Lets talk about music. Most of us enjoy gigs right? Whether its finally making it out to see a long time favourite in a major city arena, or discovering love for a little known group touring through a local venue, sharing in attentive listening with a crowd, feeling the vibrations and watching a performance, with every nuance and imperfection, live music has an energy that cannot be captured in recordings.
As a musician and occasional events organiser, I know that the myriad of promotional platforms can be a real hindrance, its often difficult to find bands to fit a bill, especially with small to medium sized gigs, each has its own set of social media links which are primarily spread through word of mouth. As an artist, there are similar problems in finding legitimate agencies. Of course ticket selling platforms must gather events data, but their goal is to sell tickets, the database is merely a vehicle for that. I find that these sites can be oddly unpleasant to navigate, and smaller events are most likely not listed.
As a fan, Ive often missed out on events by bands on my bucket list because I didn’t have my finger on the pulse at the right time, the whole system is spread so wide that keeping tabs on all the different groups is difficult and unwieldy. Facebook has become the default promotional tool for many, but its not suited to stand on its own in the music industry, no part of it was built specifically with that aim, even Myspace had more features for musicians looking to promote their work.
The question is how do you build a viable alternative? Revenue will have to be brought in, whether through ticket sales or advertising, each of which imbues a bias on the value of every piece of data, and subtle biases will cause large distortions.
And this is where the blockchain comes in. By offering rewards in their own currency Viberate can quickly collate vast swathes of information through a community of driven contributors without the need to funnel in revenue purely through ticket sales or third party advertising, and without the unfair value weighting that this necessitates.
As we will see, the market was ready for this project, as is the blockchain, the platform was already running and taking in database contributions even before the tokenised incentives were introduced. When they were, Viberate's ICO was funded in just under 5 minutes.
The fragmentation of the industry works against individuals who are struggling to find their base, established artists have such a great advantage that it's difficult for even well liked bands to really make a mark. It’s a fairly simple prospect, taking aim to untangle the web of artists, agencies and venues, but it may be set to make waves. The industry has needed a redistribution for more than a decade, and the blockchain may be ready to provide the fuel.
If you’re interested in contributing to the Viberate database, sign up here.
