Viberate will shake up the global live music industry by creating a decentralized marketplace that helps musicians, fans, and event organizers find each other and support one another.
[Note: This is a sponsored article.]
Being a musician is often a difficult job. Only the most successful artists have agents that hustle to get them live gigs and exposure. The vast majority of musicians are left to fend for themselves and are often ill-equipped to handle the demands of booking, securing payment, and promotion. Likewise, event organizers often have a lot of trouble finding acts to fill their bills and are frequently left to deal with the uncertainty of lesser-known artists.
Into this void steps Viberate, the decentralized live music marketplace, that seeks to shake up the live music industry by bringing musicians, venues, event organizers, and music lovers together.
Live Music Is Booming But Issues Remain
While most attention is paid to the recording industry, the live music scene is extremely vital and thriving. Overall, the music industry has an annual revenue of $250 billion USD, and live musical performances account for a third of that amount.
There are roughly a staggering 50 million live music events held throughout the world every year. Those numbers are enough to make you think that business is booming and that there’s little to worry about, but the reality is that both artists and event organizers face a number of hurdles.
One problem is that the vast majority of musicians are not represented by any agents. This makes earning a living as a musician quite difficult as it’s hard for a lone artist to make themselves stand out from the crowd as well as act as manager, promoter, and bookkeeper. Then there’s the possibility of not being paid for services rendered and not having any recourse to gain the compensation owed them.
On the flip side, event organizers and venues have problems of their own. Finding enough musical acts to fit their required needs on a weekly basis is extremely tough as it’s difficult to stay knowledgeable about how many artists are actually available and what acts are getting hot and which ones are cooling down.
Organizers also have the additional burden of providing payment to the artists if there is no formal representation, not to mention how to deal with low-profile musicians that don’t hold up their end of the bargain by not showing up or providing a poor performance.
These issues can now be resolved with Viberate, the first service to offer blockchain-based solutions for the live music industry. This decentralized music marketplace is firmly supported by a number of organizations and luminaries in the cryptocurrency field. In fact, the European Commission chose Viberate as one of the eight startups that are destined to change the music industry.
Shaking Up the Live Music Industry with Viberate
Viberate looks to give a voice and a boost to both artists and event organizers alike. The service has fostered a decentralized music ecosystem by creating an open database of musicians and venues that anyone can add to.
There are over 120,000 musician profiles at Viberate already, and 50,000 venue profiles will be added soon. The beauty of Viberate is that it opens up exposure and communication between artists and event organizers and uses blockchain technology to create smart contracts that protect both parties.
Viberate is based upon the Ethereum platform and uses blockchain technology to crowdsource the curating process of information for event, musician, and venue profiles. These profiles can be easily sorted through various filters, such as music genre, country, and social media.
Viberate uses a powerful analytics engine to analyze daily billions of data points taken from social media and streaming sites, such as an artist’s fan following and level of engagement. This data is shown in graph form in comparison to earlier time periods so that venues can determine if an act or musical trend is getting hotter or cooling off.
Event organizers will be able to easily sort through thousands of available musicians and book them directly using Viberate. Millions of unrepresented artists will now have access to paying gigs, and event organizers will have a vast pool of acts to choose from.
A lot of you want to know the difference between Viberate and other music services on the blockchain. Here goes: https://t.co/KmtjMxbXf3
— Viberate (@viberate) July 28, 2017
Protecting Both Musician and Venue
But wait…there’s more. Viberate shakes up the live music industry even more by providing protection for both parties through the creation of smart contracts using blockchain technology.
Specific requirements for a booking can be written into the smart contract, such as the date and time of the performance, the artist’s fee, the length of the performance, the venue and event organizer details, and any technical and hospitality requirements. This smart contract is then time stamped and added to the blockchain. This smart contract can be amended if both parties agree to do so, which then necessitates the voiding of the original contract and an updated version added to the blockchain.
Viberate facilitates venues booking musicians by using digital currency as payment. Using fiat currencies normally requires licenses from centralized financial institutions in order to set up an escrow account, but this requirement can be ignored completely through the combination of the smart contract and use of digital currency to create a safe and effective escrow.
Payment is handled by the event organizer paying the agreed number of ETH or VIB (Vibe, the token issued by Viberate) into a specially created wallet once the contract is digitally signed. After the musical performance has taken place, the event organizer has 24 hours to register any complaints, such as the artist not showing up. If there are no issues reported, the artist is then paid by having the digital currency transferred into their wallet. If an issue is reported, then a trained tribunal of music business experts will mediate the dispute and decide on whether to return the funds back to the event organizer or pay the artist.
Learn More About Viberate
Viberate is going to change the live music industry across the globe. Its emphasis on a decentralized marketplace in which anybody can add a musical act will level the playing field and allow millions of previously unknown artists to be easily found by event organizers.
The beauty of Viberate is that it offers benefits to both musicians and event organizers, allowing each to succeed by creating lines of communication and an effective means of working together.
Viberate’s ICO is slated to begin on September 5th, during which time 120 million Vibe (VIB) tokens will be available for purchase with ETH. Vibe can also be earned by contributing to the community, and users can use the tokens to hire musicians or even buy merchandise or tickets to a live music event.
To learn more about the Viberate project, visit the official website or download the project whitepaper.
Viberate will give voice and exposure to millions of musicians and help event organizers find talented musical acts that they may not even know existed.
Are you a musician? What do you think of the Viberate platform? Will you use it to find more gigs? Let us know in the comments below.
Images courtesy of Viberate