SellaBration '07 Tickets

Paradiso main stage 

As promised, this week we unveil details of how to get your hands on a ticket for SellaBration ’07. Just in case you have forgotten: on Thursday August 16, 2007 SellaBand will host a special concert to celebrate its first anniversary, called SellaBration ’07. This event will take place in Amsterdam, Netherlands at the legendary Paradiso. Performing for you will be Nemesea, Cubworld, Second Person, Clémence, Lily, Mandyleigh and Daniel Ward Murphy.

The intention of the evening is to show what we have achieved in one year and to put some great quality music on display. But it should not only be praying to the converted. We want as many media people, potential sponsors in as well and we will put tickets on sale for the general public, so people who are so far unfamiliar with our concept have a chance to check out what this SellaBand thing is all about. So, there will be 500 tickets on sale, both through Paradiso and our own Store, 500 tickets will be given away to media, sponsors and via competitions and we have 500 tickets available for Believers. These Believer tickets will be free but because demand will be huge, they will be limited to a maximum of two tickets per Believer. So if you want to obtain extra tickets for your friends, colleagues or next door neighbor, he or she will have to become a registered Believer first.

Send an e-mail to ticket@sellaband.com and simply state that you want to get a free ticket for SellaBration ’07. Please indicate if you want to get one or two free tickets. Tickets will be allocated on a first come first serve basis. They are strictly personal and cannot be passed on to someone else. So if you’re in Bejing China, or Vancouver Canada and have no intention to fly to Amsterdam, please be so kind as to not apply for tickets. Ticket holders will be informed via e-mail within the next two weeks.  

 
American Hotel 

Hotel

For those of you flying in from afar and for those
Dutchies who don't want to miss a minute of all the fun, we have been able to get a special rate at one of Amsterdam's landmark hotel. For 120 Euro per room, per night (including taxes, not including breakfast) we have secured rooms at the American Hotel on the Leisdplein, which is only 200 meters away from the Paradiso. If you want to stay at this historic, four start hotel on and/or around August 16, please write an e-mail to Annette@sellaband.com. And please indicate clearly your name, how many nights and number of rooms you want to book. 
 

Concert @ Sea: Disappointed but proud

 
Cub on stage

It’s a scary sight, standing on a stage in front of an empty rainy surface. No more than 200 uninterested people staring back at you. Most of them focusing merely on getting their portion of French fries. On the other side of the terrain thousands of music fans are awaiting their favorite Dutch pop idols.

 
Nemesea rockin' 
 

Obviously they were not made aware of the great offer of live performances scheduled at the Nieuwe Revu stage powered by SellaBand. But sod it. The French fries customers were in luck. The moment Radius, Francis, Cub and Nemesea played their first chords, surprised faces turned and approached our stage. All bands played their very best and rocked the audience off their socks.

Francis drawing a crowd
 

Next to our stage the Free Record Shop sold Nemesea’s and Cubworld’s CDs and played the brand new albums out loud. We sold quite a few copies and went home feeling disappointed but proud. We were disappointed by the lack of promotion for our bands at Concert at Sea. But we felt proud of the live shows the bands managed to pull off once again. Revu.nl placed a review in Dutch and embedded Francis Rodino’s performance on their site. You can watch it here.

Q + A Bim

The final Q + A of the season is reserved for a remarkable duo. In a relatively short time they have become very active, involved and popular on SellaBand and they are not taking their popularity for granted. Meet Tim and Rebecca, better known as BIM.

Who are Bim?

“Bim are a London-based duo, Rebecca Rosier, a writer/singer/performer and Tim Davis, musician/composer/producer. Rebecca loves the stage and has performed in many plays and dramatic works, and is currently studying Dance and Creative Writing at a London University. Tim has gigged around the country for years in rock bands from the early age of 13, and is about to begin his final year of his Commercial Music Composition degree.”

What made you join SellaBand?

“We'd heard about Second Person - the first UK band to hit 50K - through Tim's sister Katy Davis, an animator and director who created the music video for the track 'Gone Fishing' ( www.myspace.com/gobblynne/ ). We spoke to Mark Maclaine of Second Person and he told us the ins and outs of the idea, and we were hooked! We initially joined with only one and a half songs, so we have very much grown with SellaBand!”

How active are you?

“Very! We both try to build personal relationships through SellaBand, and have met some really great people through this site! Offline, we try really hard to promote ourselves. This week we are featured in The London Paper (a popular free newspaper distributed in almost every street in the Capital) and also had a feature in the British Gas company magazine! We always let people know that we are active and enthusiastic members of the SellaBand website. We seem to promote the site more than ourselves, hehe. We try to push the 'tell a friend to tell a friend' strategy and direct this at friends, families, ex-girlfriends, pets.. Anyone!!”

What are your ambitions?

“In short, to be admired and loved globally for our music. We have set ourselves no limits to what we can achieve, so the answer is to achieve everything.”

What kind of album would you like to make with SellaBand?

“One that makes as many spine tingling moments as possible!”

Are there any other SellaBands you particularly like?

“Hehe, this is the section where we can make and break friends… First off, Francis Rodino deserves this, probably more than anyone I've seen on here… I really hope he gets to 50k (very) soon to live his dreams. Go and invest in him! Other rated artists are UK's own Josie, her voice would be loved by the British public - she's cool, too. We love 50k artists Cubworld, Maitreya and of course Second Person. Others worthy of a mention are: Headphone, 180 Virvar and lovely Lucia Iman.”

Why should people Believe in Bim?

“We are young, creative, energetic and (very) ambitious, and the music reflects this. Our music is commercial but not cliched. We think you'll like it!”

Weekly Update

Summer Break

This, dear friends, is the last SellaBand Tribune of the 2006/2007 season. Yes, we are taking a break. For the next four weeks you will be able to find all necessary and important announcements on the news ticker and on the Forum. We’re expecting to be able to give you a release date of the Second Person CD in the next few weeks and there may be some other announcements either via e-mail or on the Forum. The next SellaBand Tribune will appear on Tuesday July 31, just in time to wet your appetite for SellaBration ’07. Until then, we wish you a pleasant Summer and please, don’t stop Believin’.

Chart Analysis

Mandyleigh enjoys her last ever presence on the Weekly Chart and holds on to the top spot with an impressive $10260. That’s a powerful way to wave goodbye! In the mean time, Bulletproof Messenger hold on to second place for a third straight week and are on the lookout for number one, that’s for sure. Solidtube have their best week yet and land at #3, perhaps on the back of a live-performance in their native Austria, where a number of our Believers saw them. Lorraine Jones’ $2,000 is also rather excellent and gets her to #4. And then Nearfield, who have just landed on Page 1 of the artist search, are at #5 on this Weekly Chart. The highest entry is for a brand new artist, Zoelah Boyd (thank you Arnis) and she is from a country we have never even heard of before: Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. A country that sounds like a cool band name, how great is that! Another chart debutant goes by the name of Johnson’s Legacy (NL) and is new at #18. Special mention of the week is for Australia’s Luna Assassins who are back at #14 after a bit of a hiatus. Josephine and her boys probably have their minds set on Page 1 again. Let’s see what happens in the next few weeks…

Luna Assassins

Headphone’s Exit Music

Belgian Group Headphone have informed us that they have decided to leave SellaBand. The band have signed a deal with PIAS, Belgium’s biggest independent record label. Bandleader Nico tells us that Headphone, who joined SellaBand on day 1, August 15 2006, have very much enjoyed their experience with us but that they feel that this is an opportunity the band cannot deny. “I know the future of SellaBand is very bright, we hope soon we will be able to say the same about Headphone.” We wish Headphone all the best on their journey to recognition and we will let you all know if and when we receive their first PIAS album in the mail.

The Week That Was

It was quite a busy week. Most important of all: Mandyleigh finished her budget. Her final 10K countdown is among the fastest we have experienced so far. New search engine leaders Vegas Dragons now feel the pressure of Bulletproof Messenger chasing them, but have just launched a new secret weapon: a brand new video which takes the phrase Artists and Believers make music and money together to a whole other level. And while Vegas and his Believer Natassia were busy finishing their video, our very own Pim had a busy week when he answered all kinds of questions in a thread on the forum, entitled: Ask me anything you like about the SellaBand Store. He did very well and showed his commitment by having a brand new picture taken for the occasion. On Saturday most of the SellaBand team made the long journey to the southern coast of the Netherlands for Concert At Sea. It was a mixed experience where disappointment and pride went hand in hand. Disappointment because loads of things went wrong and the SellaBand Stage was quite difficult to locate for non-Believers, but we were also very proud, because all the artist played their hearts out and made the most their opportunity to play on an open air stage.

NYC Picture Moments

Lily & Maitreya start recording

With two of our Recording Artists in the area, New York City is bristling with SellaBand activity. We caught up with them this past weekend.

 
Kevin Patrick, Maitreya and Kiyanu Kim @ the studio 

We met with Maitreya at Chung King Studio in downtown Manhattan, where he is at work with Kevin Patrick and Kiyanu Kim of BKN Productions. This is the place where the Beastie Boys once recorded their groundbreaking ‘License to Ill’ album and it oozes (HipHop) music history. Pictured here are Kevin (left), Maitreya (middle) and Kiyanu (right). They plan to record 10 songs together and hope to include several surprise guest performances.

On another part of town, the notorious Bronx to be precise, Lovely Lily is currently preparing her SellaBand album. Miss Vasquez wants to make a Latin flavored record with both Salsa and Pop songs. She will be using the cream of the crop of the Latino scene musicians and will be working with Charlie Contreras  and Pablo Garcia  at their Powerhouse Studio in the Bronx. Lily wants to record no less than 12 songs and hopes to have the record ready in the Fall. Pictured here are Charlie and Lily. Says Lily about her choice of producers:

"I chose my recording team for many reasons.  The first one is based on the really good sound quality they has shown to deliver.  I've heard many of their recordings and the sound quality is impeccable. Secondly, they  have experience producing Latin music and they understand my ideas, concept and mixture of genres I'm looking to record.  Third, I have worked with Charlie in the past and I have a good relationship with him and feel comfortable and at home when in the studio. I think it is very important to have that sense of trust and open communication when choosing a producer.  He is also very honest (can be brutally honest at times) and a perfectionist, so I'm confident he will bring the best out of me in this recording.  And last but not least, the boss and Robert Young (USA Sellaband representative) gave them a really good review, which assures me I made the right decision. I'm ready!"

 
Maitreya, Lily and are own JohanV 

And then, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, SellaBand’s JohanV met up with both Maitreya and Lily to discuss their respective projects. To illustrate how bright their future looks they all decided to wear their (cheap) sunglasses for this Kodak moment…

Store Questions Revisited

In one week’s time we have generated more than 3000 views and 120 replies all discussing our brand new SellaBand Store. It was great to hear all your feedback and we were well impressed with the suggestions you gave us. We will be implementing quite a few of them and it is safe to say that the changes will improve the Store for all of us. Here’s a summary of our discussion.

Can I see how my sales are going?

Many of you would like to know how many people actually pressed that shiny black shop button on your profile page. In other words, you want to know how much money you made. We will be making this clear to you in the next couple of weeks. Your proceeds will be visible by you (and only you) after logging in on your profile page. We will be showing the sale of the downloads and CDs real time. The ad revenue will be added to your balance every three months, because that’s how long it takes for us to get the add money on our bank account.

I want to sell my spare Limited Editions first!

In the current system, early Believers are rewarded for being the first to stick their necks out for the artist by selling the extra limited editions in the order in which they were purchased. But how about those Believers who got in later and are working hard to sell the extra limited editions. Utterly B Groovy commented the following:

“I understand the concept of selling them in the order in which they were purchased, but the added incentive of selling off your own "spares" first might galvanise more action from the Believers...”

We agree, smacked ourselves on the forehead for not figuring this out ourselves and integrated it in the system. Thank you for pointing this out to us.

The store needs a bigger presence on the homepage!
Everyone seems to agree. The store looks good, works well and is full of high quality (some of it even free) products.  But if new users can’t find it all that quality goes to waste. Many of you suggested shouting from the roof top that there is quality free music to download on SellaBand. Our designers are on it now. You will see the improvement asap.

Artists that recorded with SellaBand are allowed to leave after a year. What happens to my limited Editions? What if they haven’t been sold yet?

There is no time limit to the sales of the Limited Editions. So even if the artist decides to leave after a year you can still sell them. They are your property! You are just using our platform to sell them (and make a commission ;-)

We hope this article gives you an idea of the feedback that we have gotten from the community. If you are interested in reading more about this topic you can read the full thread here!