Subscription services are slowly taking over every entertainment market on the planet. Where the idea of not actually owning any of your own music, movies or TV shows was unthinkable to culture lovers as recently at 10 years ago (me among them), it seems as though the people of today would rather just have access than full ownership of entertainment.
Companies like Netflix and Spotify (albeit the latter has yet to turn an actual profit despite being the leading streaming music provider in the world) have proven this, with millions of subscribers the world over singing up. Yet while these services offer access to digital products, in 2016 we are starting to see subscription services moving into the physical world.
GiggedIn Infinite, a new live music subscription service launched by homegrown live music crowd funding resource GiggedIn, is doing just that. So far only offering it’s service in Sydney, in the same way Netflix and Spotify give you access to movies, tv and music, GiggedIn Infinite let’s you attend as many live shows as you want for a modest monthly fee of $35. And while this may not seem like a big deal to many of you now, a lot of people said that about Netflix and Spotify when they first popped up as well.
Let’s look at the stats. Despite being largely ignored by the entertainment establishment in their early days, Netflix and Spotify are now two of the biggest threats to big entertainment players. Netflix boasting 69 million subscribers and Spotify with 60 million (15 million paid), anyone arguing that streaming services were a fad that would soon fade away would be hard put to prove their case.
GiggedIn Infinite are hoping to follow a similar trajectory, with CEO Ed Onggo believing the service will inspire music fans who might not go to gigs all that often to get off the couch and start checking out more live music. How do they plan to do this? Just like any good capitalist enterprise, GiggedIn Infinite is built on self interest.
“Look at it this way. You’ve paid for a GiggedIn Infinite subscription, aren’t you going to want to get the most value out of your subscription?” Onggo asks.
“So to do that you’re going to be trying to get out there and see as many shows as you can, even by artists you might not have heard before, as after all you’ve already paid your $35.
“We’ve got lots of data the proves this is already happening. Not only are our members attending more shows than normal, they’re also attending a lot of shows they wouldn’t have otherwise and discovering new music because of it” he adds.
Much in the same way that you would discover new music and TV shows by browsing Spotify and Netflix, so too will GiggedIn allow subscribers to broaden their taste in live music by perusing the shows the service has on offer. With up to 20 available some weeks, the prospect of seeing that much live music however admittedly appeals to a smaller market than on demand music and video.
Yet unlike Netflix and Spotify, which are often seen as taking revenue away from existing players in the market, GiggedIn Infinite does the opposite, teaming with promoters and/or venues to boost revenue and attendance.
“I’ve been to way too many shows where great acts were playing to an empty room and Infinite can help with that by bringing in people who wouldn’t normally have gone to the show otherwise” Ed explains.
Indeed with almost 98% of live music events failing to sell out, GiggedIn Infinite is likely to be as attractive a prospect for the industry as it is for punters. Far less disruptive in it’s business model, the service stands to side step what proved to be the biggest hurdle to many other streaming services – industry resistance.
Where both Netflix and Spotify had to battle long and hard for the entertainment industry to take the subscription service business model seriously, GiggedIn Infinite is very much benefiting from the trail blazed before it. Already partnered with a range of local venues and both homegrown and international promoters, the future is looking very bright for the service, with interest growing steadily among music fans and the industry.
Ed however is not one to sit back on his laurels and wait for success, the CEO keenly aware that unlike video and music subscription services, GiggedIn Infinite requires people to get off the couch and up and out of the house.
“The challenge with getting more people to go to shows is that it competes with every other leisure activity anyone can do in their spare time (people can go to the movies, read a book, watch TV etc). We are here to make going to gigs easy, and give more reasons for every day Aussies to get out there and enrich their lives through live music,” he says.
The first subscription service that actually seeks to drag you away from your monitor, Ed and the team are confident that as music lovers look to find a new ways to discover music, GiggedIn Infinite will be one of the big ways they do that.
And while streaming subscription services can boast a bigger library of artists or just bigger artists in general, GiggedIn Infinite offers the one thing no other subscription service in Australia can. A real life experience.
And faced with the choice, why would you go with Netflix and Chill when you could go for GiggedIn and Thrill instead ay?
Check out GiggedIn’s offerings at their site, and enter our comp to win 6 months of Infinite free here.
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