Crowdfunding the underground
Two crowd-funded campaigns came to my attention this last week, and both were interesting enough to convince me to part with some hard-earned cash.
The first is Metal Evolution: Extreme Metal – The Final Round which is an effort by Sam Dunn of Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey documentary fame to add an additional episode to the Metal Evolution documentary series, about extreme metal. If, like many other people, you find it impossible to believe that extreme metal was left out of the original series, then here’s your chance to help do something about it. The lowest backer level is $6, which gets you a download of the episode as soon as it’s released. The campaign runs on Indiegogo until October 8, and still has quite some way to go to reach it’s goal of CAD $35,000.
The second is from one of my all-time favourite death metal bands Obituary. These guys have their own studio so were seeking US $10,000 for the production team costs to record a new album without the backing of a label. As it turned out they got that amount in just 24 hours, and at the time of writing have over $37,000 pledged. They have a number of cool backer rewards including bonuses if they reach certain funding amounts, and the entry level starts at just $1 but if you want the digital album itself, your minimum is $15. And of course there are crazy extras for people with way too much money (the snare drum used in the recording of the End Complete autographed by the band can be yours for $2,500). The campaign runs on Kickstarter until September 16. It will be very interesting to see how much they end up with.
The thing about crowd-funded campaigns is that it takes artists that people already know about to be successful – no one is going to fund your garage band’s debut when no one has ever heard of it. But for artists with an established name that want to be independent of labels and work directly with the fans, it’s a great concept. Personally I’m very much looking forward to seeing the results of both of these campaigns.
Love this post.
Though, having seen other types of artists end up with hugely successful – and even trending campaigns – I beg to offer a slight amendment.
I would write, “It takes artists with a good network or fanbase” to be successful.
It wouldn’t matter if your network was all your good friends; if they were evangelical enough about your work, then that enthusiasm can be infectious. Managed properly, it can lead to greater press.
Then again, it also depends on which crowdfunding network you are targeting, too. Kickstarter has a different crowd than does Pozible. 😉