There was an interesting article posted on metalsucks.net today that takes a fresh perspective on the concert industry specifically 
why it isn't as lucrative as it once was. Eyal Levi from metalsucks.net says that the easy answer people point to for people not attending concerts is the economy. The reality is more along the lines that they suck at giving performances. We are talking about the bands that don't give any effort to put on a show for the crowd they are there to play their songs and collect their check. This hasn't always been the case, I remember especially in the 90's that bands always looked like they rolled out of bed and just played their standard set list, not much of a show or crowd interaction. In this age with the number of options available for entertainment people want something more for their money. As Eyal described they want quality, and they are willing to pay a lot for it. She goes on to describe some bands that are selling out most of their shows because of the great performance they are putting on. These people I believe go tell their friends about and help increase the demand to see them. When I have heard from my friends about a particular band or show it makes me want to check the band out next time I can see them. By giving your fans a great performance they will tell their friends how great your band was and it causes a ripple effect that makes sold out shows. Are you giving your fans something worthwhile to talk about?
Full article can be found here: Metalsucks.net
This is an older post from but one I don't think has not received enough credit in the music industry as a new strategy/model of doing business. In his blog post Kevin Kelly talks about the concept of "1,000 True Fans". This post starts be defining what a True Fan is; they are the types of fans who will take long road trip and purchase anything that the artist produces, they will wait after/before the show to get an autograph, join the fan club and regularly talk about your music. Kevin does a good job of tying this concept to the the long tail strategy. Instead of focusing on being the small percentage of artist who reach national and global stratum, just focus on 1000 fans that can allow you to make a living on your music alone. After showing his calculation Kelly estimates that 1000 true fans can allow the artist to make $100,000 a year in revenue. Based on the statistic that most artist make less than the poverty level of income this seems like a good alternative. This model only applies to solo artists, so the number of fans would need to grow based on the number of members of the band. Meaning if 1000 true fans is enough to make a living for a solo artist then 2000 is needed if you have a two members of a band.This article was posted back in 2008 and it would be interesting if Kelly were to see who has used this model and how it is working. More artists should focus on this grassroots way of making a living; some will even be able to reach a tipping point where they can launch to national stratum just by making sure you are allowing your "1000 true fans" to be a part of the process.
Today CNN reports that the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) will announce music sales for 2009 which is over half of sales from 1999. Sales have declined for nine of the past ten years. Joshua Friedlander of the RIAA says "The industry is adapting to consumer's demands of how they listen to music, when and where, and we've had some growing pains in terms of monetizing those changes." I think Joshua stated this perfectly the industry seems like they still don't care or even work to try to monetize the ways music is being listened to. This is where technology companies such as Apple and Amazon jump in a take profit the record industry once enjoyed when they controlled distribution. There are so many more avenues the record industry and artists haven't tried where they could have the first mover advantage (MeloLive hopes to be one of the avenues for the artist). Maybe the record industry isn't concerned with distribution and obtaining more value for the product their artist put out but maybe only in the business of developing and recording great albums. If it is the latter then the trend of music sales will continue to decline to a level where the demand for the product matches the supply, unfortunately the supply of digital music is limitless.
