The Future of Artist Revenue Streams

     As we pursue our dreams in this Digital Age, the Internet has equipped artists of all kind with the power to accomplish their career goals in Music, Art, Fashion, and Action. Crow-funding sites like KickStarter provide emerging artists the opportunity to acquire the funds necessary to fuel their passion and develop their craft. Corporate company cast-offs focus beyond brick-and-mortar and open up shops on Storenvy, Etsy, Shopify, and Big Cartel. Also, the torrent of streaming music services has erupted, with Spotify and Pandora creating a digital distribution platform for musicians and entertainers. Although there are many options for sourcing revenue, The Yacht Club Company specializes in providing quality artist merchandise as a fundamental tool in establishing a brand and growing your network.

     Listeners have flocked to this easy abundance of an all-you-can-eat model for music, but many musicians have been far less enthusiastic. According to Billboard and Canadian Business, a musician penned a frustrated screed noting that his BMI Royalty check showed that three song writers received 21 cents for 7,800 plays on Pandora and $1.05 for 5,960 plays on Spotify. That works out to per-stream royalties of $0.000027 and $0.0000176, respectively (Peoples, 2012). So for a small monthly fee or the occasional annoyance of advertisements, music lovers have access to a vast collective record library, which most likely includes your favorite artist. Forcing artists to rely less on record sales and focus more on building a brand and revenue stream through artist merchandising.

     As CD sales continue to decline, music merchandise is becoming an increasingly essential piece of artists’ revenues. According to Rolling Stones, Arena headliners like Tom Petty and Mötley Crüe get multimillion-dollar advances for signing deals with merchandising and apparel companies to manufacture their items. Concert tees, especially black ones, remain the best-selling products for artists (Hiatt, 2006).

     We have had the unique opportunity to create artist merchandise for several local artists, including Ariel Hill, Laura Reed, Alex Saad, KDSML, SOSA, White Noise, and many more. We are committed to providing excellent quality in all that we do while maintaining our environmental integrity throughout our screen-printing process. In our effort to bring people together to experience something so much greater than the individual, we encourage artists to create a tangible asset to their music and build a brand through artist merchandise.

Feel free to visit our website to learn more about our company and mission to impact the world through Music, Art, Fashion, and Action. If interested in artist merchandising or apparel printing, please contact us at ContactUs@TheYachtClubCo.com.  

Barmak, S. (2013). Can't stop the music. Canadian Business, 86(1/2), 67.

Christman, E. (2013). Pandora's Bigger Slice. Billboard, 125(26), 4-6.

Hiatt, B., & Knopper, S. (2006). The Big Business of Rock Tees. Rolling Stone, (996), 10.

Peoples, G. (2012). The Myth Of The Penny Pinchers. Billboard, 124(44), 10.

Reggie Williams

Reggie Williams grew up on a steady diet of Jazz and Soul like George Benson, Sade, and All Jarreau, but it was hearing rock and pop when he was 13 that made him want to begin writing and recording music. Reggie started performing around the same time, and people became connected to his music much like the way he was connected to the music he loved.

Reggie began with two bedroom recordings titled, Songs For Stories and Learning to Live, which you can find for free here: reggiewilliams.bandcamp.com. He grew up in the scene, playing any show he could get, and moved on to Florida State University’s Music School.

He began writing more songs while obtaining his education, and knew he wanted to do something of higher fidelity that would convey the ideas better. So he began saving up and began recording with a close friend and producer, Robby, and released the Change EP in January of 2012, which can also be found on Reggie’s Bandcamp.

Currently, Reggie resides in Orlando, FL, and the next step is to give more and to grow. He has been writing more songs since his move, and he plans to record an EP and head on tour up the east coast to 33 cities, one of which will be Nashville, with the help of our audience backing his Kickstarter, which you can check out here: http://kck.st/19Y0HAw. Reggie and his backers believe in what he is doing here wholeheartedly, and we want to invite you to join as well.

Reggie WIlliams - Change

Help Ariel Find Her Voice

The most difficult part about living the dream is finding the funds to do so. In today’s society, many talented and ambitious individuals have the opportunity to pursue their passions through crowd funding. What the heck is Crowd Funding? Yvonne A. Ramsey, writer for Business People, defines crowd funding as the process of raising money to help turn promising ideas into business realities by connecting investees with potential supporters.

Crowd funding is an emerging online trend representing a new potential pool of capital as a source of start-up equity financing. It’s simple; a central tenant of crowd funding is that the crowd funds what the crowd wants. This is a tremendous asset to creative individuals looking to pursue their dreams as crowd funding creates a demand while providing the funds for the supply. Aspiring entrepreneurs are increasingly jumping onboard with sites like Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, Peerbackers and ChipIn. Now, as the concept becomes well known, users have become savvier about creating interesting profiles, targeting their audiences and promoting their offerings. We had the unique opportunity of joining in on the marketing efforts of the Kickstarter campaign for Ariel Hill, aspiring singer/songwriter in Nashville, TN.

To describe Ariel Hill’s music, the best way to put it is a contemporary twist on soul music.  Her bluesy vocals in combination with her Broadway star-like vocal range makes her a rarity in today’s music scene.  Her style is unique and diverse, as shown by whom she draws much inspiration from:  Aretha Franklin, The Beatles, The Strokes, Justin Timberlake, and Coldplay.

Ariel Hill is only 21 years old but has already been on quite the roller coaster ride in her musical journey to Nashville, Tennessee.  Ariel has many friends and great mentors that believe in her talent and want her to follow through on her vision. However, for a singer/songwriter, success only comes from people being able to hear your music. By supporting and successfully funding her Kickstarter campaign, we can send our ears on a magical journey to hear her new EP, Supernova. And for that, we salute you!