Merchbar May Hot Music Merch Chart: Dave Matthews, Alabama Shakes, Foo Fighters, More

Dave Matthews Band fans are raising their DMB Flower Series Pint Glasses to celebrate DMB’s 25th Anniversary. Cheers to Dave Matthews Band for 25 years of rock n’ roll magic and landing the number one merch item this month. Alabama Shakes, a Merchbar favorite, is coming in strong with a…

Nugs.net: Getting Fans To Put Down Their Phones – Q&A with founder Brad Serling [INTERVIEW]

In this interview, Brad Serling discusses his company, nugs.net, which seeks to create quality footage of live concerts, in hopes that fan’s ability to access this footage will remove their perceived need to record every moment of a show on their phones. _____________________________ Guest Post by Brian Mansfield on Shore…

Produce Exciting Fan-Driven Live Events Using Stagelink

Live performance is becoming an increasingly important part of artists’ revenue, but booking a tour that is both profitable and enjoyable remains a challenge. For artists with a strong social media following, the service Stagelink makes this process easier by allowing the creation of fan-driven low-risk tours. __________________________________ Guest Post…

Music Festivals: Revenue For Event And Host City Is Staggering

For the last decade, live music has been a ray of sunshine in the music industry’s otherwise often cloudy skies. In the last few years, mega-festivals seem to be cropping up everywhere often generating huge revenue for both presenters and the host town. _________________________________________ By Steve Baltin for The Grammys…

5 Easy Organization Tips for Musicians That Make a Huge Difference

For an independent artist with so many different aspects of your career to keep track of, life can often become chaotic. Here we look at five different ways musicians can keep their life and career organized. _____________________________ Guest Post by Jesse Sterling Harrison on the Sonicbids Blog Musicians, by definition,…

Live Nation, Hulu Partners For Virtual Reality Concerts

Are virtual reality concerts a smart brand extension or the potential death of live concerts as we know them? Perhaps in a rush not to be left out, concert promoters and dozens of artists are partnering to to jump on the bandwagon. Live Nation has announced partnerships with both NextVR…

The Rise Of Social Ticketing On Facebook

Ticketmaster and Eventbrite each recently announced that they will start selling tickets directly through Facebook, without having to leave the app. Last week in the Ticketing Technology Forum in Dublin, SAP unveiled their own social ticketing solution. Doug Lions is a partner at FutureTix and a former Tickets.com and AXS/AEG…

Back To The Future: Old Music Is Selling More Than New Music

Out with the new in with the old! According to recent study, 2015 saw catalog sales edging out new releases, in spite of the release of commercial heavy hitters like Adele’s 25. _____________________________ Guest Post by Bobby Owsinski on Music 3.0 Nielsen’s latest music report is out and, as always,…

5 Tips For Touring Smarter

[UPDATED] When starting out as an artist, touring requires a phenomenal amount of work, but it’s important to make sure that you aren’t throwing yourself into a tour without planning ahead, with the result that you end up losing money and morale in the process. Here, we look at five…