A quick note : I’d incorrectly stated that this show was made possible through the partnership of “Sofar, the City of Baltimore and a couple of other organizations” – the partnership was actually between “Sofar and the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore“. This has been corrected below. – rob 6/5/19
A friend of mine forwarded me this article by Josh Constine over at Techcrunch that has a whole lot of BAD to say about Sofar Sounds, a unique concert startup that’s no longer just starting up. I wanted to fire back because I took issue with the specific problems he saw on the music scene. I ALSO wanted to wait on weighing-in till after I’d played a Sofar show – and we did that last night. Chances are you’ve encountered this rant because you know who I am – but if you don’t, my name is rob Hinkal, I’ve been a professional musician for most of the last 2 decades, make my Living this way, and my band ilyAIMY has played everything from coffeehouses to colleges, huge festivals to Living rooms in 45 states across the country. My point is I’ve been doing this for a long time and KNOW when I’m being fleeced. More about us at www.ilyaimy.com.
The TL:DR version is basically this : Sofar Sounds just “announced a $25M fund raise” and their usual payout for a 20 minute set is either $100 or a couple of professionally produced videos in front of a guaranteed audience. My take is that generally artists are PAYING for services like what they’re providing, not getting paid – and far be it from encouraging a system in which artists aren’t being compensated for their work, in an era where consumers have come to expect on-demand, free music, Sofar is actually re-training audiences across the world to value artists by paying a substantial ticket price and attending listening-room shows.
I don’t know who Josh Constine is [5/27 note : Josh actually contacted me about this blogpost and replied in the comments below, the beginning of his comment includes a bit of his impressive resume – I think we still disagree on a lot of points BUT I can respect it as coming from an educated POV]. I don’t know if he’s struggled to be a writer before he got his gig at Techcrunch. I don’t know if he regularly writes about music. I don’t know if he’s had that particularly musician-ish experience of writing for someone BIG one day (playing the big festival) and going back to the day job (bar gig) the next – but he definitely seems to have only the most superficial knowledge of the problems of the working musician – and I think it’s really highlighted in this one statement:
“Sofar’s … entrenching a long-standing problem: the underpayment of musicians. With streaming replacing higher-priced CDs, musicians depend on live performances to earn a living… And if Sofar sucks in attendees that might otherwise attend normal venues or independently organized house shows, it could make it tougher for artists to get paid enough there too.”
Sofar’s not ENTRENCHING the long-standing problem of underpaying musicians. That problem is, as was mentioned, “long-standing”. That’s ENTRENCHED. Sofar’s fighting the NEW problem: that audiences think music should be on-demand and free and served with a side of sweet potato fries and a locally-brewed craft beer.
They’re fighting the problem that so many audiences don’t understand the difference between coming to see us at a bar versus a ticketed venue, a “gig” vs a “show”, or the value in spending $20 on a ticket to go see music versus dropping $20 on dinner while there happens to be some music happening somewhere in the back corner.
And audiences aren’t the only part of the equation that’s strayed. Musicians too, seem to often misunderstand the business of our business. The major “source” for this article is another article (found here on Medium.com) by a performer, cellist and composer from California named Joshua McClain (who hasn’t had a gig for almost a year according to his website). Joshua responds to Sofar’s argument that their overhead keeps them from paying artists more with a sharp “First off, your profitability isn’t my problem.”
Wait. What?
Venues don’t OWE us a stage! THEY are not our audience! Training an audience to value what we do and wrangling their hard-won cash out of them in exchange for our hard-earned skills is NOT the same relationship we have with a venue. The venue’s profitability is ABSOLUTELY our problem… because we want them to continue to be a venue! I absolutely expect them to hold up their end of the deal with promotion, a professional attitude and whatever else we’ve agreed to – but if they come away thinking that Live music isn’t profitable, that’s a HUGE problem – and it’s MINE. The “venue” will just knock out their stage, put in more tables and get a Pandora subscription!
The relationship between a house concert and an artist is very similar to artist and their audience, but the “normal venues” referenced in that initial quote aren’t fans… the bartenders and ticket takers aren’t there to hang out with us because we’re so damned cool and we can soothe their souls with our well-formulated songwriting – this is a business relationship, and both sides have to walk away with positive balance sheets.
“And so” I imagine either of these Joshes asking, “when you’re offered just a hundred bucks or a video for your performance in this BUSINESS relationship – doesn’t that kind of prove my point?!”
Comparing Sofar to Lyft or Uber, McClain writes “In this model, everything but the service-provider is put first: growth, profitability, share-holders, marketers, convenience, and audience members — all at the cost of the hardworking people that actually provide the service” … Look, there are a LOT of shows where I’ve watched this happen. The venue makes sure the bills are covered, the bartenders get paid, the sound person gets a steady paycheck – and maybe if there’s a little something left over and enough heads came through the door, MAYBE there’s something left for the act that has been promoting for the past month, has invited their fans to the show, arrived to soundcheck to find locked doors because the sound engineer assumes all musicians are late, paid for parking and has just sweated their ass off on stage for 3 hours – but that’s not at ALL what we’re talking about here.
We are talking about a four song set.
With sound provided. With coverage from multiple camera people. With promotion done entirely by another company that doesn’t ask us to draw. We as musicians are what’s being showcased, but in this case claiming that WE are the service provider is an arrogant stretch that doesn’t understand what’s going into producing these shows.
Sofar Shows aren’t just HAPPENING. These shows are being hewn out of the most saturated, hostile Live music environments in the world! The audiences are being squeezed from the most notoriously not-going-to-see-shows-ing-est generation that’s ever existed.
Sofar is covering all that stuff that we as the artists have the PRIVILEGE not to worry about. By being a for-profit corporation and providing a “professional show” – even in an improvised space – Sofar is responsible not just for logistics like finding and advertising to an otherwise cold audience, ticketing, permits and insurance (for an event advertised as BYOB!), but HOURS of maintenance to take an outdoor lot that had been abandoned for fifteen years, clear it of everything from shrubs to tires to dead rats, then LIGHT it, provide sound, a generator, signage, bathroom access in the private facility next door – and that’s before you get into the better known aspects of what Sofar does with a couple of photographers, a sound engineer, dedicated social media buys and at least five videographers.
Dude. The musicians? We just showed up.
Forget about getting PAID, most companies providing all of this would be sending you a BILL!
Christen B and Jaydee Polo accompanied by Jennifer “Stix” Hairston.
Your mileage will vary. The videos? Who knows how they’ll turn out. Ignore the artists who whine cause they didn’t know they weren’t making a lot of money, or are splitting it between a six piece band, or didn’t know Sofar wasn’t just doing this out of the kindness of their collective corporate international hearts – in this business you read your fine print because (as above) it’s a business.
Business. Money. Right.
So let’s ignore ALL of the above for a sec and get businessy.
Did I mention that we sold more physical merch off of last night’s 20 minute set than we have in the last two months of shows? CDs are getting harder and harder to move and people just don’t BUY music like they used to, but 24 hours later and I see we’ve sold additional albums online, physical AND digital. Sofar provided us with what we REALLY need: a responsive, interested, supportive audience.
THAT’S what we need to entrench, and THAT’S what my take away from the whole experience was : What I saw get ENTRENCHED to about a hundred people last night was that it’s worth paying money for a show, worth paying for Live music, worth going OUT for Live music EVEN if there aren’t any beer trucks. VENUES are still paying musicians – it’s AUDIENCES that don’t think they should be paying for music – and ANYTHING that is fighting against that trend is fighting the good fight, especially if they’re creating memorable, lasting experiences to show audiences that there IS something to this whole “Live music” thing.
Thanks Sofar. You’re doing something unique. It sounds like there are a couple of musicians who don’t want to play your shows.
We will HAPPILY take their slots.
Random follow up thoughts that don’t quite fit in with Any of the Above:
- Yes, there are problems with the model. It’d be great to have a better funnel to convert last night’s audience to tomorrow’s audience. Plenty of people looked at our calendar and said “oh man, I’ll be at that next show” – but will they turn out? If they didn’t, can I blame them? The experience last night was unique and the average venue experience is NOT going to be the same… but getting them on the mailing list for future gigs that are similar in flavor would be powerful. Part of that’s on me – rather than flyers with our website and a calendar on them, we should’ve been pushing SPECIFIC shows that better match the Sofar aesthetic. Now I know.
- Yep, they offered either $100 or two videos from the night. However, when Sofar first started they didn’t pay at all and said eventually they hoped they could. Now they pay but say they’d like to pay more in the future. I think they’re headed in the right direction. A lot of this negative press is coming from people who’ve read that Sofar Sounds has landed $25m in funding this year and then see the $100 payout and do some really incomplete math… here’s an interesting article over at Billboard on what they hope to accomplish with that money.
- Would we like to be paid better? Of COURSE! No-one thinks they’re being paid enough. THAT’S universal, and of course it’s worse in the professions where someone sits back and looks at you and says “well, at least you’re doing what you Love”. Fuck that noise, I’ve got bills to pay… but so does everyone else! You can’t be in business without being in business WITH someone, and ignoring that the venues are businesses too is just ignorant.
- Last night was probably pretty unique as it was also produced in partnership with Downtown Partnership of Baltimore and a couple of other organizations. I’m sure that Sofar didn’t provide all of everything that was on the ground, but it enabled it.
- Josh Constine worries “…if Sofar sucks in attendees that might otherwise attend normal venues or independently organized house shows…” – I don’t think you can really compare a Sofar show to a more typical house concert. Sofar is going out of its way to contact a NEW audience whereas a house concert generally has a pretty tight-knit house crowd – and the entire POINT is that the Sofar shows don’t function much like “normal venues”. There are all sorts of reasons they don’t really occupy the same space. The very nature of their “secrecy” and their showcase format mean it’s not something you use as a way to go see your favourite band.
- One last thing – you don’t get to bitch about corporations taking advantage of artists on Facebook cause they’re the worst of the bunch!!
… and I got my hair braided by one of the photographers – but I kind of doubt that’s typical.
Referenced articles in no particularly intelligent order:
Sofar Sounds house concerts raises $25M, but bands get just $100 – Josh Constine, Techcrunch
Sofar Sounds: Why It’s Important to Boycott Them – Joshua McClain, Medium
At 10 Years, Sofar Sounds Looks Forward – sofarsounds.com
In addition, though I don’t agree with Joshua McClain on this subject, his music’s pretty cool. Take a listen:
More about Joshua here : joshuamcclain.net
4 thoughts on “May 25th, 2019 – Sofar Sounds”
Hi Josh – Great article. Thanks for taking the time to write this. I’ve been arguing with my musician friends about this since the article came out. I don’t think there are many comparable models out there. Musician’s don’t want to hear this, but in the case of Sofar, they are more of the customer of something that has taken 10 years and millions of dollars to build, more than they are the product. I liken it to touring and you pop in to do a radio spot at a local station, you pay a 20 minute set and you NEVER get paid for this. You do it to reach new listeners. Meanwhile, the radio station is promoting your appearance and making money on you as the sell advertising. Sofar also regularly tweets to promote the shows of their “alumni” at non-Sofar shows. I could go on! BTW – I shared your article on twitter with the author from Techcrunch. He responded and said he would contact you. I expect he will dig in and try to convince you of his position. I’d love to know how he replies if you’re comfortable sharing. Best, Paul
Gah! And he replied! Thanks Paul.
Thanks for your thoughtful response to my article. Overall, I hear you that Sofar’s exposure can help artists. My point is that they should fairly pay them too given they’re becoming a big business. Regardless of what a band’s alternatives are, if they’re being used to make Sofar money, they deserve a reasonable cut for their time, effort, and talent.
A few more details:
-Who am I? I’m not a touring musician, but I’ve been producing concerts for 15 years, booking artists like Janelle Monáe, Girl Talk, Jose Gonzalez, and The Roots back in 2006-2007. Around then I also produced an annual compilation album and put on shows for emerging artists like K.Flay, Jidenna, and Young The Giant that have gotten huge since. I also project managed all of Bon Jovi’s ticketing, merch, sites, & fan clubs in 2010 when he was the highest grossing touring act in the world (also worked with The Killers, Wolfmother, & Slipknot. More recently I’ve helped host Sofar Sounds concerts at an art gallery warehouse in SF and attended over a half dozen of them. I’ve reported on music startups since 2011 and have spoken at SXSW 7 times. I’m definitely familiar with working in the arts where people want you to work for exposure. My first blogging gig paid $20 per article.
Anyways, that all doesn’t matter as much as the facts here.
-Sofar is aiming to become the new Ticketmaster but with less overhead. That’s fine, like Spotify isn’t inherently problematic, as long as it pays artists fairly. Right now it doesn’t.
-Sofar only upped its payouts to artists to $100 due to critical press questioning their low payouts. If you say that’s the right direction, this is how that momentum is maintained. If you day OF COURSE you want to be paid, then you should see the importance of press that doesn’t minimize the problem like Billboard did.
-I absolutely care about the profitability of venues. Right now Sofar pays the zero, and that makes it tougher on clubs trying to get promoters to pay them more.
-Sofar absolutely cannibalizes hardcore music fans from smaller venues and house shows. Dedicated concert going Facebook Groups often see Sofar shows shared. This is not just bringing in a new audience.
-it’s great that Sofar puts work into planning and booking the shows. Maybe it still deserves the majority of revenue, but not 75-85%. Spotify keeps 30% for comparison. And when they promote shows, the lineup is secret, so bands don’t benefit from getting their name out there.
-Sofar has been saying for years that it will add more artist touring help and ways for fans to follow them after shows in response to criticism, but little progress has been made. Judging by there being almost no mention of payouts, or even lasting value for artists in their investor Union Square’s two blog posts about funding Sofar. Helping artists hasn’t been prioritized.
-Tons of musicians and former staffers have privately spoken to me since the article saying they cut ties with Sofar after an inside look left them feeling it exploits artists.
-I don’t want Sofar to go away. I’ve enjoyed attending their shows. But I want them to pay fairly. And if we don’t have this conversation now, it will be a lot harder in 5 years when they’re even bigger and can say “no one’s had a problem with us before”. I think we actually largely agree, I just think payments should play a bigger role in a $25M funded startup. Exposure = good. Exposure + pay = better. Labels negotiate for fair payouts from streaming startups. Touring bands deserve more people sticking up for their honest treatment. Best of luck with ilyaimy. I dig the harmonies on Oklahoma Revival.
Gosh – thanks for a direct (and thorough) response! A lot of my blog post was in response to just how viral the negative articles had spread – and I wanted to share my own experience and view point because I feel like educated artists and audiences will make better decisions.
I sort of feel like chatting point by point – but I’ve got to go run a show! However – I think one very key point is this “And when they promote shows, the lineup is secret, so bands don’t benefit from getting their name out there.” – no they don’t, outside of the pickup of fans / sales of merch outside of the show they benefit post IF the video ever materializes (don’t worry, I’m PARANOID about this!) and is good quality (even MORE paranoid!) – but this is the exact reason why I don’t see them as competition for “real venues” or more traditional house concerts – fans of ilyAIMY don’t want to see us for four songs. They want a show. They’re not going to get that from Sofar. It’s a different animal. Ticketmaster can be priced exorbitantly because they have a monopoly on highly recognizable names – people don’t just go to shows because they’re Ticketmaster events.
Because of the format this is MUCH more like attending a conference (Folk Alliance or Adobe Summit or LAUNCH) where networking and a showcase are something you’re paying for rather than someone’s offering for free. I worry that many musicians apply to Sofar because… it’s an application. They think they’re “winning” something (and the juried format means that yeah, you’re getting through a gateway, but you’re not winning a prize per se, you’ve been deemed a good match for their aesthetic) and sometimes when you “win” something you stop reading… about the opportunity, about who the opportunity’s from. I think artists are especially subject to this because you’re working soooo hard to get ANYONE’S attention, and when something comes along that seems like a great opportunity – and it’s not, or it’s DIFFERENT from what they were expecting, they feel bitten.
It’s an interesting moral / business question : if someone makes a thousand bucks off of me while providing me a service, is that better or worse than the person who I spend a thousand dollars on to provide the same service? In this instance I’d argue it’s better because the Sofar model is incentivized to continue sharing my material long after the gig has taken place because (in theory) we’re representative of great stuff that’s happening under their brand, but this in no way detracts from the fact that ilyAIMY generated said great stuff… the latter may keep the material as part of their portfolio, but is not incentivized to share THAT video too far and wide because they want to sell me the next one.
This is a longer conversation – but thank you for having it!