EVNTLIVE Streams For Success

Pollstar recently interviewed co-founder/CMO David Carrico about EVNTLIVE and how it actually compliments the live music experience.

What makes EVNTLIVE different from other concert streamers?

While other live stream companies have focused on lots of [shows] at once for more intimate experiences, EVNTLIVE is built as a destination site for major brand artists as well as some emerging acts to live stream their shows in a social fashion so that people can come together and really enjoy the show experience.

To provide an anecdote, last week we streamed Bon Jovi.  During that show, in one minute alone, there was over 500 people commenting, having conversations with each other about the show they were experiencing.  And that’s within our platform, not even counting the conversations they were having on Twitter, Facebook and other social media [platforms] simultaneously.  So, for us, it’s about this social and virtual experience surrounding the really high quality, high production content.

In addition to that aspect, we also have archival and on-demand content as well as simulated live content.  So there is a chance that some of the content we live-stream or some of the content we license from record labels or from other sources, can be purchased for a 48-hour streaming period for a low ticket price and [fans] can socially watch those on-demand shows as well.

Was it always the plan to have people socializing on the EVNTLIVE platform, or was this originally created to enhance the Facebook experience?

For us, it’s really about building our own destination site.  Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks are tied into ours and we allow users to link those accounts to ours, but unlike other platforms we’re not a Facebook destination.  We’re not built on those social networks.  We’re building this unique online engine.

Why would a band allow you to archive their performance when they could make a DVD and sell it themselves?

What’s so great about EVNTLIVE is that it’s complimentary.  In the case that we film the production, the band owns the master.  So the band’s people make a DVD and have it available on EVNTLIVE.  In some cases we’re licensing material that’s already been made into a DVD.  But we are licensing it for our platform because people don’t want to sit on their couches, necessarily, and consume a DVD.  They want to be able to, on their smart phones, on their tablets, on-the-go consume this content.  That’s what so great about EVNTLIVE is being able to use different platforms as well as making that content social by having conversations around that content and maybe seeing something they haven’t seen before.

Did you receive much resistance from artists when you first approached them about streaming their live shows on EVNTLIVE?

Ninety percent of the artists really want something like this to exists.  They’ve always asked from the beginning, “How are you going to get users to the platform?  How are you going to get critical mass?”

In the beginning, I don’t think we were met with much resistance but I think it was definitely harder.  As we began to do shows and proved there is a real user base interested in engaging it in this way, it’s gotten a lot easier.  But for the artist, I think the question is, “Is there a demand?”  I think our existence along with all the other players in the space demonstrates that yes, there is a demand.

A small percentage of the industry does not want to be live-streamed.  They don’t want it to take away from the magic of their performance.  And, for those artists, I offer a different set of things.  We can lock out different regions.  We can only make this available for places where you’re not touring, to folks who’d never be able to see the magic of your live show.  So there are different solutions for artists worried about diluting their brand in that way.

Do you have a standard agreement or contract for streaming concerts or do you tailor the agreement to suit the artist?

We definitely start with a standard agreement but I would say, given the number of variables that go into the equation and the fact that we’re typically dealing with artists on a very high level, the agreement is tailored per the circumstance.

Do you have a legal department that’s up to its neck in copyright rules and regs?

Yes [laughs].  We have blanket licenses with all the major performance rights organizations.

What about record labels?

We have performance rights agreements with all the major PROs (performance rights organizations), that’s for live.  In different circumstances for different live shows, in some cases publishers get involved.  Certainly, when it comes on-demand, the publishers really become involved.  We’re negotiating on all levels with everyone.  We have deals with the PROs.  We are working deals with the majors, we’re working on deals with several indies and then we’re working with the record labels as well.  I think we touched pretty much everything.

Were you expecting all of this before opening the doors?

We definitely knew it was going to be a challenge.  My background in the music industry, I was a manager for a few years.  I had some understanding of how complicated it was going to be, but certainly, over the course of the year and a half we developed the product and began to build the company, it became clear just how challenging this was.

For the sake of the business that I love so much, the publishing industry and the record industry needs to figure out a way to be, not easier to work with, but faster to work with, for companies like ourselves. The time delay in building these connections, relationships and coming to these agreements is so long that it could put some businesses out of business. In order for everyone to make the most money and to innovate, I think the whole business needs to learn how to move at a faster pace when it comes to new technology.

Was there a “eureka moment” in EVNTLIVE’s history, a specific time when the concept first came into being?

I think it grew very gradually.  Myself and my other co-founders went to a concert and we were thinking how we could have [instead] watched it from home. That concept grew into us looking at the landscape of streaming live. “Okay, other people live-stream shows. But this is how they do it and why isn’t it more like this?”  I think the product grew up very gradually through our dialogues and conversations.  Very early on we were lucky enough to find a small company named Nubo9, which was two gentlemen who had previously been at Barnes & Nobles building the back-end for the Nook product.  We met with them and got them excited enough about the product that we acquired their company early on.  We were just a tiny company acquiring this other tiny company.  That’s when the product became a reality because we had such a strong engineering base that could go out and build this product we were visualizing.

Can we break that down a bit?  When you say they had to build the product, what exactly did they build as opposed to any existing technology that you could use?

The things you see on the front layer are somewhat complex to build in their own rights.  Anytime you have to build a chat service or a messaging service – that’s quite complicated.  The fact that you have so many people dialoging on our own service takes a certain amount of engineers.  Pulling in other social networking APIs?  Sure, not complicated.  But building what we have built in terms of the design, the way the site moves, how our discover section works, our music-discovery algorithms, the way the player works, the actual video and encoding process, the camera switching process – all these varied pieces take a fair amount of engineering.

That’s only one part of it. What is actually truly so complicated is the back-end infrastructure engineering.  I don’t want to get too technical but in order to build scaleable back-end infrastructures that do not crash takes a tremendous amount of thought, planning and coding.  When it comes to using a combination of our own servers, where the video is actually being transferred …  it’s quite complicated.  We built a platform that we wanted to scale.  We wanted to create something that if a million people walked on and wanted to watch something, it wouldn’t break.  And that is actually what’s so hard to build.

You said that one of the inspirations for EVNTLIVE was wanting to experience a concert without physically being at the show.  Do you see your company as something for people who don’t want to go to shows or do you see it as enhancing the live experience and selling more tickets?

To me, I believe it’s non-cannibalistic and truly enhancing.  I’m a huge music fan. For the shows I want to go to, for me it’s a transcending experience, I want to be there, I want to feel the bass and I want to see the sweat dripping off of the musician.  I really care about that.

Then there are shows I am curious about that I would never make the effort to actually go.  But I might pay $3 online to check out their show.  And me paying three dollars might actually turn me into a fan.  I might have an experience online where I go, “Wow!  This band’s really incredible.”  And then I might go about purchasing a physical ticket for the next time they come to town.

To me, the idea of replacing the live concert experience could be like someone eating an ice cream cone versus looking at dessert on their computer.  They’re both exciting things, but you’re never in a place when it feels like an ice cream cone.  That is the metaphor I like to use because I don’t think they compete with each other. I think reading and learning about dessert makes you go and buy dessert.   This is the same thing.

But for people who like to sample, say, 10 minutes of a live performance – aren’t they already going to YouTube?

Sure.  I think YouTube is a great place to do that but I don’t think YouTube has a feeling or the feature set to have a shared experience.  When you’re on YouTube you can see that other people have gone before and posted on the video.  You can get a sense of that. But in real time you’re not engaging in a community.  You’re just sort of watching by yourself and seeing postings.

What we’re building is about being there simultaneously with others, watching it and doing that. I’m remembering [about the Bon Jovi stream] people were counting down.  As they were getting ready for the show, they were going, “Oh, my God!  It’s in two minutes.”  And they were talking to each other, saying, “I saw Bon Jovi two years ago and it was so fantastic.” And they were sharing these experiences with each other, almost like what you’d get with actually being there.  You don’t get that experience on YouTube.  You don’t get that feverish energy that you get watching a show with other fans.

You mentioned a charge for the 48-hour rental of a stream.  What type of revenue streams are you seeing? 

For archived content, we’re looking at the $3-$5 range.  It’s truly on demand, you’d rent it like a movie.  It’s in that price range.

For live streams we’re looking at $3, sponsored completely free, to all the way up to $15.  We are not trying to set prices.  We’re working with artists to set prices, and artist managers work with us to set the prices they think makes sense for them.

And how much of that revenue does the artist see?

Over half in every situation.  Obviously, everything is negotiable but always over half [for the artist].

You’ve been describing two types of content – the live streams and the archived shows.  As the years go on do you see the archive increasing in value and eventually becoming more valuable to where it becomes the major revenue stream for EVNTLIVE?

I think the archive is important but I actually believe the live events are the most important.  I think we’re transitioning into an era where the most exciting events that are happening online are live. I think that’s true with music and everything else.  The way that we’ve begun to consume everything from news about our friends to news about the world and entertainment has become incredibly fast.  I think there’s a desire to be in the know and to experience the experience as it’s happening in a way like never before.  That’s why we put such an emphasis on live streaming and these live events.

From conception right up to today, what has surprised you the most?

The industry is pretty used to this notion of what a webcast is.  But what has actually surprised me the most is when I get out there and talk to users, how much they are excited about our product and feel like it’s never been done before and how many people are unaware of live concerts streaming on the Internet.  They know it might exist but they don’t know where to go and how much they are interested once they hear about it.

The way to sum it up is, I thought the market was big when I started [but] I think the market for this is only going to grow, not just for EVNTLIVE, but all the companies in this space.  The market is truly growing and truly has huge potential.

Closing thoughts?

I think for us, what we are building and care about most, is this notion of the shared experience around live concerts on the web and creating a live concert community that enjoys watching shows together.  Whether their favorite artist is Bon Jovi or the Parlotones, having it be a place where they can feel like they can come to connect with not just the artist but other fans.  I think that differentiation is going to only become more apparent over the course of our roadmap.  We are just in 1.0 right now but as we continue to build features and continue to build the brand, we’ve happily, happily focused on creating the best virtual venue for fans to enjoy live music together.