Desperate for your favourite international band to tour South Africa? You will soon be able to do more than just wish quietly for it to happen thanks to a new crowdsourcing platform that wants to give music fans a voice.
Inbound Sound wants to give South Africans a voice about which acts they want to see perform here, based on demand.
Local fans can nominate the artists that they would like to see perform here on a platform that functions similarly to KickStarter.
Inbound Sound will launch in early November and its developers want to work with music promoters to bring popular artists to local music venues.
“In South Africa, we usually just have to wait for our favourite artists to arrive. We don’t really have a say in the matter on which artists the promoters bring out here,” says Inbound Sound co-founder Richard Theunissen.
The idea for Inbound Sound came earlier this year when a crowdsourced campaign in the US town of Richmond, Virginia saw fans crowdsource the funds needed to get the Foo Fighters to perform there. (Incidentally, it is also frontman Dave Grohl’s hometown.)
Inbound Sound will allow users to create artist or concert pages, or join existing ones. The popularity of these nominations will allow Inbound Sound to work with promoters and brands to get the artists here.
Although users will be able to create a free account on Inbound Sound, to create or add their name to a concert will require payment of a once-off registration fee. Theunissen says this fee is to show the commitment of the user wanting to buy the concert ticket. The money will be used to cover the basic costs of the website and to ensure its sustainability. “It won’t paying salaries” says Theunissen, adding that Inbound Sound will only make make money if a concert is successfully hosted.
There will be two levels of fees — a once-off basic subscription and a once-off premium subscription that will offer different levels of value. These prices are R15 and R29 respectively. The basic fee will give users access to the concert sections of the website, while the premium option will allow Inbound Sound to bundle extra services or value for users.
Event nominations are restricted to Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban for now. Users will also be able to select their ticketing tier, be it general standing, seated or golden circle. Theunissen says that it’s not possible to get the exact pricing before the concert has been booked and planned, but people will have a rough idea of what the tiered prices are for the various tickets. The selection of these details will then give Inbound Sound an overview of the demand that exists for a particular artist.
When an artists is booked and scheduled to perform in South Africa, Inbound Sound users will then have early access to tickets. Theunissen says that throughout the entire process, users will be able to change or cancel their nomination if their availability or financial situation changes.
Theunissen says it is not the company’s intention to take on the likes of Big Concerts and Computicket, but rather to provide a complementary service. — © 2014 NewsCentral Media