musicfestnw hooks up with sonicbids, charges bands to apply to play
Portland bands have to pay a third party, Sonicbids, to apply for a slot at this year’s MusicFestNW [this may have been the case last year too.] You’d think after the debacle with the CMJ conference where folks paid Sonicbids to enter the lottery and apparently no one from CMJ bothered to listen to the bands’ submitted songs, that MusicFestNW would not make Portland’s bands jump through such a ridiculous hoop… here’s but one lament from the CMJ application process - “Apart from the fact that we are now open to a bunch of spam, it has also brought to my attention that Sonicbids has collected the $45 fee from at least 670 bands ($30,450) knowing full well that you could never accommodate all of the bands.” Here’s the full story from GhostMedia.
And here’s what I wrote about this year’s SXSW conference and those companies who try and sell bands and musicians the snake oil.
“One five minute trek through the trade show proved to me everything that I already know - the cornerstone of this conference and the business upon the back of which the music conference was originally founded, the recorded music industry, is being swept aside by a tsunami of technological advancement - that’s not hyperbole by the way, no the hyperbole lies with the companies who are promising to be the saviors of the music business by helping you, the musician, make a living making music - if you are willing to take the snake oil that’s being sold.. Let’s call them the www.we-can-save-your-career.coms.
Here’s a list of just a few of the companies promising untold riches or something to bands and musicians (add .com to the end of each name here..) SongNumbers, Myxer, ArtistXite, BandFarm, mTraks, SonicBids (the one I dislike the most), Muzu, Gydget, ArtistForce (SonicBids part 2), aaahhh the list goes on and on.” Full post here. And Benjy who works for Sonicbids left his comments about SXSW here.
So the question is - will MusicFestNW be transparent about the number of available slots for local bands and musicians or not? If not you will never know how many bands have applied for however many limited slots are available. Sonicbids will continue taking applications regardless of the number of slots available - It’s a lottery - good luck, someone’s going to get rich… Here’s the “opportunity” link. You have to become a member. MusicfestNW 2008/Sonicbids Combo Package: Cost $12.95 (US)
Transparency is a major force on the internet so it’s time for Sonicbids to open up the doors to the “opportunities” that they offer bands and musicians so they can make an educated decision before applying and paying good money. It’s the right thing to do.
May 13th, 2008 at 6:18 am
Sounds like Sonicbids realizes that they have a ridiculous business model, I refer to it as the “Hope” model. The old days of MFNW were made up of volunteers, boxes of CD’s, and listening to every applicant and ranking each one. No money changed hands. It seemed as if last years MFNW took a huge step forward bringing in some very marketable acts, assuming that MFNW is going to continue that quality lineup and then Sonicbids fills in the remainder of spots, sounds pretty pointless. I would save your 12 bucks and spend it on 12 lottery tickets instead. But that’s my opinion, I am sure the people at MFNW have a good reason for using this service. ;)
May 13th, 2008 at 8:22 am
Sad to see MFNW go this route (nice piece, btw, Dave), but as the previous poster said they likely have a very good reason (will the bands be paid more? MFNW is already more than fair on that end; will wristbands be cheaper, or maybe even the festival be FREE this year?).
I’ve had quite a few conversations with industry folk and artists alike discussing how SonicBids, Taxi, BandForce, even Myspace (who somehow consider Interscope to be an indie) are ruining the industry by driving down the value of what a musician can actually earn. The two most common examples:
1) A licensing agent friend of mine was talking about how the payout for media placements is already getting smaller and smaller (whenever a TV budget is cut, for example, the first thing cut is the music budget), and avenues like MySpace devalue this further by running a “contest” where your music gets used in an episode of your favorite TV show. Rad, right? Except that it’s like 10 seconds in the background, you don’t get credit, nobody knows it’s you, and you don’t get paid. So the show gets free music, the site gets ad revenue, and the band gets ten seconds of “fame”. It’s the musician, in the end, that is screwed, as they have a right to be paid for their work. But these “contests” set a precedent where for-profit use of an artist’s work becomes looked at as free promotion, which is dangerous to a musician being able to sustain him/herself, as media licensing is one of the few remaining ways for musicians to still make money playing music.
2) Sonicbids–I’ve had issue with them for years; when they started out, I thought they were a great model for unifying the industry through the web. In their early days, there were plenty of places you could submit EPKs for free, including smaller venues, blogs and zines, even the smaller festivals. Now EVERYTHING is pay, and the main problem is that it is, in part, contributing to the lack of promotion that venues actually provide these days for their shows (not all venues, there are still plenty of people out there still doing their jobs, of course), as a venue can charge $5 or $10 to receive a submission, which in a major market can be hundreds to thousands of dollars a month. Which then, in turn, means they are less concerned about recouping on a show, and can push that responsibility onto the band. I brought this to the attention of a friend of mine who booked for a venue on the east coast and she IMMEDIATELY severed their ties with SonicBids; she simply hadn’t looked at it that way and had bought into the “$5 is the price of assembling and mailing a promo kit” mentality…
It’s not shocking that people would try to make money off the current state of chaos the industry lies in, but some of it is kind of sickening. Not to keep attacking Myspace (I mean, hell, we all use it, right?), but the fact is that they make money off your music; every time someone goes to your site, they earn ad revenue. Check that, FOX earns ad revenue. There are some positive models out there (ReverbNation, for example, shares their ad revenue with bands) and some good people trying to work WITH the independent industry, but it’s hard to compete against a slick looking, get famous quick model unless everyone can realize what is at stake.
May 13th, 2008 at 11:29 am
I’m pretty sure MFNW has been this way for at least the past 2 years. It is pretty crappy to squeeze a few bucks out of already broke independent musicians.
May 13th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
@ Todd…referring to your licensing comment. I cant imagine the world of media licensing becoming that complicated, its already complicated to begin with, and to think that you would need to run a contest just to get free musical content seems like a waste of time and energy for production companies. So I definitely think that media licensing is still opportunistic, even if a good chunk of production companies say that they will not pay for music usage, you can still make sure that they are going to fill out cue sheets so you can get your performance royalties, as long as you are a rights holder in the musical work. If the shit hit the fan from a monetary standpoint in the traditional film and tv licensing world you would see some serious shit go down, especially if writers were not seeing any royalties from the public performance of their musical works.
May 13th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
il stick with Sonic burgers, f*&k that!
May 13th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
[...] Personally, I think it’s disheartening to see MFNW head in this direction, but as a reply to Dave’s post this morning stated, they probably have a very good reason for it (will the bands be paid more? MFNW is already [...]
May 14th, 2008 at 1:41 am
@bryanv…Myspace has already run at least one of these contests (for One Tree Hill, or some such show), from what I hear they’ve done more. Otherwise, I hear what you’re saying, but the problem isn’t with ASCAP or BMI not auditing, it’s with budgets being slashed, musicians being undercut and not paid for their work, and especially the varied post-broadcast formats, as there is no auditing for any format other than initial and rebroadcast. Media licensing is still definitely a solid option to earn, but accepting an unpaid placement is ridiculous, and being offered it is insulting, even with the potential royalty payments.
May 15th, 2008 at 8:46 am
[...] the Moose’s criticism MusicfestNW’s ties with SonicBids, I also think it fair to draw an editorial distinction between PdxPopNow!, which tends to be a [...]
August 13th, 2008 at 9:49 am
Hi everyone. We reached out to Dave and asked if he might share a few clarifications with his readers:
1. CMJ reviewed all of its submissions, but a bug in our “Status Manager” tool prevented artists from receiving updates at the correct time. (This has since been fixed.) 2. We have also updated our “Hits Tracker” to more accurately reflect the traffic that artists’ EPKs are getting.
3. Sonicbids’ founder, Panos Panay, posted a response to the CMJ-related confusion, but we should have acted quicker communicating this to our members. You can read Panos’ note here: http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2007/09/sonicbids_cmj_s.html
We apologize for the confusion this caused last year, and hope artists continue sharing their ideas for our service. (The “Hits Tracker” was initially a member idea.)
Thank you,
Benjy Kantor
http://www.sonicbids.com/
September 4th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
[...] online service. Former Gang of Four bassist and current Portlander Dave Allen of Pampelmoose.com argued on his site that, for the service to be fair, bands should know how many slots are available for a festival. [...]
September 5th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
[...] online service. Former Gang of Four bassist and current Portlander Dave Allen of Pampelmoose.com argued on his site that, for the service to be fair, bands should know how many slots are available for a festival. [...]
September 16th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Sonicbids is a total scam. Our band was stupid enough to fall into it to. It didn’t take us long to figure out that they keep accepting submission money for events that the promoter has already CLOSED, they have never fixed their tracking service because they don’t want you to know that the promoter you just paid $50 to never even viewed your kit, and they have NO customer service. You never hear back or maybe after four months.
We found a MUCH better service that doesn’t have the BS, doesn’t look like a cartoon, understands the struggling musician and works FOR us, and has customer service reps online up to 20 hours a day, seven days a week. Even on holidays!
http://www.powerpresskits.com
myPPK Power Press Kits. NO per-use fees, no pay-to-play. Graphic themes are great and you can make your own theme for cheap. We STRONGLY recommend everyone who has been scammed by soncibids check out Power Press Kits.