“I think our concept of offering artists an alternative source of income is very appealing to many”
In spring 2018, EXIT LIVE launched a new music platform that allows musicians to upload recordings of their own concerts online and sell them without great effort. The technical development of the decentralized platform is taking place in Vienna. Michael Ternai spoke to MATIAS MENO, musician (including GIN GA) and the head of the development team about the idea behind the platform, the opportunity it offers artists to generate additional income, and the challenges that had to be mastered in the initial phase.
How did you get started with Exit Live?
Matias Meno: I was contacted by Giorgio Serra and David Stone, who both had the idea for the project and also founded Exit live. They came to me because I have developed quite a few open source projects in the past, two of which have become relatively popular. They were looking for developers to take over the lead development of the platform and then came across my name on a programming platform. After finding out that I am also a musician and my most famous open source library is a file uploader, they thought it would go well together. They contacted me to ask if I might be interested to participate in this project.
Exit Live looks like a very international project.
Matias Meno: That’s for sure. Giorgio lives in Australia, David Stone in Bali and another co-founder in Italy. Most of the rest of the team work from London. The development team is based here in Vienna. I think you can hardly be more international.
What is the idea behind Exit Live? A platform where you can sell the recordings of your own concerts?
Matias Meno: Basically, the core idea is not a particularly innovative one. But what we are trying to revolutionize is the way smaller artists can present themselves on the market. What has been important to us from the very beginning was that we treat the small artists the same way as the larger artists. There is no preference for big names. Everyone who has an account and uploads concerts will get the same opportunities and chances to be featured on the frontpage. What we also wanted to was to get away from are all these likes and views that ultimately determine how much you are worth on the market. These are visible solely to the artists.
It was also important for us to make Exit Live completely transparent. The artists should always have clarity about their share. How much money they get, when they get it and how much money goes where. When you upload a concert to our website, you can see exactly how much goes to our payment provider, to us, to the royalties and to the venue, which also receive a part. All this you can already see this as soon as you set the price for the concert. So you can already estimate in advance how much you´ll receive.
Another feature that distinguishes our platform from others is that we make it possible to sell the concert uploaded to the site immediately. You play a concert, make a recording and upload it immediately.
Something else we didn’t want were the usual payout cycles, which means that payouts are made once a quarter. At Exit Live, every musician has an account and can decide for themselves when they want their money paid out.
Exit Live went online in spring. How much preparatory work was necessary to get there? And which difficulties did you have to overcome?
Matias Meno: It took quite some time to get onto the market. Because we were set up international and decentralised, we obviously encountered some problems in all fields of work. But that’s not too unusual in a project such as this. There are always unforeseen matters that need to be solved, such as questions about royalties, or how to deal with different currencies and different VAT rates.
The launch of Exit Live took place this February. We launched as a beta version and are currently still in the beta phase. Our aim now is to test the concept a little more and, if possible, optimise it. It’s not so much about the technical functionality, but more about which other features we can make available to the artists to make it easier for them, and which tools we offer to the fans to make it easier for them to get to the music.
What about the collecting societies? Who settles the royalties?
Matias Meno: That was one of the most complicated challenges. We have concluded a cooperation agreement with the Italian collecting society, which makes worldwide processing possible for us. We have a direct link to them. When you upload a concert you also make a tracklist of the songs you played. We also have a special arrangement with the Italian collecting society, which says that if you are the sole owner of the rights or if there are no more royalties because it is a classic piece, you can ignore the payment of royalties. This will, of course, be checked by both sides.
Otherwise, the usual happens. We take the royalties and keep the percentage provided for us and transfer the rest to the Italian collecting society, which then takes care of splitting the royalties.
Is Exit Live open to all genres?
Matias Meno: Definitely, whereby we forgot the classical genre subdivisions on our site. What we do, however, is to subdivide the type of artist so that we can present them better. You can register as an orchestra, as jazz formation or solo artist.
What we have noticed, is that Exit Live was initially used by a lot of classical musicians. In addition, we already had several choirs that were able to sell their concerts very successfully. I believe that is due to the fact that a choir consists of multiple people who bring along many interested people. Right now a lot of people from the jazz scene are joining. For example, we have an Italian artist who has uploaded ten concerts to Exit Live and is doing quite well.
Do the recordings require a certain sound quality?
Matias Meno: Generally speaking, we leave this decision up to the artists. One thing is for sure: If the quality is not what it could be, it won´t be listened to as much as it could be. This is no different with Amazon or Spotify. You can listen to 30 seconds of each song on Exit Live, and within this time you can already get an idea of the quality that awaits you.
How satisfied are you with the development since the launch? How many acts have uploaded concerts to Exit Live in the meantime? And how actively is the platform used by music fans?
Matias Meno: Considering the fact that we have only recently gone online, our user numbers are very pleasing. Especially when you consider the fact that we have not yet started a major advertising campaign. We´ll be able to provide accurate numbers and useful statistics by the end of the year.
Anyway, we had our first big appearance at the Liverpool Sound City Festival. We were one of the official partners of the festival and asked the performing acts if they would be willing to upload their concert to Exit Live. In total there were about thirty bands who did. That was a really nice thing.
How has the financing been so far? Does the project receive funding or are there investors?
Matias Meno: I have been involved in many start-ups and have to say that this project is going surprisingly well. I think our concept of offering artists an alternative source of income is very appealing to many. Also for investors. I believe that a lot of people like to see themselves in this light. Kind of like “I am involved in the music scene and support something good. I support something that musicians use to live better”.
So far this has made it quite easy to set up investment, although we have not yet landed a major investor who would enable us to launch an international advertising campaign. But we haven’t actually looked for one yet. Our current goal is to cover the running costs of development.
What are the next steps?
Matias Meno: Our business plan is to launch a major advertising campaign next summer. Until then, we´re counting on Exit Live to spread through word of mouth to get more people to start using the platform so that we can say it works and the way we built it is well received. We now have one year to resolve any problems and make improvements.
Thank you very much for the interview!
Michael Ternai (translated from the German original by Dave Dempsey)
Links:
Exit Live
Exit Live (Facebook)