The ArtistForce Blog

Hello and thanks for taking some time to catch up with ArtistForce. I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome you and let you know how thrilled we are to have you here. I feel 100% justified in telling you ArtistForce is totally incredible! We have designed an entirely new and completely original solution for anyone looking to acquire, promote and or represent all types of talent. One that allows you to seamlessly manage you career, agency, management firm, roster and events on a secure, hosted exchange platform in real-time. We’ve specifically designed this solution with users in mind and developed it with an uncompromising commitment to one thing - Your Success.

As you may already know, at it’s core, ArtistForce is an extremely sophisticated, yet user friendly business solution, which allows all parties involved in a booking to interface and transact business online.

However the true power of ArtistForce reaches far beyond the sum of its parts, enabling users’ access to information and opportunities previously unavailable.

ArtistForce provides professional-grade software services designed to improve the quality of work and life for everyone involved in its use. It is an incredibly powerful tool for proliferating music, events, relationships, commerce and fun. It is a community of people dedicated to facilitating each other’s success. It is the technological force driving innovation for the industry. It is a catalyst for the revolution of artists-as-entrepreneurs. It is the platform on which the future of the live entertainment business will be built.

ArtistForce is unlike anything you have ever seen or used. It takes the best of CRM, ERP and business networking technologies and combines them with entertainment sensibilities to deliver a complete and comprehensive suite of services customized specifically for our industry.

Our team is comprised of individuals with deep, life-long, personal passion for live entertainment. Collectively we have worked in every imaginable capacity on events ranging from the most kick ass house parties, and proms conceivable to multi-thousand person destination music festivals and world class club nights. We have booked, represented, managed, marketed, promoted and performed. We know the ins, outs, ups, downs, troubles, joys, pleasures, pains, trials, tribulations, excitement, elation and ovations involved in this game.

I guess what I’m trying to say is we’ve been there and done that, and have taken all the experience, frustration and success - and created something that we believe will serve as the foundation for a more effective, efficient, and ultimately more profitable way of doing business for all of our clients. It is with much excitement and great expectations that I welcome you to ArtistForce.

After tossing a few ideas around for this blog it comes down to one thing, Nirvana. As does pretty much every conversation I engage in tends to lead to. I sort of feel like Sean Penn in “I am Sam”. He relates everything in his life to a Beatles song. Not that I’m Sam, but I’ve found that a lot of things in my life tend to relate to my love of Nirvana. Not to stray too far from the topic but I even named my dog KC. Nothing since Beatlemania had happened until Nirvana came along and I sure felt it.

Nirvana was formed by Kurt Cobain and friend Krist Noveselic of Aberdeen, Washington. They both felt alienated as children and therefore found comfort in punk rock. When they started gigging around town they immediately gained notoriety and credibility among peers and executives alike. After being discovered, Nirvana became an instant success much to everyone’s surprise. Nothing like this had ever had been seen or heard in the mainstream pop world. People related to his angst and sincerity and genuinely felt what he had to say and accepted it.

Nirvana’s success changed the course of rock music in the early ‘90s initiating the rise of alternative music and legitimizing the differences in perspective between the Baby Boomers and Gen Xers, Cobain made being “punk rock” cool. He brought a whole new meaning to pop music with his band’s impact even being felt by his own musical heroes.

When I think about the way that Nirvana changed the music industry, how many lives their music affected, and the phenomenon they caused, I think about how I can parallel this to ArtistForce. AF is something new and exciting that is going to change the industry like Nirvana did. Nirvana made it acceptable to be different and welcomed change, as does ArtistForce. We give talent a chance to be seen, heard and discovered. Nothing like this has ever been done and we are ready to hit the industry with ARTISTFORCEMANIA!

Something that caught my eye a week or so ago in the newspaper was the story of how Prince is releasing his new album “Planet Earth” free in the UK with the Sunday paper. Prince wants to release his music to as many people as he can, what better way to execute that, then making it free! Prince also plans on giving a CD away with each ticket purchased for his numerous upcoming UK shows. With the obvious decline in CD sales over the past years and with knowing that today’s generation wants music at their fingers at all times, what a better way to do that then walking outside and grabbing your Sunday morning paper. The trend for artists to do what Prince is doing is what we refer to as “artist as an entrepreneur”. It is the new trend with artists, and why shouldn’t it be. You can get any music you want online, whether it is legally or illegally, and artists have the power now to market themselves and release their own music online thanks to sites such as MySpace Music.

On a recent CNBC segment titled “Facing the Music”, a quote from the show’s interviewer really caught my attention:

“Even if the recording industry figures out a way to compete with free music, it has another problem - In the same way they’ve lost control of the distribution of music, the major labels are also losing control of the artists themselves. Not long ago musicians had to have a recording deal with a major music company. If you didn’t have a deal you weren’t going to be on the shelves at Tower Records. Today, Tower Records is gone”

That is so true, technology is the way to go today and it is becoming more obvious with every passing moment. This is where I believe ArtistForce becomes so helpful. This application is a great way to integrate the artist and record label and make the most profit possible for both. The trend of “artists as entrepreneurs” is something that ArtistForce is “perfectly poised to exploit”. I think that the way that the industry is changing is exciting and I cannot wait for the time to come when online applications can rule the music industry and the music industry fully realizes the importance of technological integration.

I can’t stress enough the amount of untapped talent that lies in the unsigned music industry. Think how easy it is for a local band to make it big just by releasing music online. In previous years, they would have to wait (potentially) years to get signed by a record label and then worry about raising a fan base whose loyalty would support them. Now, they release music and post tour dates online (for free) and local shows are more packed then they have ever been!

The co-chairman of Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) said “the Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behavior like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores”. I think that is crazy to say. This type of brilliant marketing and publicity is what is going to change the music industry and reinvent record labels - As long as the record labels figure out how to connect with artists on these new levels using ArtistForce.

My wife recently went to a birthday party at a local entertainment venue. I was at home lamenting not being able to go because I had just come back from a vacation to China and had brought back an unwelcomed belly guest. After my wife came home, she gave me the play by play as she does. I began to think about what she she had said about the venue.

The venue is one I’ve been to before. It is new, just over a year old. As the show was kicked off, the owner (it is a family-owned and run establishment) commented that she was proud to announce that after a year of hard work they had just turned the corner and were on course to be a successful live entertainment venue. The efforts of herself (bookings and kitchen arrangements), her husband (promotions, marketing and sales), and her children (door & table service). I thought to myself that evaluating and booking the acts into the venue must take up a lot of the owner’s time and effort during the day. ArtistForce could make a big difference in how she executes her evaluation and booking efforts. Plus it should give her a window into the new & upcoming local talent and make planning the calendar much easier. I can see booking talent and then pulling an audio track or two to put on the Venue’s website to advertise the playdate.

I’ll post on how the discussion goes when I talk to her about ArtistForce.

My name is Jonathan, and I am the Founder of ArtistForce.

Music, Art and Technology are my passions. Creative energy defines me.

I occasionally daydream about living in space (although I’ve been too busy to do much of that lately). While a lunar mission is not currently in the budget, I’m planning a 15-minute holiday instead. 2009 won’t come soon enough.

Growing up with first hand experience of ‘the business’ - both on stage, and behind the scenes - I dreamed of integrating my passion for technology into my life experiences in entertainment.

I’ve had the unique opportunity of playing several roles in an entertainment transaction. While I’m not claiming life-changing success in any of these positions, I stayed around long enough to identify significant industry pains.

As an Artist and Music Producer I yearned for the tools to independently market, promote and book myself - now, more than ever, the industry can’t ignore the rise of the Independent Artist as an Entrepreneur.

As an Agent and Manager I struggled to adapt off-the-shelf software solutions to my needs, but they were ultimately not industry specific enough.

As a Promoter and Talent Buyer I was frustrated by the agonizing and antiquated process of booking entertainment. Constantly in the dark about the status of offers, and too overwhelmed by the tasks at hand to keep track anyway.

I found business resources available to entertainment professionals lacking, and plagued by latency due to third-party management of information.

I kept asking myself “What year is this?”

There’s no industry-managed resource to identify talent and respective representation.

There’s no central source to research historical performance, or verify availability in real-time.

There’s no industry standard offer form - yet everyone wants to see the same information on offers. Even the real estate business has this capability.

Once a buyer gets an offer out - by fax or email, it’s eventually entered in to a database on the agency side, who in turn releases the deal to management, who might re-enter the same data in to their own database, and in turn communicate with talent via telephone, fax machine, email, or maybe carrier pigeon.

The entire time all of this data entry, telephone tag and faxing is taking place, the deal participants are completely in the dark on its up-to-the-minute status - unless of course they’re the one who’s sitting on it.

As an Agent and Manager my administrative assistants were responsible for maintaining contact with and updating deal participants - venues, promoters, corporate buyers, managers, talent, publicists, attorneys, labels, A&R reps and noting status in our in-house database accordingly.

As a Talent Buyer I had an assistant whose sole task was to spend the day pumping agents, managers, A&R reps, publicists, and their assistants for information, so that when our clients called, we actually had some information to tell them.

And when the deal was FINALLY done, I’d start waiting for someone to FedEx 3 copies of the contract for me to sign and FedEx back. If I was lucky, someone might fax the contract - if they were super high-tech, I might get an email.

WHAT YEAR IS THIS?

The industry is overripe for a technological intervention, but one that works seamlessly with the status quo.

Believe in ArtistForce.

Now is the time. *j