 What's up everybody once again, it's Brandman Sean and this video is brought to you by brandmannetwork.com because I signed myself and today we have to talk about pay to play from a completely different perspective and I want to start with this video right here. This is about opening up the shows when they come to Tallahassee, right? And they wonder why does a promoter charge what they charge to open up, right? And I'm going to just say this part on me being a promoter, right? When an artist says, you're dumb, I'm charging you 40,000 to come to your city, right? A lot of times a nigga really don't even be thinking about opening acts. Let me tell you why, because it's a headache that comes along with that. Now, when we do say open acts, if you want to be an open act, you have to invest in the show. You have to be, if you can call a sponsor, whatever. But for you to be able to take, for one, you're not opening up for the artist. I just want to let y'all know that you're not going in there to perform because you think Lil Baby is going to see you perform and he's going to sign you. Y'all got to get that out your mind. The part that you're doing, you're paying for is to take the crowd that they're bringing to the club and you're opening up for that crowd. Now, before we get into that particular video, I got a question. Does pay to play make sense to you? Does it make sense? Because I got to think about it this way. If you had a kid, let's say that you're older and you got a kid and your kid is blowing up on Instagram. They build this big old Instagram. You see them grinding every single day and next thing you know, they got a million followers and all sorts of people are reaching out to them to get on their platform. They're not rich or anything, but they have a lot of followers and people want to get on their platform. Do you advise your kid not to take money to get on their platform? I think not. Why? Because it makes sense. They built their platform. They put in this work. Of course, it makes sense for them to be able to monetize their platform. There's nothing wrong with that part and I think when people think about it that way, it's completely logical. It makes sense. Now, when we think about things like paid shows and things of that nature, we get a little bit emotional at times because artists start to feel like, look man, I'm just trying to get put on. All I need is an opportunity. All I need is a crowd and obviously a lot of artists have issues with money. They don't necessarily have a lot of money, but the thing is the most important thing that you have to be able to do is what? Understand the business model. We have to talk so much about business model on this channel because once you understand the business model of the people that you're doing business with, then you can truly make sure that you're an asset. So back to that particular video and what that guy said. I can't remember his name, but he was making it very clear of how a promoter thinks, right? And being a promoter is different than being a curator, right? When we talk about Paola and things like that, that's more about the perception that I love this song. I love this music and I'm kind of letting people see that this is my stamp because it's here and I genuinely like that even though I took payment and I don't necessarily like it. That's a whole other thing. Promotions. A promoter had two primary jobs. Number one, get as many people there as possible. Number two, turn a profit. That's it. All the additional stuff is, you know, those are the things that kind of separate the good promoters and the bad promoters and their personality and network abilities and how they handle clients. All the other stuff is good. But everybody has the two primary jobs they have to answer to. People in the crowd, money in the bank. That's it. If you don't contribute to either one of those, why would a promoter want you there? That's what they have to think about. That's what you have to think about because what a lot of artists get caught up in. Again, it's stuff regarding them and their personal ideas and complete lack of consideration of what that other person's job is. The business model that they have to answer to at the end of the day. And if you can't get that, you're likely going to have a lot of trouble in business, especially, but probably life in general. And what I mean by that is the fact that, look, when you come into a situation or you're trying to get into a situation, you have to know the position that you play. You have to look at value from the perspective of the other individual because a lot of artists get that twisted and misinterpret the entire reason that they're there in the first place. You aren't there to meet this big artist, right? You aren't there to necessarily even believe you're going to get the biggest fan base in the world and blow up or get noticed by a manager. Some people do sell those dreams, but there's a lot of promoters who do not sell that dream and you just have to understand what position you play because if you don't know what position you play, you can't deliver and you can't provide value truly to other people without understanding their value. It's the equivalent of when somebody gets hired for a job and they're in all these other departments doing all this great work and helping other people out so much, but they aren't doing the job that they got hired for. That's the most important thing. Know your position, handle that first, and then we can handle this extra sauce. A lot of people are getting to the sauce and they don't have any meat to put the sauce on. So from an artist's perspective, yes, look, you're here to help this promoter make the money, right? If that's the model where you're helping sell tickets, right? They're going to want more of you. If you are often selling tickets, then they're going to want you to be on more and more. That's why they're paying this bigger artist to be on the bill because that bigger artist is bringing in tickets. That's why they got them. If that bigger artist wasn't bringing in tickets, then of course that artist would have to try to pay them too because they need to make money at the end of the day. That's the only reason that they're bringing them in. There's big artists that have huge fan bases, but don't apply to the fan base that that promoter has ability to reach or don't even have a fan base in the region that that promoter is in. So they're not going to bring that big artist out, right? It's all relative. Or if the artist's charge is so much that they can't reach a fan base that enough to actually, and pay ticket sales enough that are actually going to exceed the price, then it still won't make sense for the promoter. We have to understand what other people are dealing with, what their business and what their life looks like so that way we can provide the value from that perspective. So for my artist, analyze a situation from you. Yes, you can look at what they have going on. That's what you always need to do. More and more people need to understand the other side and the other business model because there's always implications of that business model when you understand what that is. But then, now let's analyze what things look like for you. We're talking about paying to get on a show. Yes, that might suck that you have to pay money. And I'm not saying, yo, everybody needs to pay on a show. I'm saying paying for a show should be looked at subjectively. What is the crowd that you're going to be in front of? Does the artist match up to the type of crowd that you need to be in front of? If so, maybe that's valuable. Do you even perform well enough to make fans offer your performance? Because that is meaningful. People don't consider that. They aren't self-aware. Oh, I got this kind of music. They got those kind of fans that like this type of music. I'm going to get in front of them. But if your performance isn't up to par, then what does it matter? You're probably going to get in front of them and not do yourself justice. And then another thing is consider what is another rep? Another rep is valuable to somebody who doesn't have reps. And what I say rep, I mean repetition, like working out. How many times do you flex this muscle, work out this muscle so you can build that muscle? You might be in a position where you just need to be able to perform multiple times and get that experience in front of a crowd. So just like baseball player pays to go to a batting cage. Sometimes a basketball player has to pay to get access to a certain gym if they don't already have access to a gym. You're paying to get in your performance gym. That might make sense for you in a particular situation, particularly if there are a lot of free shows where you are. Or if that pay show allows you to perform in front of a bigger crowd than you ever have before and you have money, right? If you can pay $100 to get in front of a thousand people and perform just to see and feel what that looks like and try to rock that crowd, then that can very well be worth it and analyze it with your own mind. Look at those situations individually because what we can't keep doing is having people feed artists this whole mentality of the artist being the victim. Yes, there are some situations where artists are the victim, but what's more important was actually going to change your life and your situation individually is being entitled to your own perspective but also understanding the reality of how things work, right? And you understanding that you are responsible for your own career. So at the end of the day, that's what I have to work from. Yes, these people do this. Maybe you believe that these people shouldn't be charged an artist to be on the show but in regard to your own situation is it going to move the needle forward in terms of business or not? Because a huge issue that artists have and in conflict and why certain things seem evil when they aren't necessarily is just mismanaged expectations. Yes, there are people who sell a dream, right? And tell you it's going to do this and it's going to do that and you need to do this and that and then now you go in with those expectations and it's not that. Of course that does exist but a lot of times it's the assumption that artists might make. I see that this big artist is going to be on a bill or I just want to be around him, I want to be in that same room or I want to be able to have a flyer that says I perform with them, right? Things like that. That's what the artist is doing. Selling themselves that artists, right? Have to be able to empower themselves to make their own decisions and that's what it's more about. Look, what's the information? Consider the information. Now that the information is out there especially on the internet and then let's make the proper situation work for you. That simple. Because all of this victimization mentality that people put on artists and all these people are doing y'all wrong, these people are doing y'all wrong I'm not helping artists either. It really isn't and honestly it's enabling the whole thing that created the system that we have in the first place. Artists need to be catered to, artists need to be treated as if they aren't business people, right? So we need to get them hooked on vices and keep them stuck over here not paying attention to the business so we can do business while the artist is over there just having fun and not doing anything important all they're just making music and we can go deal with the money take all the money while they're out there. No. If you want to be on the business end of things as well then you have to have the idea and mentality that look I'm responsible for my own career. All these artists are treated this way artists are treated that way and they're wrong and these entities are evil that doesn't add up once you take responsibility for your own situation because now you getting screwed is up to either you just don't know which is your responsibility look so you have to learn cool or you didn't take the time to learn and analyze the situation individually as opposed to just taking some random advice you heard or going with this random theme that everybody needs to be independent or everybody needs to be signed to a label so keep those things in mind because paid shows aren't necessarily bad they aren't and even with that being said paid shows make sense for the business model of the promoter it's up to you to opt in or opt out but it doesn't make their situation bad and it is important for you to understand and be able to analyze not only their business model but every business model of the people you're dealing with within the industry because that's going to only empower you to make better decisions and navigate far greater even when we talk about the politics of things right you'll be able to navigate far greater when you take the time to understand what they work off of not from a perspective of oh they just don't care about the artist no why is their business set up this way what are the powers that be behind them or what do they have to answer to business model wise what do they have to go through stress wise and then you're able to figure out how you can provide value to them sometimes not even for money at all because you understand how their system work how their system work how their system works and how this whole game is thinking as a whole I would love to know what you guys think put it in the comment section below have you approached things have you had the wrong mentality going about things you know be transparent or do you just know people who do have that mentality I would love to know what promoters think especially let me hear that but as always this video is brought to you by brandmannetword.com we help artists build their brands develop their brand build some infrastructure so they can get their fan base go and get real progress if you're interested in checking that out brandmannetword.com link in the description below but as always if you like this video go hit the like button if you like it you might as well share it and if you're not subscribed you know what to do hit that subscribe