Next summer, you and all your so-called friends from Facebook and MySpace will be able to finally meet in a giant arena, where you ill be able to play dating games, compete against each other in Guitar Hero or Lacrosse, listen to live bands, or check out the modeling contest. The event will be called ArenaFest, and will eventually be held at 50 major sports arenas around the country. Next summer, it will start with 10 arenas in places like Dallas, Detroit, Cleveland, Phoenix, and Anaheim.
ArenaFest will have several draws, including live sports, live music, and live contests. John Ossenmacher, CEO of ArenaWorks Entertainment, which operates ArenaFest, calls it ” our version of live social networking.” People who go will be able to interact with their friends on Facebook and MySpace. And their friends on those social networks will be able to interact with what’s going on inside the arena.
The sport at the event will be lacrosse, which is one of the fastest-growing sports in the U.S. “We are basically building a brand new sports league targeted at this 16-to-24 year old demographic,” says Ossenmacher. But that’s not all.
Live bands, both signed and unsigned acts, will play onstage. For the unsigned bands, ArenaWorks is partnering with SellaBand, the site where music fans can fund unsigned bands. Since its launch in 2006, SellaBand has raised $3 million for musicians to record nearly 30 albums. Now bands on the site will have a chance to tour as well. They will be able to sign up to apply for the ArenaFest slots. If they gather 200 fans, $10,000 towards an album, or the most weekly votes, they get to proceed to Round 2 and play a local venue. The best of those will then be screened by a professional jury, which will determine who will play at ArenaFest.
At ArenaFest, the audience will be encouraged to participate themselves through a variety of contest stations, including a Lacrosse Challenge, Guitar Hero, Next Top Model (to lure the ladies), Dodgeball, and Break Dancing (yes, break dancing). There will also be some sort of dating game.
All of this will cost just $27.50 per ticket, and the whole thing will be repeated weekly throughout the summer at the same venues to encourage the high school and college crowd to keep coming back. “We are changing the whole philosophy of how the arena system works,” says Ossenmacher. Fill up the cheap seats in between games.
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I think its a great idea
Even that I don’t like flash, this one is pretty cool.
But guys, get rid of those flash entries!
I have to say there is a pronounced new tone at Techcrunch. I would call it mature and reflective, versus the old headlines which were sensational, shallow and impetuous. So, I turn on the RSS feed again (big deal).
Whatever you’re doing Eric, taking Prozac or something, this is a lot better. Leave the fake controversy creation to the monologues on talk radio. This is a place for serious geeks, not fanboys and wannabees.
considering that I played lacrosse in highscool and college, as well as in a band, this is friggin awesome!
They will find out that the only people who will show up besides the contestants will be their small group of friends, hardly enough to fill an “arena”.
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Imo this will only work it the music is good and well advertised. The side-events will not fill the arena I am afraid. Every event would need a top act of name and fame to attract the crowds this initiative needs.
+11
Anything that gets people more interactive, and more importantly - active, is a very good thing.
I’m sure that ArenaFest will make plenty of money but as someone in a working and currently unsigned band their idea is nothing new. For band it’s called Pay-to-Play.
Here’s how it usually works - the company rolls into town spamming all the local bands via myspace, etc. The bands are then given 200 tickets to sell to their fans. In Dallas, most unsigned bands are hard pressed to get folks to come out for $10 let alone $27. Adding a sports component tweaks the model but ultimately it’s the same thing. The bands are doing the legwork of bringing out people.
My point is that most of these “we help unsigned bands” deals are scams that actually don’t benefit the artists. Dallas has had several of these sort of outfits roll through town - by the second year most of the bands get wise to it and avoid it like the plague. The bands that are actually playing out at the local venues on a regular basis see this thing a mile-away and don’t even bother.
Also the numbers for Sellaband seem really screwy to me. Unsigned bands can make an amazing record for $25,000. Even if you add another $10,000 for an affordable producer you’re looking at $35k. With Sellabands numbers they’ve got some crazy math happening: 3 million / 30 albums = $100,000 per album. That is insanely expensive for an “unsigned” band… i’ve not seen their contract but I would bet that the band is not seeing even have of that $100k.
And to clarify, I’m not a bitter failed musician angry at the world. I’m just a failed musician who is also has a techy day job.
I am an artist, who is on Sellaband and I would like to clarify: There are many artists that are still under the $50,000 mark, so $3 million have been invested in artists and 1.5 million have been used to record albums. Please do your research before commenting.
Yea yea, lacrosse, cool! Fastest growing eh? Cool, I guess. What about rugby!?
A late reply to Shannon’s comment
It is not simply pay to play - the bands get a lot more out of it - an album for starters - that is non recoupable (i.e. they do not have to pay back the recording budget out of record sales)
The figures add up
$10,000 goes on printing and sending the album out to all the believers - $5k for Sellaband and $5k as a contribution towards marketing - so the production budget is around 30k which as you point out is about right to be able to make a top recording…
SellaBand has its detractors and sceptics - and they are right SellaBand is not the whole solution for bands - but for a proactive artist this can make the difference between breaking even on a record and making money… and maybe starting some momentum which will see an artist achieve much larger things.