Stageit Helps Artists Play for Fans, for a Price

A couple weeks ago I noted that musical artists are increasingly having to rely on concert revenue for income. That's not per se bad - though touring can take a toll - but may be hard for smaller-scale artists whose fan base is not concentrated enough to make tours or festivals worthwhile.

Into this breach are moving several companies and a reader pointed me to one of them, called Stageit. The company acts as intermediary, helping small-scale performers publicize, sell virtual tickets for, and stream live performances to fans. Artists set their performance times and durations as well as viewing prices. Stageit further inserts itself into the exchange by having payments be in its own virtual currency and by putting out a virtual tip jar so people watching can tip the performers. It's an interesting re-creation of an old ritual; I'm old enough to remember putting dollar bills into snifters on pianos and milk crates set out by artists playing in bars where I drank.

Finally, Stageit provides the streaming platform (ETA: a comment from Evan Lowenstein, Stageit CEO, tells me this statement is incorrect and they do not use DRM) using its own DRM in an attempt to ensure that audiences don't record the broadcast. Artists get paid (eventually - Stageit takes a 10-day float) on an inverse sliding scale with Stageit taking 37% of the smallest earners (USD 25-50) down to 17% if your show brings in 50k or more. That, too, seems chintzy, as we generally think the better-earning artists would be able to higher fees.

It's also counter-intuitive to me, as Stageit must have nearly the same fixed costs for each show and their main variable cost has to be the bandwidth demands of casting larger shows. Why they're charging the more costly shows less is not spelled out on their site but I'd hazard a guess that it's a deliberate attempt to shape their customer base. They probably want to attract fewer shows that earn greater revenue rather than a larger number that each bring in less, possibly even to the point where a tiny show doesn't cover their costs in putting it on. Shades of shortening the long tail.