You could either be successful or be us

I’m going to see my favorite band at the Williamsburg Waterfront tonight, even if it means standing in a veritable monsoon for four hours.

The following graphic reflects both the weather forecast and my emotional state if this concert doesn’t happen:

In my desperate search for news of cancellation, I noticed that the Belle & Sebastian website currently has a feature that I’ve been meaning to blog about for a while now: launching a website with performance footage. I first noticed it on the BTTLS site and then again on the LCD Soundsystem website when he was promoting his new album a few months back (that site no longer launches with video). Here’s how the BTTLS site launches:

Full bleed video! The Belle & Sebastian site also launches with video, specifically, with a frank 30-minute documentary about the making and promotion of their upcoming album Write About Love, the challenges of the marketing and selling music today, a Q&A with a live audience, and a few performances of songs from the new disc.

I think launching orchestra or performer websites with performance footage is a great tool, and I don’t know of anyone in the classical realm who’s doing it.  Sometimes music launches when you get to a classical artist’s site (I find that annoying, actually), but never video. Whenever I’m trying to pitch my artists to press folks who aren’t familiar with them, I find myself just wanting to say, “Trust me – if you go to a performance you’ll get it!” Of course it’s not always easy to get press to performances, but I strongly believe that when you have great clients, the strongest selling point is the performances themselves. I think I’m a fairly to moderately good writer and talker, but nothing I say can truly capture what it’s like to see these people in action. Launching a site with compelling video is the perfect way to hook potential ticket or CD-buyers right off the bat. I think I’ve mentioned this before on the blog, but I love that iPhone and iPad commercials simply show what those devices do. Every ad is just a photo of them with a cool app on the screen, and the TV spots feature someone using the device (not even an attractive or famous person – you only see their hands).

If anyone knows of a soloist or orchestra site that loads with video, please let me know.

The 30-minute documentary that launches the Belle & Sebastian site is especially interesting because it goes into great detail about how the band and their manager plans on marketing the new album. (((meta!))) In one scene, their manager tells the group that he (or perhaps the publicist/marketing strategist – the manager is reading off a piece of paper that could have come from someone else) plans on starting the campaign months before the record comes out.  He says he’s going to “Get the band to do every interview offered by every website newspaper magazine and radio station that can be squeezed in until the album is out, by that time, everyone has lost interest and moved on to the next artist they’re working on.” (Every website? I should have asked for an interview.)  Another filmed discussion includes the line, “if it [promotion] were left to the labels, everyone would be the same,” as well as the manager stating solemnly,  “I’m not saying there’s no light on the horizon, it’s just fairly dim.”  Here’s the Write About Love documentary in its entirety. The music industry discussion starts around minute 8:00.

Perhaps Hilary, her manager and I will produce a mockumentary of the road to her next album. While I don’t have footage of her manager walking wistfully through the set of what looks to be that lovely but fairly terrible Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice movie, I do have him reading Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan fiction at her recent Housing Works Bookstore Cafe appearance.

I certainly like this part of the documentary: