Songkick's Detour, Gathr -- The New Wave of Demand-Driven Media Distribution/Crowd-Funding

The Internet.  The promise of connectivity.  The promise of reaching out to anyone, anywhere.  The promise of new never-before-possible business models -- and, for media, disruptive new demand-driven distribution models.

For me, some of the most exciting audience-driven media "experiments" are happening right now.  Here are two of my favorites, which I urge you to check out:

(1) Songkick -- you may know the service/app.  It allows you to easily track your favorite artists and alert you when they come to play in a city near you, so that you never miss another live performance again.  You can, of course, also easily link to buy tix, etc.   Yes, that's cool -- but relatively straightforward.

But, want something even cooler?  Then check out Songkick's new "Detour" service.  This is something beyond cool -- it is downright revolutionary.  It is demand-driven distribution at its finest.  Specifically, Detour enables communities to essentially band together (pun intended), reach out directly to a specific artist or band, and then commit individual "micro-payments" (to pool their funds) to lure that artist/band to come to their community to play for them.  This is crowd-funding at its finest -- in a context particularly near-and-dear to me -- live music events.  In effect, the community itself creates a new tour date -- scheduling a concert that previously would not have been scheduled.  Together, the artist/band and the community create a new experience that was never before possible -- all enabled by the collective power of online community.  

(2) Gathr -- I have written about this service before.  This service is another great example of new demand-driven distribution in the media world via crowd-funding.  Gathr is analogous to Songkick's "Detour" but, instead of live music, Gathr focuses on independent films (yes, pun intended again) -- and Gathr gives indie filmmakers a fighting chance to find an audience for their frequently powerful, yet sadly frequently overlooked, films.  

How does Gathr do it?  A spate of "Movie Captains" -- i.e., passionate sponsors to get the film watched -- promote local screenings in individual cities and communities.  These ambassadors create audience demand -- individuals who commit to seeing the film by plunking down their credit cards in advance to reach a minimum threshold for an audience.  If that monetary tipping point is reached, then the film will be screened.  If not, then no credit cards are charged.

These are exciting new models.  These are exciting new sources of revenues for artists and content creators -- which, of course, spurs creativity.  These are exciting for consumers -- and fulfilling in myriad ways.

This innovative new companies deserve to succeed.  And, certainly, companies of this ilk will.  We are still in the very early innings of the demand-driven crowd-funding revolution.

The New Independent Film Revolution Is Happening Online -- Disruptive, Democratizing

The times, they are a' changin' for independent films.  And, the disruptive force is the Internet.  Finally, its long-anticipated democratizing promise is here.  Right now.  So, take note.  This is incredibly promising for the indie film community which is struggling right now.

Here are some recent powerful examples of disruption to the historical traditional status quo:

(1) Indie Film Financing -- Kickstarter's crowd-funding promise for independent film is real, very real.  Case in point -- Garden State's Zach Braff is a big enough name to raise film financing the traditional way for his new film "Wish I Was Here."  But, he wanted to retain full creative control and do things his way.  So he turned to all of us to make this a reality.  His goal was to raise $2 million via Kickstarter and minimum micro-contributions of $1.  Well, he crossed that $2 million goal in an incredible 3 days -- and, he is now at nearly $2.4 million.  Not bad.  And, he didn't need to give any "piece" of the film's revenues or profits to any of his contributors.  Instead, they get certain cool "prizes" that start at the $10 contribution level and become "cooler" as those contributions escalate (check out his site to see the packages he offered, which include being an actor in the movie itself, screen credits, and sitting with Braff at the movie's premier).

(2) Indie Film Distribution -- two disruptive examples here:

The first is not a novel concept -- "day and date" (meaning simultaneous) availability online as well as in theaters.  Theater chains don't like that concept.  That's why while not a novel concept, "day and date" online distribution is still in its infancy.  But, Kristen Bell's new indie film "Some Girl(s)" chose this route for similar reasons to Zach Braff -- retention of more control (as well as driving a more direct revenue path to the filmmakers).  The producers chose new premium online service "Vimeo On Demand" for the film's online debut -- hoping to leverage Bell's more-than 1 million rabid Twitter followers (note, that these same followers recently used Kickstarter to raise over $5 million to crowd-fund Bell's upcoming "Veronica Mars" movie!).  So, what theatrical distribution chains will tolerate this path?  I highly doubt that the major chains will support it ... yet.  But, it is inevitable, because the audience -- especially the kids -- will demand it.

The second disruptive new indie film distribution concept is new -- offered by a new company, Gathr, which utilizes local "Movie Captains" (i.e., individual promoters -- like you and me) in cities around the country/globe to champion the film and drive local screenings.  These captains, together with the filmmakers, establish minimum ticket sales commitments for each screening.  And, if those individual screening commitments reach the "tipping point," then the screening happens.  If that tipping point is not reached, then no one's credit card is charged.  (By the way, Kickstarter uses the same "tipping point" concept -- i.e., no one's credit card is charged unless the minimum fund-raising goal is reached).  While new, and still highly experimental, Gathr works.  Insiders on the filmmaking side who have been the first to use Gathr have been thrilled by its results.

True that all of these disruptive new online services work best with a built-in audience either for an established actor, filmmaker or "cause" with a rabid following, the fundamental point remains -- indie filmmakers can now harness the promise and power of non-traditional and democratizing online services via grand experiments never before available.  And, the really cool thing is that potential audiences -- like me and you -- can directly contribute in getting certain stories told that should be told.

And, that's powerful!

NOTE -- I regularly write about independent filmmaking, particularly in the context of the digital media world.  I recently wrote a guest post for The Huffington Post titled "Indie Filmmakers and the Digital Dilemma" which discusses the surprising -- and misunderstood -- reality that digital films are more vulnerability to destruction than good old-fashioned celluloid and that, accordingly, we risk losing a whole generation of independent films to such degradation.