FanBand Software is a new $39.99 application for musicians that is designed to let you sell digital music files at gigs.
FanBand works by letting your audience purchase songs directly from a laptop you provide at shows, and automatically sends your music file directly to their email address, without the need for a credit card terminal, a merchant account, or even an internet connection in the venue at the time.
All transactions are cash only, and you retain 100% of the profit.
You also obtain the fan’s email address and MySpace address, so you can build a ‘local MySpace list’ to keep your new fans updated, right from FanBand Software.
In addition to selling your mp3 files at shows, you can also use FanBand as a listening booth and a mailing list. You can keep track of how many plays a song received, how many songs you sold and other statistics all from the show.
When your fans check their email accounts, all they do is download your songs that they purchased at the show. You can contact them directly to their MySpace page or via email the following day, and thank them for coming down to your show and supporting you.
Fanband doesn’t list the specs on the site, but it looks Windows only. A free demo version is available, so you’ll want to give it a try if you’re interested in the software.
The software is brand new – so if you give it a try, let me know what you think in the comments!
I actually just downloaded it – this software has some cool things about it. The interface is pretty easy to use, there is no menu bar in the software though, but I think that is done to keep everything in full screen if you were to bring it to a show and use. I used it on a PC at it works. I am not sure if this would work on a mac, unless running windows in mac. I thought setting up the email be confusing (that’s how it sends the file to the fan who bought it at the show), but it’s like setting up email in outlook. I tested it out and I acted as if I was a fan purchasing it and the 3 files sent to my email, opened them and right into my itunes. But you have to go to the menu choice, ‘send fan requests’ first. But, there is option called ’email at the show,’ which I guess if you are connected online, you could send right at the show. You can select which mp3 files you want to give away for free, which seems good if you want people to sign up more. I play live acoustically, I am going to bring this at my next gig and see the response, plus I don’t have a cd out, so at least people could get something. WIth my laptops screen, i can see people coming up to this and being curious…like…whoa… what is that. It’s def. interesting if bands have laptops it couldn’t hurt bringin it to a gig. My only thing was at first I didn’t know you have to know the ‘keystrokes’ to authorize a sale, which was CTRL and press Enter. The instructions page is detailed at least and I figured it out quickly. It never crashed, unlike my friggin cubase.
I can see this being an addition to selling other merch with. I think if you had a hot ass girl operating it while you were performing, would prob. get more peeps to check it out. It works from what I tried, I was unsure at first on with the whole email setup, but figured it out. Not bad, something I can see bands eventually using.
Good read, thanks. Always looking out for weird and wonderful stuff to read 🙂