We all know about ideas that have been ahead of their times. But one of them that might have come along a decade too soon seems to think that finally, the moment is now right.
A Little History
The after-show recording, which I wrote about on this page back in 2004, seemed like a great idea when several companies thought they could make good money by selling concertgoers CDs of shows that they just saw. They included Clear Channel, fully a year before they spun off their concert business into what became Live Nation, and a few start-ups like DiscLive and iMusic Group.
Using high-speed CD towers and on-disc screen printers, they’d take a two-mix of a show as the last notes rang out and have it ready for sale before it had a chance to cool off, for attendees who had either prepaid for them when they bought their tickets or decided to make an impulse buy, like a pack of gum at the checkout counter.
Live Nation tried to keep that ball in the air with its InstantLive brand but eventually dropped the idea; the iMusic Group simply faded away.
Enter DiscLive
Of all the players in this seemingly viable market, DiscLive managed to stay alive, after a few identity changes. Once also known as Abbey Road Live US and now as DiscLive Network (a division of RockHouse Live Media Productions, based in Memphis), it’s on the road again, out with artists including Slash, Peter Frampton, REO Speedwagon, Dickey Betts, Tesla, 3 Doors Down, The Pixies and others.
The concept has broadened beyond CDs, which continue to sink into irrelevance; buyers can now also choose to get the show on a USB drive or as a download to a mobile device.
DiscLive Network CEO Zach Bair has been with the company since the beginning. And he stayed with it as it bounced between media giants who were equally intrigued by the concept as they watched live music become the main revenue generator in the music industry. However, these conglomerates could never seem to make this profitable side business fit comfortably with the rest of their operations. Sports and entertainment entrepreneur Mark Cuban invested in the company in 2006, a relationship that lasted little more than a year before visions diverged. EMI partnered with them from 2009 to last March under the rubric Abbey Road Live. Bair says both associations were promising but that they weren’t able to reassure enough artists that the quality of the products would be up to snuff.
“It was ahead of the curve,” he told me. “Some record labels had a hard time embracing it, and the artists could be nervous about having their music out so fast after a show.”
Bair says that, as an independent entity, DiscLive Network can develop relationships with artists and create trust over time by accompanying them on tours, as they are doing now with 3 Doors Down and Tesla, rather than one-off shows. He believes it’s important that artists see them at the shows night after night and realize that they are providing an end-to-end proposition, one that includes mastering of music before it’s released. “It can’t look like a machine,” he says.
Unlike with much of the rest of the music business, the numbers that drove the concept back in 2004 remain valid, says Bair. In 2004, 17 percent of the concert-goers attending Billy Idol’s 10 East Coast shows, which were staged in 2,000 to 5,000 capacity venues, purchased after-show CDs. At $20 per disc, that worked out to $17,000 gross at a 5,000-seat venue, numbers Bair says have remained pretty constant. DiscLive Network and artists generally split the net proceeds of sales, and Bair emphasizes that the artists own the master recordings.
DiscLive Network also limits the number of discs available after a show, based on the size of the venue, usually to 1,000 for a 5,000-seat theater. This accomplishes two things: it gives the disc makers a target number (any discs unsold at the show can be sold later via the band’s or label’s website) and it allows the discs to be numbered, creating an instant limited-edition souvenir.
“The limited-edition aspect is important,” he says. “That’s what sets it apart and makes it collectible. It makes it meaningful to the buyer, a memento of the show they just were part of. It’s a continuation of the experience for the fan.”
How It Works
Bair’s crews — he has sent up to three out simultaneously on different shows — use flypacks consisting of various components, including Yamaha DM2000 mixers, Avid Pro Tools and Alesis HD24 hard disk recorders for mastering. His crews take their own multichannel feed from the stage, rather than from the FOH console as they did at first, years ago, and create their own stereo mix in real time, sending the two-mix to CD burners to copy. Discs are loaded into pre-printed sleeves that have artist and venue information — but not a set list. “We tried pre-printing song titles once, but as soon as the band changes it up on stage, you realize that that’s not going to work,” he recalls. The recordings are also sent to the artists’ webmasters for distribution through their own websites.
DiscLive Network and other ventures based on the same concept have pursued what intuitively seems like an attractive idea. In fact, one major licensing entity, the Harry Fox Agency, thought enough of it to create an “Express Live” license in 2004 limited to after-show recordings sold at the venue to facilitate licensing — yet so far, this has gained little traction. Bair might be right that what it needs is a more boutique approach. He’s able to sculpt projects in a more nuanced way — for instance, adapting the types of end products to the types of music: CDs for legacy artists and USB drives and downloads for newer ones. It’s another way that the live event becomes the focus of the Music Business 2.0.
