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Wednesday, April 7, 2010

News Calling All Bands

Posted by Andrew R Tonry on Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 3:10 PM

If you're in a band—and God knows everyone in Portland is—you should know about Kickstarter, a sort of DIY fan-funding networking tool. Take it away New York Times story:

An artist group sets up a Kickstarter project page, for example, to raise a set dollar amount for a particular goal, like recording an album. Friends and fans make pledges with a credit card tied to the Amazon Payments system. But it’s a conditional pledge: the cards are charged only if there are enough pledges to meet the fund-raising goal in 90 days. The site also hosts projects set up by photographers, filmmakers, writers and other artists.

Groups that offer to give a concert at the place of a supporter’s choosing request an average of $600. A custom-written song goes for about $500; a signed, vinyl LP edition of a CD, $53. Fans “are not buying music, they’re buying a personalized experience,” said Yancey Strickler, a Kickstarter co-founder.

Since Kickstarter opened in April 2009, the average fund-raising goal for music projects has been $6,000, and 46 percent of them have met their targets, the company says.

Get ready to be inundated by Kickstarter requests.