Thursday, April 18, 2013

The Business of Phish

I've been telling you all along this band is impressive not only for their music but the business that they have been able to create. Now the "Priceonomics Blog" has done a feature on them. Here is the first paragraph followed by the link to the entire article. Read it. 

"Over the past four years the rock band Phish has generated over $120 million in ticket sales, handily surpassing well known artists like Radiohead, The Black Keys and One Direction. Since their start 30 years ago, Phish has consistently been one of the most popular and lucrative touring acts in america, generating well over a quarter billion in ticket sales. Yet by other measures, the band isn't popular at all. Only one of their original albums has ever made the Billboard top 10 rankings. None of the 883 songs has ever become a popular hit on the radio. They've only made one music video to promote a song and it was mocked mercilessly by Beavis and Butthead on MTV.

If the traditional band business model is to generate hype through the media and radio airplay and then monetize that hype through album sales and tours, Phish doesn't fit the model at all. For a band of their stature, their album sales are minuscule and radio airplay non-existent. And so when the "music business" cratered in the 1990s because of file-sharing and radio's importance declined because of the internet, Phish remained unaffected and profitable as ever."

To read the rest of one of the more interesting Phish articles I've ever read.
Follow THIS LINK.

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