to publishers and splits its take with the artist, label and venue. Its share of each sale is only about $6, though its portion varies from band to band, Isaacson said.

But the company is working the small shows, such as Jefferson Starship and others, so that it may prove the concept to bigger bands and organizers of the kind of music festivals that can attract 100,000 fans or more in a single weekend.

"We're basically creating a new market," Isaacson said. "We're building trust."

DiscLive, though, isn't alone. Competition already has sprung up from none other than Clear Channel Communications, the largest concert and radio company in the country.

Its initiative, Instant Live, is starting at small clubs in and around Boston, where it has been selling CDs of shows for only $15. Unlike DiscLive, Clear Channel doesn't intend to limit its Instant Live CDs to concert trinkets but will sell them at Best Buy stores in Boston and at BestBuy.com and promote the CDs by playing cuts on its radio channels. Such grandiose plans, though, could mean that Clear Channel will have trouble wooing bands signed to big labels, fearful that readily available and well-promoted Instant Live CDs will compete with official releases.

But labels would share in the revenue, said Steve Simon, executive vp at Clear Channel Entertainment Music Group. "What if the studio album has gone through its cycle, and sales are flat?" he asks. "This creates revenue without expense."

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jht ... ID=2931997