Heart | Solveig Whittle

Case Study In Music Marketing: The Aury Moore Band (Part II)

July 28, 2013 12 Comments

In Part I of this series, I focused on the successful Kickstarter ($20K+) campaign held last fall by the female-fronted indie Seattle band, the Aury Moore Band. Their recently released CD, Here I Am was produced this spring by Stevie (full disclosure). I’m not affiliated myself in any way with band, although I’ve shared some marketing tips with her over the years, and I appreciate what Aury has done to market her CD. In this post, I will detail Aury’s June 2013 CD release party for Here I Am, including the budget and key promotional elements.

Budget

I received several requests for more detailed cost information after writing a blog post about my own (much smaller) CD release party in April. I think Aury’s party is a better lesson on how to make money on a CD release party, so I asked her if she would be willing to share her numbers. She was most gracious, so here they are:

Costs: Approximately $1300

Venue: $0
Merchandise: $200 (most was left over from the Kickstarter campaign)
Raffle Items: $100
Posters, Flyers and VIP Passes:$260
Pre-printed Tickets: $40
1000 CDs (jewel case, 4-page color folder/traycard): $1500 (roughly 400 were given out the night of the party, and an additional 200 mailed out to Kickstarter backers)

Revenue: Approximately $10,000

Pre-sold Tickets: $4000 (online ticket fees were paid by purchasers)
Tickets Sold At Door: $4000 (some attendees were “comped”)
Extra Raffle Tickets: $200 (went to charity)
Merchandise: $700

(I assume Aury has some kind of revenue-sharing deal with her bandmates, but I didn’t ask about that.) So how did Aury end up netting around $8K at her CD release party?

Live, Music

Heart: Two Unconventional Women of Rock

April 15, 2013 6 Comments

Last week week I watched Ann and Nancy Wilson perform an intimate and revealing concert for their hometown fans in Benroya’s S. Mark Taper concert hall, home of the Seattle Symphony. Although the show was booked a year ago for the Live at Benaroya Hall popular music series, it was made much more significant because of this week’s induction of Heart into the 2013 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 18. Ann and Nancy are rock and roll royalty, and this concert proved just how well-deserved their fame is.

It was a sell out crowd, with Microsoft co-founder and guitarist Paul Allen in attendance, Sue Ennis (their longtime co-writer), and many, many others who have followed Heart and the Wilson sisters for decades. Stevie and I sat in the third row orchestra surrounded by adoring (and greying) fans, friends and family. The crowd was very interactive – shouting out comments and requesting songs. The familiarity and love of the audience for the two women was palpable, and they seemed equally relaxed and at home.

Before the backup band came on, Ann and Nancy were interviewed by their biographer, author and journalist Charles R. Cross. His collaborative book on the sisters called Kicking and Dreaming: A Story of Heart, Soul and Rock and Roll was released in the fall of 2012. Although some might have called the interview portion of the concert superfluous (perhaps preferring just a standalone musical performance), I greatly enjoyed this informative window into the personal and musical history of Ann and Nancy Wilson.

Music

Riding the Demon: Music, Love and Addiction

October 2, 2012 9 Comments

“Backstage he threw part of the guitar at me, and it whizzed by, just missing my head.” Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day in 2012? Nope. Roger Fisher in 1979, as described by Nancy Wilson of Heart.

The relationship between love, madness, addiction, self-destruction and creativity is always a complex one. Passion is the fuel, whether it comes from love or pain – or both.

I’ve been reading the new Ann and Nancy Wilson biography, Kicking and Dreaming: A Story of Heart, Soul and Rock & Roll. Fascinated and horrified at turns, I am nonetheless appreciative of the matter-of-fact way Ann and Nancy talk about their love relationships, their music, and the role of addiction throughout the book. The narrative switches back and forth between the two sisters’ viewpoints, although at times it seems to almost come from the same person. The book touches on so many issues that I can identify with – from Roger Fisher’s narcissistic drug-fueled sexual excesses in the band’s early days (as told by Nancy) to the melancholy admission of alcohol problems and body image issues at the end (by Ann). The love story between the two sisters and the two brothers (the “Wil-shers”) breathes like a sleeping dragon throughout the book. In one of the last chapters, Ann tells of the last time she saw Michael Fisher. Never married, it’s clear she never quite got over him. If you watch footage of Roger Fisher talking about Nancy (in VH1’s Behind the Music), it seems he took a long time getting over her as well.