Establishing a solid connection with fans is essential for acts looking to build and maintain a lasting career, especially on the road. To engage new and existing concertgoers, many artists have tapped into subscription-based fan clubs, which offer extra perks to die-hard followers for a price tag of between $30 to several hundred dollars per year.
“Fans want access to the artist, and the clubs are the gateway to that,” says Mark Montgomery, co-founder/CEO of echomusic, a Web entertainment marketing company that manages online fan clubs for Keith Urban, Kanye West, Rascal Flatts, Korn and Dierks Bentley, among others. “It’s about creating a connection between the artist and their audience.”
Presale ticketing is a key driver of fan club memberships, but “the name of the game here is not selling more tickets,” says Jim Kingdon, executive VP of corporate strategy at Musictoday, a merchandising, ticketing and artist e-commerce and fulfillment firm with more than 500 clients. “It’s about providing a better fan-to-artist experience so that fans have a positive relationship they build on, which translates into buying merchandise at the show or building excitement about a new album.”
Click here to read about four ways — exclusive concerts, presale ticketing, contests/giveaways, utilizing downtime on the road — to effectively capitalize on tours using artist fan clubs.
