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Hmmmmm


Jim Stax

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Anyone else seen this yet? Hmmmmmmmmmmm

"Submissions for this year's GoNorth festival being held in Inverness from the 2nd - 10th June will be open from January 30th. GoEvents has teamed up with US-based e-submissions group Sonicbids to use their technology for the artists submissions. Sonicbids

Once signed up with Sonicbids, artists will have the opportunity to apply to perform at a number of different events at the click of a mouse, with submissions delivered to event organisers in a standardised format instantly.

www.myspace.com/gonorthmusic "

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Am i right in thinking thats a pay service? Ie: GoNorth will collect some sort of percentage fee from the company making it a bit like p2p?

It would appear that on the surface, yes. Certainly Sonicbids charge to provide their service to artists, but it's free for the promoters (i.e. GoNorth) to sign up. So money is being made somewhere. More somewhat vague info here:

Sonicbids

Why would someone pay to use this service? How hard can it be to make your own EPK and send it out yourself?

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It would appear that on the surface, yes. Certainly Sonicbids charge to provide their service to artists, but it's free for the promoters (i.e. GoNorth) to sign up. So money is being made somewhere. More somewhat vague info here:

Sonicbids

Why would someone pay to use this service? How hard can it be to make your own EPK and send it out yourself?

Exactly, if you have a look at the site you can have a look at what the EPK looks like - a glorified myspace page.

Unless GoNorth are allowing other forms of application (eg. post), its a pretty questionable state of affairs.

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It appears that someone has to pay for the service, be it the organisers or the artists.

Sonicbids sheds a little more light on how they work.

If you go to go north and click on "apply", it would seem to clarify that there'll be a charge to the artist.

The sad thing about charging people to submit entries is that the selection process is hardly transparent and open.

Edit : It'd be nice if an alternative festival could be created in Aberdeen, celebrating music in all forms. Any chance of that happening?

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Guest Tam o' Shantie

We were told last year after the 3rd year in a row applying that we would never even be considered because we've been going too long, and as such are not fresh or up and coming...despite the fact that several acts have played it two years in a row.

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*cough* yes.

We've never been told that we've been on the go too long. Fuck knows where that justification came from. We basically got told that we'd played it too many times on the trot and to give it a break - which I agreed with. We're applying this year, I'm unsure if we're still not allowed to play. I suppose time will tell.

How much is it to submit something on the site?

....considering we have completely decimated the original and any subsequent line up / abandoned all of our instruments and replaced them with machines / written a new set of songs in a completely different style to anything we've ever done before / changed our name (again) / sound nothing like any band either of us have been part of / gone for a totally different image etc

....will hopefully contribute to the application credentials required for GN and anything else along the same lines

but the real reasoning is to not bore the shit out of ourselves or audiences or (hopefully)

also known as: progress/fun

PS For clarification, our band in its previous formats only ever played ONE official Go North showcase gig. Blagging a few unofficials in the same week was just inititive/cheek

Its a great opportunity and everyone doing new music should have a crack at it.

The nu application thing seems cool like. Better than shoving a cd in the post.

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$29.95 for 6 month... so circa 15 for 6 months = sfa.

Hardly enough to hinder a band. Plus there's an option for just a month $5.95... which is what? the price of a pint? If it saves loosing cd's and having to make multiple copies of something/the risk of the disc magically not working on someone's player etc etc.

To be honest, it is the same price as a cd plus postage/packaging of said cd. It's six and half a dozen to me.

As mentioned by ian above... take the months membership out a few days before the deadline and you should be sorted.

Congratulations on missing the point.

Taking the money part aside, having the bands put together a good Press pack themselves was a good way of getting them used to it and learning how to present themselves properly in those terms. If you've already got one why would you want to pay for another, surely in the broad terms used in the pre-tabled EPK that this company uses any monkey with a moderate idea of how to construct a website would be able to knock up a similar page themselves with a link to a separate music site. Which would ultimately be of better use than handing something shite to them and saying that'll be x$'s please.

That's what i meant about hindering grassroots. The whole point of these things is to make bands think for themselves and learn to market themselves properly be that through the performance side of music or the media side of music.

And limiting applications to bands who are only willing to use this method of applications is a bit shit really. What's wrong with bands working for themselves?

Money wasn't an issue.

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Congratulations on missing the point.

Taking the money part aside, having the bands put together a good Press pack themselves was a good way of getting them used to it and learning how to present themselves properly in those terms. If you've already got one why would you want to pay for another, surely in the broad terms used in the pre-tabled EPK that this company uses any monkey with a moderate idea of how to construct a website would be able to knock up a similar page themselves with a link to a separate music site. Which would ultimately be of better use than handing something shite to them and saying that'll be x$'s please.

That's what i meant about hindering grassroots. The whole point of these things is to make bands think for themselves and learn to market themselves properly be that through the performance side of music or the media side of music.

And limiting applications to bands who are only willing to use this method of applications is a bit shit really. What's wrong with bands working for themselves?

Money wasn't an issue.

This Monkey ain't got a scooby how to build a web site and nor would I have the time to do so if I could. If you factor in the man hours required to do such a task it may work in many peoples/bands favour to use a set of tools that remove much of the labour. Different strokes for different folks. Just a case of finding what best suits.

J

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This Monkey ain't got a scooby how to build a web site and nor would I have the time to do so if I could. If you factor in the man hours required to do such a task it may work in many peoples/bands favour to use a set of tools that remove much of the labour. Different strokes for different folks. Just a case of finding what best suits.

J

yup id be one of thoese monkeys. havent got a clue with computers and if this is laid out easily then it will save me a lot of time. the price is cheap anyway.

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Congratulations on missing the point.

Taking the money part aside, having the bands put together a good Press pack themselves was a good way of getting them used to it and learning how to present themselves properly in those terms. If you've already got one why would you want to pay for another, surely in the broad terms used in the pre-tabled EPK that this company uses any monkey with a moderate idea of how to construct a website would be able to knock up a similar page themselves with a link to a separate music site. Which would ultimately be of better use than handing something shite to them and saying that'll be x$'s please.

That's what i meant about hindering grassroots. The whole point of these things is to make bands think for themselves and learn to market themselves properly be that through the performance side of music or the media side of music.

And limiting applications to bands who are only willing to use this method of applications is a bit shit really. What's wrong with bands working for themselves?

Money wasn't an issue.

Press packs? usually filed in bins. The only ones Ive seen are cringe material. Waste of time. Like suicide notes really. Bands if anything need to learn to use initive rather than follow some dreary mass protocol - As well as primarily concentrating on getting good at music.

Any new system that gets the right material to the ears of the right people very quickly is a good move.

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Congratulations on missing the point.

Taking the money part aside, having the bands put together a good Press pack themselves was a good way of getting them used to it and learning how to present themselves properly in those terms. If you've already got one why would you want to pay for another,

Maybe because promoters want you to do it in this standard format to make it easier for them, I imagine EPKs can come in all sorts of weird and wonderful formats/layouts.

surely in the broad terms used in the pre-tabled EPK that this company uses any monkey with a moderate idea of how to construct a website would be able to knock up a similar page themselves with a link to a separate music site. Which would ultimately be of better use than handing something shite to them and saying that'll be x$'s please.

But you wouldn't have access to the promoters, I think that's what your paying for here, not a shitty page, but access to the people who put on shows

That's what i meant about hindering grassroots. The whole point of these things is to make bands think for themselves and learn to market themselves properly be that through the performance side of music or the media side of music.

And the only way to learn is to see what other people do and use the bits you like, change or remove the bits you don't. No-one can learn in an information vacuum, trial-and -error doesn't work unless you get feedback. Thinking for yourself ( using your initiative) surely includes finding resources and exploiting them for your own benefit. As far as I can see, filling out this EPK will teach you something (even if it is only that your current EPK is perfectly adequate and has no omissions)

And limiting applications to bands who are only willing to use this method of applications is a bit shit really. What's wrong with bands working for themselves?

Money wasn't an issue.

If they are limiting it to this way, that's a poor show from them.

I don't see what that's got to do with bands working for themselves anyway, surely this EPK site isn't the only way any band will choose to market themselves.

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Blah, blah, blah.

Has anyone heard of myspace, what's wrong with promoters doing what they've been doing for the last year and looking up bands from a link on a filled in form and garnering information from that. Christ, you can even hear the bands songs on the same page without out-linking. What a revelation.

Sarcasm aside, i don't buy this as any form of 'handy' marketing tool and bands are more than capable of contacting promoters themselves. Promoters aren't elusive, most are easily tracked down.

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Blah, blah, blah.

Has anyone heard of myspace, what's wrong with promoters doing what they've been doing for the last year and looking up bands from a link on a filled in form and garnering information from that. Christ, you can even hear the bands songs on the same page without out-linking. What a revelation.

Sarcasm aside, i don't buy this as any form of 'handy' marketing tool and bands are more than capable of contacting promoters themselves. Promoters aren't elusive, most are easily tracked down.

Then carry on my good man, as the rest of the world shifts slightly in a forward motion. If a promoter/promoters are suggesting a means of getting to them more successfully then ignoring it may be slight folly, no? Your arguments are valid enough, if sitting ever so slightly in ideological territory that 'could' be hindering rather than helping your career. :)

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Then carry on my good man, as the rest of the world shifts slightly in a forward motion. If a promoter/promoters are suggesting a means of getting to them more successfully then ignoring it may be slight folly, no? Your arguments are valid enough, if sitting ever so slightly in ideological territory that 'could' be hindering rather than helping your career. :)

I know what you mean, but i just don't think it offers anything that you can't do for yourself and learn more about the biz in the process.

Anyhoo, that's my tuppence.

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i never understand why there's so much apathy to fork out a few (and it is a few) quid for what is after all a service. i know some of these are a con and a rip off but at the end of the day a lot of bands think fuck all of pissing shit loads of money up the wall when they're playing a gig! its like why people moan about entrance fees (jesus fuck the amount of people who used to complain about paying 2 quid to get in drummonds was frightening) only to spend about 20 times that initial entrance fee on alcohol!

and the earlier post from betamax about press packs is spot on. whilst commending the amount of time some bands would spend putting the things together at the end of the day its the music thats the important factor here. funny thing is i always found the hastily put together packs (e.g. one cd with some writing scribbled on it and one peice of A4 paper with a bit of info) tended to contain much better music than bands who sent in professional photos (always made great coffee coasters) and 10 pages of how this band were 'the next big thing...' when your receiving shedloads of demos all proclaiming to be the next big thing it does get a tad tedious after a while (and the cd's would make even better coffee coasters not that i ever did that kind of thing!!!)

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Blah, blah, blah.

Sarcasm aside, i don't buy this as any form of 'handy' marketing tool and bands are more than capable of contacting promoters themselves. Promoters aren't elusive, most are easily tracked down.

Your experience of promoters looks a bit limited.

There are promoters who may be looking for exactly a certain type of band but dont actually want to be stalked by bands and then bombarded with a thousand promo packs with myspace adresses written on them. Never mind then having to trawl Myspace. Anything that streamlines band selection by promoters is a good thing imo, having worked on both sides of the band/promoter fence. Good for bands too. Myspace is more or less saturated with useless cack now anyway. Any decent (or busy) promoter is unlikely to have the time on his hands to give it much attention.

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Elaborate please, i don't follow you....

You added your 'tuppence worth' but due to inflation it is more like 'ten pence'. See what I did there? Humour just ain't worth it when it needs to be explained. Not every post on here must have a serious tone, surley. I encourage getting some 'take things less serious pills'. Boots have them, 4.65 for 50 they can go quite far if you use them right... :) If that's not on the agenda then go to the Lemon Tree tomorrow night!

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