GigsWiz seems like a no-brainer idea. Work out where your band should be playing based on where your fans want you to play. And, as a venue, work out what the local fans are really into, and book that band. This is a natural for a world where, because of the Internet, a band could potentially find a fan-base anywhere on the planet from San Francisco to St Petersburg. The trouble is, the execution. Others have tried portals, but with social media being so distributed, and fans so intent on setting up their own little fan groups all over the place, it’s hard for a young band to keep track of it all.
So GigsWiz generates analytics allowing bands to gather accurate information about local fan demand.
Now it is taking this idea to the next step, developing a ticketing service which shares revenues from booking fees with the artists that use its platfom. It’s been piloting ticket sales exclusively with Hot Vox, Substance Gigs and Glasswerk in the UK and is now in discussions other promoters and bands. A closed beta phase for a limited period starts today. Here’s a typical band listing.
In theory that may mean they are onto something quite viral. Here’s how.
GigsWiz generates a piece of code that artists can embed on their sites, MySpace and Facebook pages which then analyses where their fans are.
GigsWiz promotes tickets on an artist’s social media networks, automatically updating their status about upcoming gigs. It also offers artists direct to fan marketing and sales tools which are automatically created as soon as the gig is booked.
On the other side of the coin, promoters get an insight into the value of booking artists who appear to be popular in the area near their venue via a points system reflecting sales activity and gig history. Promoters then find artists most likely to pack out their venues and sell tickets.
Since Sales of recorded music is going down but revenues from concerts is going up, GigsWiz is riding a growth curve.
Based out of Helsinki, Finland, GigsWiz was founded last summer by Juuso Vermasheinä, Joonas Pekkanen and Kai Lemmetty.
In July it grabbed €150,000 in a seed round of funding.