You asked, they answered. You had a lot of questions about the services offered by Sonicbids, like what happens to your membership fees, why do promoters get a free ride, and whatever happened with that unfortunate CMJ incident? I narrowed your pool of questions down to the seven that kept coming up again and again and submitted them to Lou Paniccia, Sonicbids Artist Relations Manager (who, it should be said, saw a post I had written about Sonicbids and kindly volunteered to take whatever you wanted to throw). Here, they are - your questions and Lou's answers.
Question: What do my membership fees pay for?
Answer: This might be two questions: what do artists get with their membership fees, and how are they used by the company. I’ll answer both:
What do artists get with their membership fees?
For artists we offer 2 levels of membership, Standard and Supersonic. We have a chart on the website that lays out the different features for each here.
Basically with an active membership you're paying for:
- Access to the largest professional network of artists and promoters
- Access to over 1,200 professional opportunities
- Member support
- The tools to build and send your EPK (Electronic Press Kit) to your contacts and our Promoter Drop Boxes
- Access to our Member Forums
What do my membership fees pay for?
The company uses membership fees to pay for our Engineering team to continually improve the product, our Artist and Promoter Relations teams to field questions and support our members, our Business Development team to bring in new gig listings and our Marketing team to let our members know about them. Basically, membership fees are reinvested into making Sonicbids a better place for our members.
Why do promoters get free memberships?
Promoters can create an account for free, but if they want to open a gig listing to take paid submissions they have to pay a $50 setup fee. Using nothing but the free account, they are able to search for and contact Sonicbids artists directly, but are not able to charge the artists any fees through our system. We let them do this without paying a membership fee because we feel it adds value to our artists by giving more promoters access to discover their EPKs.
Why do I have to pay an entry fee for a festival if I already pay my membership fees?
The submission fees for festivals and other gig listings on Sonicbids are set by the promoter of the event, and are there for primarily two reasons:
1) To make sure only artists serious about the opportunity apply. Several years ago Sonicbids had quite a few free gig listings on the site. The trouble was that without any kind of barrier, artists were submitting to listings not because they were a good fit, but simply because they were free (before I worked at Sonicbids my own band was guilty of this). The promoters who were trying to book music weren't getting submissions from appropriate bands, so they stopped reviewing them. Consequently the bands that were a good fit for the gig were getting overlooked. Promoters weren't finding music, and bands weren't getting gigs. To solve this we implemented a $2 minimum fee for gig listings and it was enough to make people think twice before sending their EPK. Promoters got more relevant submissions, and the bands that submitted got a fair review.
Right now about 75% of our gig listings have submission fees of $10 or less. The other 25% that charge more than $10 are typically higher profile listings that charge submission fees regardless of how you want to send in your material.
It’s important to note that submission fees have always been around for high-profile festivals and song contests. I think because Sonicbids has gathered so many opportunities in one place, it makes people think we invented the idea of submission fees, or that we collect all of the money from them. Neither is the case. For example, applying directly to South by Southwest through their own process this past year cost bands $30. ($20 as an early bird.) If bands applied through Sonicbids, the price was also $30, and for new members came with a free 6-month Sonicbids membership.
2) To repurpose money that would have been spent by bands on glossy photos, postage, CDs etc., and put it back into the community. Promoters use the money from submission fees to help pay the bands they select and add more independent music to their bill. For example Summerfest has booked more and more emerging artists via Sonicbids year over year starting with 13 in 2004 (the first year they used us), 40 in 2005, 50 in 2006 and 60 in 2007.
Does Sonicbids take a cut from shows booked via the service?
This might be another two-parter: does Sonicbids draw income from submission fees, and does Sonicbids take a cut when an artist gets paid for playing a gig. I’ll answer both:
Does Sonicbids draw income from submission fees?
Yes. Sonicbids processes submission fees, takes a percentage and pays the promoter the rest.
Does Sonicbids take a cut when an artist gets paid for playing a gig?
No. Sonicbids never takes a cut from any promoter’s payment to artists.
How can my band get on the front page of the site?
If you have a fully built EPK, you can apply for a spotlight on our homepage by going here (please read the full description before submitting to make sure you qualify).
