SLMC

Doubledown Tandino

here it is. There's been plently of talk and thoughts about inworld ticketed events. do they work? if they do work, how do they work?
Here's the thread.... post your ideas, experiences, pros, and cons relating to charging for an inworld event.

(now please note, this talk has been hashed and rehashed.... but where exactly? lets make this the centralized thread so anyone new to event management can get up to speed about the event charging options.)
_________________
DJ Doubledown on The Sixty-One ~ SL DJ & Club Scene Blog
Ravelong Productions @ SLMC Info Island

Doubledown Tandino · Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 3:31 am Post subject:

well, im not suprised that there's no response.. cause no one exactly knows the answer is, or what to do....

Some of us think... maybe it will take a massive shift of thinking and agreement amongst venue owners.

some of us think, there should never be a charge.

Some of us think.. there's still some sort of portential to create a ticketed sl event and have it work... but are simply stumped...
---

so, lets start at the basics... people pay to go to something they want to see and something where they think what they are paying for is worth what they are expecting.

Is there anything in SL that is currently worth paying for that cannot be gotten for free?
_________________
DJ Doubledown on The Sixty-One ~ SL DJ & Club Scene Blog
Ravelong Productions @ SLMC Info Island

Silas Scarborough · Joined: 04 Sep 2007 Posts: 1224 Location: Rhode Island

Lots of people have done ticketed events but how many have done a second one. Not many. I've seen all kinds of hype about how successful they were but if that was really the case then why don't you see them all the time.

SL people expect to be able to see you all the time and they're not going to pay $1000L every day of the week to do that, particularly if they had to do it for three or four shows a night. The only way you're going to get anything serious happening with a ticketed event is charge a whole hell of a lot more than than per ticket and to reduce your concert schedule radically to increase demand for the ticket.

I'm not being negative; I'm being realistic. Hype doesn't make something a good idea.
_________________
Ever vigilant for da gooses overhead.

- Silas

My Web site is at myducksoup.com

Doubledown Tandino · Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 10:49 am Post subject:

Yes, I take your thoughts as totally realistic, and not bein negative.

And yeah, I do believe that you are right, that there have been sucessful ticketed events, but I don't think they ever did a second one.

The idea of presale tix to a limited access show is a way that probably works well..... but you really have to push the promotion and sales. The organization with selling presale tix isn't probably even worth the aggrivation.

But what about using the land's pay to enter option, does that ever work?

.... and lets think normal dollar figures... I'm not talking about charging $4L per person to enter a show....... RL,
$5usd- cover charge ya may grumble a little
$10usd -definite grumble and the show better be good!
above $10usd -either its a mega party of locals, or its a headliner show.

I wonder, is there a way to charge $2000L or more for a covercharge to an SL event..... maybe, but what the show consists of..... it's gotta be a $2000L show or basically everyone is just gonna be pissed off, and that's if anyone arrives....

....so, lemme make up an example: Ticious through Spotlight Promotions finds a way to have the RL AC/DC come in a do a live show in SL at Rocky Shores. Ticious books opening acts Nad Gough and Silas Scarborough, then AC/DC.
(I picked AC/DC as a general example of a band, that most anyone would wanna check out live in SL.... even if ya dont like em, you'd still wanna go)
that, for example, is a show where I'd hand over $2000L gladly.... (and I'd probably throw Rocky Shores $5000L just as a donation for making it happen.). I think there's a potential here in relation to grabbing some RL musicians and riding some coattails to boxoffice sales.

at this point we've come to 3 conclusions to work from:
1) cover charge events have worked in the past, but the event producer rarely does a 2nd one after realizing it wasn't worth the effort.
2) selling preshow tickets is a way to sell tickets to a SL show
3) bringing in a RL band, and adding SL musicians to the show has potential for a ample priced ticketed event.
_________________
DJ Doubledown on The Sixty-One ~ SL DJ & Club Scene Blog
Ravelong Productions @ SLMC Info Island

ticious · Joined: 03 Sep 2007 Posts: 2119 Location: Chicago

ticious · Joined: 03 Sep 2007 Posts: 2119 Location: Chicago

Silas Scarborough · Joined: 04 Sep 2007 Posts: 1224 Location: Rhode Island

Doubledown Tandino · Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 11:59 am Post subject:

thanks silas and ticious. Ticious, beyond your points all being valid, you have good quoting skills.
LOL. just replying that I read the above thoughts.
_________________
DJ Doubledown on The Sixty-One ~ SL DJ & Club Scene Blog
Ravelong Productions @ SLMC Info Island

ticious · Joined: 03 Sep 2007 Posts: 2119 Location: Chicago

Nad · Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 428 Location: at my puter.

These days a crowd of 20 is a pretty good turn out. Some do much better than this of course, but 20 is probably a typical crowd to see a good show. This does not in any way represent demand. A performer with hundreds of people in their group will often play for less than 20. This is an absolute statement of the lack of demand.

It is all a matter of numbers. We have hundreds of performers to several hundreds of audience people. I suspect its about 20 audience people available for each performance, given the number of concurrent performances. This is a guess, but I feel it's in the ball park.

More numbers come into play - or rather do not. There are x number of active accounts in SL. For purposes of discussion let's call that 1 million active accounts. To wander farther down the path of conjecture, consider that in RL most everyone likes music, listens to music, and obtains music in some fashion.

It is safe therefore to suggest that of the million active accounts in SL, hundreds of thousands are music lovers. While playing SL in their fashion - sex clubs, Gorean clans, furries, elves, builders, writers, teachers, educators, etc. - these people are probably listening to home stereos, ipods, internet radio, etc. because they enjoy music, as most people do.

Most have no idea there is a SL music scene. If they have heard of it perhaps they have not been interested in the notion enough to ever come to a performance. More importantly, their circle of friends - their social structure - is exclusive from the social network that exists in the SL music community.

I had hoped that SLMC would be the mechanism to somehow reach out to the newcomers and other communities, and so increase the audience to performers ratio. It has not done so yet. In fact, and I do not intend this as criticism, just observation, it has instead created a more cliquish social structure. This structure is presented with a face of 5 or 6 people who post here so much that to an outsider they would appear to represent SLMC itself. Being as that presents the opinions of 5 or 6 people's views (and some of those may agree with each other on a regular basis) it excludes the views of less frequent contributers.

When outsiders come to look at a new community it is only human and natural to surmise who "runs the show" and what their opinions are. I cannot view SLMC as these visitors might, but I have tried to do so. I would come away thinking it a cliquish insiders' forum that I have no hope to become fit into.

So, in my opinion, SLMC to date has not reached out very far at all, and has instead become daily more of an insiders' forum.

Much work needs to be done to grow the audience base dramatically before ticketed events become a reality. A reality made possible because ticketed events are a necessity. To you performers: the size of your audience is not the measure of how talented you are or how well you perform. It is merely an indication of a small pool of people aware enough (and interested enough) to look for music events to begin with. As it stands, with few exceptions, our crowds are made up of people who already know who we are and what we do. They decide which of the performers they enjoy, and of those which one performance they wish to see at say 4PM today. That's coupled with other factors too; which venue the show is at and, perhaps more importantly, where their circle of friends are likely to be.

I wouldn't dream of selling tickets to my shows knowing that I am privilidged to have had my show selected at this or that event by how ever many make that decision. I, like all of you, have more supply than demand.

I could end this long windy post with questions (but I am far too verbose for that). After a year of this forum what are we doing or planning to do to reach out to other communities - to interest them in what we do? You do understand just telling people we are here is not sufficient? People must be interested. How long you have been performing, what your RL music experience is, that you have a myspace address is... well really - it's uninteresting. It's dull. It's of interest primarily to those who are already here.

People come to SL for some excitement in their lives. What are we doing to let people know how much fun we have? The best representations of that aspect - that fundamentally important aspect, comes from the non-performing music lovers that post enthusiastically here. Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of active SL people do not come here to read those posts.

We need to reach out. We need to entice. We need to be cool and desirable. We need to be wanting to help newbs get the boxes off of their hand, not annoyed that they don't know how to turn a stream on. We want people to come, and we want them to stay. They will only do so if they want to do so. We need to think of ways to create that want.

If you know of ways to increase demand, I'd love to hear them.
_________________
This text appears at the bottom of my posts.