If it wasn’t clear already, Australian ticketing giant Moshtix’s 2013 State Of The Industry report, which was unveiled late last year, made it undeniable – when music fans are deciding which festival gets their hard-earned dollars, there’s only one thing on their minds and that’s the lineup.
According to the report, in addition to a reasonable ticket price, if organisers want their event to be a success, they’re not going to get very far investing in fancy decoration, original themes, a variety of food and drink, and after-parties.
But with slumping record sales creating a critical dearth of headliners as well as bumping up artists’ performance rates, creating the perfect lineup that will simultaneously attract punters and keep ticket prices low is becoming more of an uphill battle each year.
Enter GiggedIn, Australia’s only crowdfunding and ticketing platform fully dedicated to live music. If you’re already lost, the concept is actually way simple. It’s crowdfunding, just as you know it, but your money is going to seeing your favourite band on a lineup instead of an Oculus Rift or a potato salad.
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“We help event organisers and artists make successful shows, tours and festivals occur with a guaranteed amount of pre-sales by giving fans the power to pledge to buy tickets in order to activate events,” GiggedIn write on their website.
And some major Australian music festivals have already hopped aboard the GiggedIn train, with Mountain Sounds following in the footsteps of this year’s UTS Winterfest in announcing their own support slot competition, with two winners set to share stages with the incredible Mountain Sounds 2015 lineup.
“We’ve always wanted to find more win-wins in the industry as well as create more support for developing artists,” says Clayton Parker, co-founder of Mountain Sounds Festival.
“The GiggedIn and Mountain Sounds support slot competition will give motivated local talent a real chance at playing in front of a big new crowd whilst helping us give fans a voice to tell us who they’d love to see.”
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It works like this: a longlist of acts has already been curated on the competition page. All you have to do is head over to the page and register your support for your favourite act by pledging to buy a ticket to Mountain Sounds 2015.
If your act wins a support slot alongside the likes of The Jungle Giants, The Griswolds, DZ Deathrays, and more, your ticket gets bought, if your act doesn’t win, you can choose whether or not to be charged and attend the festival anyway.
“One live band and one electronic act will open each main stage at the festival next year with the final 16 being shortlisted at the end of next month. Public voting will determine the top 16 as well as decide the billing order for the ‘competition finals’ qualifying event in January,” organisers write.
While the platform has been embraced by the boutique festival market, its applications could well extend into big-time events as well, potentially solving some of the issues plaguing festivals today, namely selecting a lineup you know your fans definitely want.
