Virtual success
A state band named Goose comes up with a way to make virtual ‘tour’ profitable during pandemic
Goose, a jam band from Norwalk, has come up with a novel way to “tour” — and make money — during the pandemic, by livestreaming short, creatively themed “tours” that grossed more than $100,000.
Before COVID-19 put an end to live music as we know it, Goose, a five-piece jam band from Norwalk was selling out shows across the Northeast.
But as the quarantine drags on, the band is actively converting its musical skills, business prowess and road- dog reputation into livestreaming gold, by programming short, creatively-themed “tours” that actually turn a profit.
Over consecutive weekends in June, Goose livestreamed eight sets of music from a borrowed barn in Fairfield County. Calling it Bingo Tour, the band assembled each set of music in real time, by pulling balls labeled with song titles or specific instructions (“20-plusminute jam,” “no drums”) out of a bingo roller.
Fans — around 1,500 of them — paid $15 for advance single-day passes, or $60 for the whole tour. They also purchased multiple bingo boards ($10 each) to win prizes: an actual ball from the roller, band merchandise, a meet-and-greet with the musicians.
“We just wanted to create like a full experience, almost like a festival, for our fans,” said Peter Anspach, who plays guitar and keyboards, and also sings. “It’s basically giving them a week of Goose, instead of whatever else is going on in this world. It’s almost like a little vacation.”
Ben Baruch and Dave DiCianni, principals of Denver-based music and events management firm 11e1even Group, which manages Goose, said the Bingo Tour grossed
more than $100,000 — a sum they estimate the band would need 20 days on the road to earn.
“On certain nights, we had around 4,000 people who paid and watched it,” DiCianni said. “The economics of it are completely different, but for our unit and the band’s little family and the people they support, it was a way to make some money without ever leaving home.”
‘Extremely sustainable’
As coronavirus cases surge across the country, Gov. Ned Lamont recently pushed back aspects of Connecticut’s reopening, bringing more uncertainty to the question of when live music might return to Connecticut stages.
Goose — Anspach, Rick Mitarotonda (vocals, guitar), Trevor Bass (bass), Ben Atkind (drums), and recent addition Jeff Arevalo (percussion) — plays improvisational rock, stretching long, funk-rock grooves — sometimes lasting 20 minutes or more — into ecstatic peaks.
The consensus among jam band fans seems to be that Goose simply does this better than anyone else right now, and its willingness to extend into jam territory pleases fans who might occasionally be caught glancing at a stopwatch at a Phish concert. That also means that every show is different; for fans, there’s value in the individual unit of a single livestream.
“If you can get people to subscribe and buy into your streaming experience … some people won’t even do it, but a lot of people will, especially if you make it really fun and interactive,” said Anspach. “I think it’s a new way to explore music, and I think it’s just the beginning in terms of what you can do.”
“Financially, it’s extremely sustainable, because you’re essentially profiting almost everything.”
Birds of a feather
Not long ago, Goose was sharing bookings with other bands at small Connecticut clubs like Arch Street Tavern in Hartford and Pacific Standard Tavern in New Haven.
In 2018, the band opened seven shows for Spafford, an Arizona band with a bigger following, on its first significant tour of the East Coast. Goose performed well, and gained new fans.
The following year, Goose appeared at larger venues and in prime-time slots at festivals, dropping a combustible 90-minute set at the Peach Festival in Scranton, Pa., which was headlined by the Trey Anastasio Band, the String Cheese Incident and Phil Lesh & Friends.
Meanwhile, the band was building a huge online library of high-quality live recordings and multicamera video shoots, giving fans and new listeners something to grab onto when they returned home from shows.
The pace of new content was furious; Goose’s 2019 Peach Festival footage — shot in HD using a half-dozen cameras, and synced to soundboard audio — was among the earliest from the festival to appear online.By the end of 2019, tickets to Goose shows were hard to get. By February 2020, all dates booked for a spring tour were completely sold out.
Then, after a March 11 performance in Covington, Ky: silence.
“When we had to cancel the last of our winter tour shows, nobody really knew what was going to happen,” Anspach said. “We were like, ‘OK, we don’t have to cancel April, things might go back to normal in a month.’ This is a real thought that I had.”
Three days later, the spring tour was canceled. In the second half of March, Goose performed a handful of livestreaming shows for ticket holders of canceled winter tour shows — an act of good faith, Anspach says — then took two months off.
Recreating vibe
Shortly after the pandemic hit, Baruch and DiCianni of 11e1even put together a virtual music festival called Live From Out There, featuring Goose and other bands managed by 11e1even who were just coming off the road.
“We saw that the quarantine was turning into something that might not last for just a few weeks, so we had them get together and start recording some sets,” Baruch said.
Bingo Tour started life as an inside joke.
“Our road manager, John, is a funny guy, and kind of also just an image of the band,” Anspach said. “He’s pretty much a band member. We thought it would be funny for him to be onstage pulling balls out of a bingo roller.”
Unfortunately, livestreaming shows comes with a high artistic price: the energy from the crowd. It’s a major hurdle for bands looking to turn the format into primary source of revenue.
“Just playing your songs without an interactive, live audience is a little bit draining,” Anspach said. “It’s kind of reminding us of the old days, when there would be nobody at shows. You don’t realize how much you feed off the energy of the crowd until it’s not there and you have to perform for a camera.”
Baruch and DiCianni are currently brainstorming how to make the online experience more interactive for band members and fans — real-time viewing screens for the band, with fans streaming dance parties from their homes, or limited capacity shows with online components — but admitted they’ll likely never recreate the feeling of a packed room.
“It’s obviously never going to be the same experience,” Baruch said. “Talking with all of our bands about how weird it was at first compared with how it is now, it has changed for the better. Bands are getting more used to it. They’re feeding off of each other’s energy now, instead of the fan base watching.”
Goose will spend the rest of the summer recording new songs, Anspach said, and may do a drive-in type of show, if the right opportunity presents itself.
Meanwhile, Anspach treats the mandatory break from the road like a rare gift, and expects the first shows back on tour to be explosions of energy.
“Lord knows, when the floodgates are open, every band is going to be touring like madmen,” Anspach said.