Crowdfunding Expands In Asia

The cost of bringing Western bands to Asia is prohibitively high without a guarantee of a certain level of ticket sales.

The same goes for Asian bands that want to play the Americas or Europe.

JJS Media, which was launched in 2013, has already arranged 10 concerts in South Korea, South America and Europe through a service called MyMusicTaste, an app that allows users to search for favorite artists and “suggest” that these artists come to the user’s city or region to perform.

At the time, the user must pledge an amount of money he or she is willing to pay to attend the concert. If enough people in a given locality request a certain artist, JJS Media “pulls strings behind the scenes” to make the concert happen, according to Tech in Asia.

So far, only four artists have been involved, but JJS has 150,000 users. One band is a K-pop group called Lunafly that has played in both Romania and Peru in accordance with demand from music fans on MyMusicTaste.

A representative of JJS told Tech in Asia that MyMusicTaste works with artist agencies to determine how to leverage popularity of an artist in a region to promote a related tour.

JJS then finds venues and promoters in that area and acts as liaison between the promoters and the artist agencies. The point is to make sure ticket prices match those suggested by the fans on the app. Once the concert is organized, ticket and merchandise sales begin.

One obvious problem is that a group used to large venues may have to settle for a smaller one, and sometimes they won’t.

MyMusicTaste also makes money from offline advertising and event sponsors. It earns commissions selling data related to music demand that it monitors. In order to attain new users, the app is marketed at festivals in Japan and Korea, and has persuaded artists to actively promote themselves in specific cities and regions.