Website saves musician from the ‘pit of despair’
Platform putting live shows online
Live music performances haven’t been shut down by the coronavirus pandemic — like so much of what was once normal life, they’ve moved online.
Rhett Miller, best-known as lead singer-songwriter of long-running alt-country band the Old 97s, feared he’d lose nearly all of his income as social distancing rules closed venues across the country where he performed his solo act.
“Those solo gigs are the way that I feed my two teenagers and pay our mortgage,” Miller told the Daily News over the phone from his home just outside of upstate New Paltz.
He canceled gigs in Pennsylvania and Colorado. He canceled plans for a tour that stretched from the Northeast down to Houston. “We were suddenly looking at half a year’s worth of income going away,” Miller said.
But it turned out there’s a web-based solution.
On the advice of friend Glen Phillips — of the band Toad the Wet Sprocket — Miller looked into the online concert platform Stageit.
Stageit launched in 2011 as a way for musicians to stream intimate performances online for fans in markets that they may not have been able to reach on the road.
Musicians can make their own accounts, schedule shows and limit ticket sales — some shows sell out.
They can also set their own ticket prices — with the lowest amount being 10 cents if an artist, like Miller, chooses a “pay what you can” policy. The site’s founder, Evan Lowenstein (above), says prices average $15 per ticket.
What makes this platform so intriguing for artists is that Stageit shows are not archived for future viewing.
Fans have to “attend” the shows in the moment, or they will miss out for good.
Lowenstein — once part of the pop act Evan and Jaron — understood the importance of performers connecting with their fans in the moment. He saw the site as a way to let musicians place value in their craft after illegal downloading and streaming slashed revenues in the music industry.
“We don’t sell music, we sell time,” Lownenstein explained over the phone from his flat in London.
The coronavirus pandemic has spiked Stageit ticket sales. As of March 31, Lowenstein told The News, company revenue totaled $936,000 this year — with $875,000 coming in since March 15.
Before the pandemic, Stageit hosted two to three performances a day. Now, Lowenstein says, it hosts close to 60.
Eighty percent of ticket sales goes straight to performers. The rest covers Stageit’s other expenses, including broadcasting, bandwidth, music licensing, and credit card fees.
Miller recognized the platform’s benefits at his first performance.
“It was wildly successful. I made more money at that show than I would at a regular gig that I would’ve had to drive to, pay for rental car, flights, hotel, all that stuff,” he said.
“I’m not trapped in this hopeless pit of despair,” he added. “I can really go to work. I can do the thing that I love to do.”
Miller plays four Stageit shows a week, with different themes each night, including full album performances on Mondays.
Each show lasts around a half hour. Miller engages with fans through a chat window and extends each performance with an encore. He even takes requests from the fan with the most generous donation to his virtual tip jar. He’s capped ticket sales at 1,000 per show.
It’s a blast, he says. And it’s helped him get through sad times — a death in his family, and the death of a friend, Fountains of Wayne cofounder Adam Schlesinger, whose life was taken by COVID-19.
“I looked forward to that hour during which I was able to do the thing that’s always allowed me to work through difficult moments in my life,” Miller told The News.
“And here we are all together processing this thing, and sure, we’re using technology to do it,” he said.
“But the human element of it is so immediate. Not only has it saved my family from financial ruin this month, but it has also saved me from some level of going insane and feeling hopeless and trapped and depressed.”