Crowd funding a band

I am currently sitting in the Lolly Box Studio in Margaret River, WA, overlooking eight acres of bush (complete with kangaroos) leading down towards the Margaret River. The band I play in, Sir Thomas, is recording our debut album with producer and engineer Noah Shilkin.

This is the second week we have been down here in his residential studio and the reason that we are able to afford this is through a crowd funding idea that we came up with, based on a concept called 100 True Fans.

Crowd funding is the process of seeking smaller amounts of money from a larger group of people, as opposed to the more traditional methods of large amounts from a small number of people - patronage. Yes patronage has been the method of providing artists with income in classical music for hundreds of years, with the early recipients being composers - including Haydn and Mozart. In the later years of patronage it was Tchaikovsky who famously never met his very generous patron, Nadezhda von Meck, only communicating through letters.

The crowd funding idea for Sir Thomas came about from a workshop I attended (presented by the WA Music Industry (WAM)) which featured a publicist from New York, Ariel Hyatt. She talked about the concept of 100 True Fans whereby if 100 of a band’s most loyal fans all gave a certain amount, you would have 100 times that amount.

The purpose, aside from raising money for the band, is to engage with your audience and to build a strong base for your future audiences to grow from. About a month later I was attending a session on corporate development and private giving and a light bulb went off in my head. What Sir Thomas eventually offered our fans was the opportunity to help chose which songs we recorded on our debut album by attending an exclusive performance and completing a survey.

Each fan then receives a copy of the finished album that includes their name and photo in the artwork. As a band we handled all of the money ourselves and designed a proposal with information explaining what we were trying to achieve and how each True Fan was making a difference.

There are a number of different websites that can manage crowd funding for artists, including Pozible and Kickstarter. These sites use a similar type of set up, all of it web based, but there are variations on a theme.

In some cases, if the total desired amount is not pledged the artist gets nothing. This would be something to seriously consider before beginning a crowd funding campaign; make sure you are able to convince enough fans to support you!

The other difference with the Sir Thomas program was that it was designed around each person in the band making a personal approach to each True Fan. We offered the opportunity to our Fans to get involved if we knew that they already enjoyed our music and had been to a number of our shows. T

here were exceptions of course, like one of my dog walking friends handing me $100 on the spot at 7.00am because he thought it was a good idea!!

The other potential pitfall is that you offer too much for the amount that you are receiving. There are some pretty interesting things that bands are offering, including attendance at a rehearsal or coming to dinner with the band. Aside from this, copies of the album, signed merchandise or free tickets are offered.

The catch is that you pay more money for increased interaction with the band. This is an area in which smaller (and major) performing arts companies can also go a bit overboard, especially if it is the first time they have received larger amounts of money from a corporate company. In this instance it is a great idea to draft a matrix document that outlines what the arts organisation is prepared to offer for different levels of corporate partnership. My advice would be that this could also benefit a band that were about to embark on a crowd funding drive; remember to correctly value what you are offering.

I think that crowd funding is a fantastic way for bands (and of course this applies to all art forms and genres) to raise money for specific projects. The bottom line in Ariel Hyatt’s presentation was that eventually you could ask your True Fans for a certain amount each year to allow you to keep working on your art, without worrying about where next week’s rent money was coming from!

And don’t be afraid to ask those around you to help out, chances are they would love to see you succeed and would be delighted to be involved!