A Letter from GigTown to Northwest Musicians: Sign Up and Get Paid

First, let me introduce myself. My name is Andy and I am the “Grand Poobah” of GigTown, a company I started with my dad in May 2015. Although GigTown is based in San Diego, I’m working hard alongside a team of 7 extremely talented people to support local music everywhere. Now let me get right into how we can get you (musicians in Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, and nearby cities) paid. After some testing in San Diego, we figured out a program that is a win-win-win-win, for musicians, venues, music fans, and GigTown. It’s pretty straightforward – when you get someone to “Check-In” at one of your shows on our free mobile app, we will tip you $5 on their behalf. There is no catch. If you get everyone in a crowd of 100 to check-in at your show, you make $500. If you have a show the next day and get another 50 people to check-in (even if some of them are the same people), you make another $250. We want you to take advantage of this! You make money, music fans are able to support you, venues are stoked because you’re more motivated to promote your shows, and GigTown is getting musicians signed up and people to download the app! If you’ve heard enough to give it a try, here’s what you need to know:

1. Sign up as an artist at gigtown.com
2. Download the free mobile app at gigtown.com/app
3. Add your shows > Our blog post explains how
4. Tell people to come out to the shows and check-in on the app. Each time they do, they’re tipping you $5, on us.

If you need more convincing or just want more information, read on… I’m guessing you’ll have a bunch of questions. But first, let me explain a bit more about GigTown. GigTown is a mobile app that connects musicians, fans and venues within the local music community. Our goal is to support local music by making it more accessible than ever. On the app, people can discover local musicians, hear their songs, watch videos, see where they’re playing around town, and even book them for gigs, be it a private event, restaurant/bar, or a concert hall. To get it, you need to download our free app and browse around. I encourage you to go to Filters > Location > San Diego, and then you’ll see what it looks like in a market where we’ve successfully launched. We’re creating a hub for local music, wherever you are. We think it can change the game for local musicians by making it easier than ever to get discovered, followed and booked.

Now, to answer some of the big questions that come up: Question #1: Where are we getting the money to pay for this? Answer – we are a privately funded startup. Some of our investors include NFL Quarterback Drew Brees, former Chairman of HP, Ralph Whitworth, and Steve Altman, former President of Qualcomm (and my dad). Question #2: Why are we doing this? Answer – we have a marketing budget and rather than put it towards Facebook, etc, we are putting it towards local musicians. That said, we can’t do it this way forever. This program is technically only supposed to go until the end of November or until we pay out $20,000. BUT – if you sign up and enter NWMS as your referral, we’ll extend it until the earlier of February 1 or $50,000 in tips are paid out.

Question #3: How does the artist get paid? Answer – PayPal. Tips are accumulated and received at the end of each month. Okay, just a few final words before I get out of here… Know that we are pro-musician. We realize that there is a gap in the connection between local musicians, fans, and venues, and we further realize that the way to solve it is by focusing on the musician. We don’t charge you for a membership in any way, and we only make money if you get gigs through the app (13%). That’s all I’ve got. Feel free to hit me up with questions or comments or ideas, I love ideas. My email is andy@gigtown.com. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @GigTownMusic. Hope to see you in GigTown 🙂

Best,
Andy

(Here are some articles that have come out about us in various publications:

Entrepreneur Magazine
San Diego Citybeat
Sounddiego)