Roger Clyne and The Peacemakers have been road warriors since the 1990’s when their song "Banditos" became a radio hit.  They’ve hadn’t slowed down until early March of this year when, like the rest of the touring industry, everything ground to a halt.

Never a band to rest on their laurels, Clyne and company recently put to together a wildly successful $15 ticketed online show that included an opener and lasted 3 hours.

Here they share five of the lessons that they learned.

1. Streaming is a completely different beast than live shows. Artists aren’t used to the structure and it takes a lot more focus, patience, and commitment to the process than just a live performance.  They’re used to feeding off the energy from the audience - without one, they need to be prepared and find the energy elsewhere to deliver an engaging performance to the camera.

2. Pick your partner wisely.  We chose Let’s Go Live for our streaming partner which includes a pay per view paywall.  After a botched attempt using another service when the paywall crashed the server precisely at showtime showed us preparing for the unexpected is really important.   

Customer Service options are key because just as many of us are new to producing streamed shows, fans are new to watching streams too. Many issues like browser compatibility, download speeds and login challenges are solved with tech support.

3. Commit to promoting the show beyond what a normal tour stop would require. A small percentage of people in each market are interested in streamed content, but if you can reach many markets with an effective campaign (email blast, social media, earned media, etc) the numbers can add up.

4. The show must be unique.  Assume fans are willing to wait for the next tour stop to see you, but  providing a one-off experience (guests, deep cut set lists, etc) are giving them must see tv if you’re monetizing the show.

5. Streaming is not a perfect science and instead of fighting it, just accept something(s) will go wrong. Put as many contingencies in place as possible and prepare the day(s) before as much as you can to work out any kinks that are controllable for the broadcast. Pay extra special attention as well to the Sales campaign making sure the user purchasing the experience is as simple as possible. 

Think it’s simple enough?  Go back and simplify it more to avoid as many problems as the possible day of the show.

Follow Roger Clyne and The Peacemakers on Bandsintown to learn about future live streams and concerts.

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