CREATING AN ONLINE CONCERT EXPERIENCE

A Guest Blog By Phoebe O’Brien

2020 has been dubbed “the year of postponed events.”

More than a thousand events were delayed or cancelled because of the coronavirus outbreak.

“While some musicians opted to reschedule concerts, the pandemic forced others to abandon their tours. Concerts and festivities will be among the last events to be allowed after social distancing rules are relaxed, so music fans will have to wait a long time to attend these big gatherings. Musicians may also have to manage their expectations if they wish to perform for their audience over the next few years.”

Alister Clare of Credit Capital.

Instead, some musicians have resorted to virtual concerts to try and compensate for missed performances.

Virtual concerts and engagements offer various income sources.

Here’s how you can tap into virtual concerts and thrive through the pandemic.

Ticket Sales

Musicians can sell their virtual concert tickets online in a variety of ways.

Whether the artists categorize their virtual performance as an event or digital material will determine the best ticket sales strategy.

To gain revenue from selling tickets for your virtual concert, you need an e-ticketing or event registration application that helps you to personalise your receipts and message to ticket purchasers.

The app should also provide links to your virtual content.

You may also want to utilise a system that generates and sends unique URLs, so each ticket purchaser only has access to the material.

If the technology does not provide this feature, you could generate unique URLs using your email marketing platform, like Mailchimp’s custom URL tool.

Digital Content Sales

You may sell your concerts on your website or via a third-party platform like Shopify.

Consider it a digital shopping store: each product has its checkout procedure, and you may add several things to your cart before checking out.

Following checkout, the digital files are usually made available as a download.

For this, you could use an online shop that allows you to sell digital material as “products.”

Sponsorships

You can always acquire sponsors for your virtual concerts, just like any other event or brand.

Make a sponsorship package with tiers of perks and approach businesses for financial or resources.

Examples of sponsorship perks and incentives are:

Shoutouts in real-time
Video advertisements
Inclusion of a logo in the credits
Logos/listing in digital programmes
Hyperlinks/content cards to advertiser’s website
Logo placements on the event’s first introductory slide
Prizes, draws, events, and other promotional materials

Advertising

You may sell advertising space to businesses in the same way that you can sell sponsorships.

Various video monetisation technologies and social media online streaming tools include built-in ad sales capabilities.

Examples of advertising opportunities:

Advertisements in your virtual concert.
Businesses may buy video placement advertisements.
Use the advertising accounts of live streaming sites
Affiliate marketing links or collaborative ventures with discounts and income sharing