Goldenvoice Purchases Coachella Grounds

Goldenvoice, the company that runs the Coachella and Stagecoach music festivals, has purchased 280 acres of land that the festivals are held on. They also hold a long term lease on the other 280 acres that comprise the rest of the festival grounds.  The president of the company stated that this would allow them to build infrastructure for the festivals instead of having to redo everything each year.  I think that the purchase will be good news for fans.  The building of a permanent festival structures could lead to a decrease in some costs for the company.  It will also lead to safer structures.  While Coachella has never had any major disasters.  Weather related catastrophe's at other festivals and fairs in the last year have raised some concern about the ability of temporary stage structures to hold up in adverse weather conditions.  While I don't see the reduction in costs to put on the festival trickling down to the fans for some time, it may be a possibility that in the future some costs for fans attending the festival may be slightly less.  Of course, Goldenvoice could just decide to reap all the benefits of the cost reduction in profits, but let's hope they decide to be a bit more generous than that.

Concert Promoter Purchases Coachella Grounds

Steve Jobs: How to Live Before You Die Speech

As an assignment for a class I am currently taking, we were asked to watch a speech from the TED website, give an analysis, and describe what the speech means to us.  If you are unaware of the TED concept, I highly suggest that you go to TED.com to check it out.  

I chose to watch Steve Job's Stanford commencement speech from June 2005.  Jobs to me is an important part of the music industry in part to his revolutionization of the way we get our music today.  He spoke of his failures in life, from dropping out of college, to being fired from Apple, and of the lessons that he learned from these low points in his life.  He also spoke of his brush with death from his Pancreatic cancer diagnosis.  We know now, of course, that this came back several years later to claim his life. Prior to his death, he helped to launch so many great things, and had such a great list of accomplishments, from starting Pixar, to the release of some of the most popular mobile devices in the world.  Jobs ended his speech by asking the graduates to follow something he always tried to do himself "stay hungry, stay thirsty." I took more from those words than I did anything else in the speech.  It is vital in this industry to always maintain a great passion for what you do.  If you lose the love and passion for the music, you lose touch with what really matters.  You forget about that moment at your first concert when the lights went out, the music started, and the artist exploded on stage, or the moment during your favorite song when you swear they were singing to you, and you felt more alive than you ever had.  So very simply, I repeat his words to you, as I will do for myself, "Stay Hungry, Stay Thirsty."

Steve Jobs: How to Live Before You Die 

The RIAA

The RIAA provides a great deal of service to the music industry.  They work to protect the First Amendment rights and Intellectual Property of artists.  They provide licensing services, and work to stop music piracy.  The RIAA also tracks music sales for gold and platinum certification purposes.  The association has a wide array of services to help parents choose music that is appropriate for their children as well.

As someone who is interested in the concert promotion industry, the RIAA is very important to me.  Paying attention to data provided by the RIAA can help me to determine what artists are hot right now, and may be worth bringing to my area.  It can also alert me to any big events happening for an artist I have already booked, such as a newly certified gold or platinum single.  Having this information can help me to plan a more dynamo and exciting marketing campaign for an event.  Advertising an artist as platinum selling can generate more interest in them, and help to sell more tickets to their shows.

Another industry that I have a great deal of interest in is Artist Management.  I've always had a passion for promoting artists that I think deserve a shot at their big break, and the RIAA is a very valuable asset to these artists.  Their work to stop music piracy can help to save many small artists who are struggling because their music is being passed around on file sharing sites for free, when they are in desperate need of every penny that comes from the sale of their single or album.  These struggling new artists also depend on album sales to help generate more interest in their career, and piracy can do quite a bit to halt any momentum that they may be able to build.  They then become dependent on the reputation of their live show in order to garner interest from major record labels, but a lack of album sales, either digitally or standard, may make it difficult for them to book shows, as promoters have little interest in booking acts that can't sell albums.

The RIAA is a valuable asset to any recording artist, manager, or promoter.  Hopefully they continue their work, and focus their efforts on projects that benefit the artists they represent.

http://www.riaa.com