Thursday, August 25, 2005
Discuss | 
E-mail to a friend | 
Print-friendly version
Our Music Experience just got better
By
Kate Westrich
Being a successful musician is about playing music well, captivating the audience onstage and marketing yourself or your band really well. Our Music Experience makes it easier for bands to focus on the music and performance part of the music business.
Jason Chilcoat, creator and president of Our Music Experience, has been playing music for 17 years so he understands the work it takes to market a band. He also has been working in information technology for the past seven years, giving him insight into the ways the Internet can help streamline the music industry.
“A lot of things could be done more efficiently through the web,” Chilcoat said. Our Music Experience is a set of tools specifically for the music industry.”
These tools include allowing musicians and bands to upload media, such as content, pictures, audio and video, to a place where booking agents can see and review them. Singer and songwriter Rebecca Lindsey from Tampa, Florida, has been using Our Music Experience for more than a year. She likes that “the Web site looks extremely professional and it is also searchable.” She said, “I believe it is a great tool to use to market yourself, so that makes a difference for me.”
Part of the tool allows people, musicians and venue booking agents alike, to schedule events. Our Music Experience acts as a booking service for three types of events. The first is a traditionally scheduled event that a band or venue has scheduled on their own and wants to post on the Web site. The second allows bands to schedule events with other acts and venues on their own. The Web tool allows people to accept the event and create a legal contract – all online – thereby legitimizing the event.
Setting up events through the tool minimizes the communication necessary to confirm a show. Chilcoat cited a show his band Defunct Red was planning as an example. “I am in a show with one other band and I bet we sent ten emails back and forth setting things up,” he said. The Web tool “puts a process around something that has never had a set process.”
The final types of events that Our Music Experience can help with are music conferences and festivals. People can submit entry to larger events in such a way that organizers can review submissions and accept them or decline them with comment.
Our Music Experience also acts as a tool to help musicians communicate with their fans. There is a storefront capability on the Web site so bands can make their merchandise available and sell it online. Also, people can vote for bands they like, thereby establishing a documented fan base.
“No one is recording this information now – its just hearsay,” Chilcoat said of band popularity. “Our Music Experience is a living resume for music industry members.”
That living resume can be an affective tool for both bands and booking agents. Ands can approach an agent and point to their fan base, along with their music, of course, as a reason for booking them. And a booking agent can verify a band’s popularity, which can help them book more lucrative shows.
The end goal is for bands to be able to make more money by spending more of their time playing shows, and maybe playing better ones. “We focus on the business; you take care of the creative,” said Chilcoat. “We act as a sort of agent between everyone.”
Kate Westrich is a Cincinnati native and avid flip-flop wearer.
