A friend of mine is a singer/songwriter who gives concerts that attract mostly between 100 and 300 people. He has a new CD that he has made himself and can sell at any price that he wishes. So the question becomes what would be perceived as a fair price for this product and induce people to buy it? The record companies seem to think “whatever we charged in 1980, adjusted for inflation, is good” but their declining sales seem to indicate otherwise. The younger folks whom I’ve talked to mostly report that (a) they have no money because it is all going to mobile phone and cable TV/Internet, (b) they have no space to store CDs because they are paying $750/month for one room in a cramped Somerville apartment, and (c) they don’t think of CDs as representing a good value compared to alternatives (I just signed up to Rhapsody as part of my Sonos whole-house music system experience and for $10 per month it is pretty impressive how much stuff one has access to). The old folks report that (1) they already have XM or Sirius satellite radio in their fancy new cars, and (2) they already have CDs of the music that they like best (will there ever be another band as great as ABBA?).
The question I asked was “You go to a concert with about 150 other people and enjoy the music. The moderately successful artist is selling CDs after the show. You don’t think that any of your friends already have the disk and therefore you won’t be able to borrow and rip it easily. How much would the CD have to cost before you would definitely buy it?”
Answers so far: 27-year-old female: $5; 40-year-old male medical doctor: $5; another 27-year-old female: $5; 29-year-old female: $5; 41-year-old multimillionaire male $4-8; 30-year-old male: $9; 36-year-old multi-millionaire male: $9; 32-year-old male $10; 35-year-old female medical doctor: $10; 39-year-old male: $10; 42-year-old male $10 [if no data on wealth provided, assume comfortable middle class or above]
What do the readers say? Please comment and include your age and sex. If your income level is unusual please indicate with “student”, “multi-millionaire”, “medical doctor” or similar. If your occupation is somehow related to the entertainment business, please indicate.
Thanks!
From $5-10. I’m in IT and make high 40s, aged 27, male.
At that price it’s mostly an impulse purchase if I found the concert okay. I’ve paid up to $20 for a CD at a concert, but that was for Tafelmusick and it’s hard to go wrong with them because of their skill.
P.S. Can you put an asterisk beside the Name and Email fields for comments so we know they’re manditory?
I’m a 24 year old, starving artist boy. Many of the music shows I go to are somewhat underground – meaning, NO ONE has the songs available on a CD they already have, it’s not going to be found on BT, or any file sharing places. If they have a website, the band may have one or two tracks.
The going price for a CD is usually $10 for a full length, and $5 for a single (ep)
Many of these bands still make records, as well.
These are pretty easy prices also to deal with – a small touring band does not want to have an entire cashbox full of change. a few $5’s and $10’s will do it.
These are basically the only bands I buy CD’s from these days – they’re doing their own thing, usually on their own label, some part of the cd/packaging must be hand made (if not just screenprinted), but look very decent and have love in them.
And as an artist, it’s never good to sell yourself short. Never undercut yourself for, “market” pressure.
If he can afford to sell it at any price he wishes, and just wants to get the CD out there, why not just do what Prince did with his recent Musicology tour and give away CDs to every ticket holder?
$10 is almost automatic to buy, $15 it becomes very debatable.
42M, $120K/yr.
$10. 50M (yes us old farts like this blog! :-), $130K/year
If I just ‘enjoyed’ the music, I would probably not buy the CD. If there was something unusual about the music that I thought my friends would be interested in, or if I thought the music was remarkably good, I’d spend $10-$15. A lesser price would not increase the probability of purchase. 30M grad student, $27K/yr
$10 in the US, though I live in China where $3 is a fair price. 26M just beating the poverty line (upper middle class here in Beijing, though)
I’m in avionics simulation software and part-time grad student.
I think that $10-$15 is a good price for a CD. I actually don’t buy a whole lot of CDs any more, partly because I already have a lot of albums, and rarely come across something else that I want, and partly because I’ve been using iTunes to buy (mostly) individual songs.
Unless I’m wrong about the cost to make these things, I’d suggest artists consider offering to sell 3 CD’s for $10.
If I like the music I’ll pay $10 without giving it a second thought. I guess if it were any higher than $12 I’d think about it first.
I’m male, and 26 years old.
charge whatever percentage you want for each, but it’d be nice to keep the total of a ticket+CD combo < $20-30 (depending on the city)
26-year-old aspiring multi-millionaire male.
30M, made $88K in FY04. I’d say that unless I _hated_ the concert I’d buy the CD if it were $5…even if only to give away to someone who might like it better than I would. If I liked the show I’d probably be prepared to pay $15. If I _really_ liked the show, and I knew there would be no other way to get a copy of the music, ever, than to buy the CD there (a safe bet, if the shows are only drawing a few hundred people), I might pay $20…but I’ve been to maybe three music concerts in my life that met that description, so $20 is almost certainly too high a price for your friend to charge.
The chance that I’d even buy it at all is really low. I hate clutter, and CDs are just one more thing to organize and dust. That said, if I REALLY liked it and I decided that I HAD to have that CD, I’d begrudgingly pay up to $7, rip it as soon as I get home, and throw the CD away.
As a frame of reference, the last CD I bought was several years ago for $5 from some guy playing in a New York subway. However, I don’t think twice about spending $25 on a good meal.
26 yrs / IT / mid-60’s +
I’d pay $10 (or wait and get it from iTunes for $9.99). Male 34-year-old.
Incidentally, my hobby is concert photography, and as such I know a large number of independent singer/songwriters in the LA area. Most of them sell their CDs in the $10-12 range. The exceptions are the very new ones who are selling “sample” type CDs with only a few tracks for $5 (or giving them away for free).
$10 sounds fair, if I really like it even $15. 29M, Programmer for big London banks.
But with these small concerts, your friend can certainly experiment; charge $10 and 1 show, see how much you sell, $7 at another, etc. If he keeps his eyes open, he’ll also see the kind of crowd at each show an know how to price for them to maximize his income.
Guess I’m old-fashioned (48/male) in that I do slightly prefer to buy a CD (which goes into storage once ripped). For an automatic buy $5-10 covers the range from somewhat to greatly liked.
I was going to suggest he might put up music for download (at a price), and thus save the cost of making CDs (or to offer a lower price). Too bad Magnatune doesn’t have a ‘bazaar’ where artists could post their music to allow download and billing (but without promotion).
Guess I’m not that old. Satellite radio is just not interesting – don’t want to listen to someone else’s playlist – mostly.
I think you should charge something under $10. While 10 bucks is probably fair, charging, say $7 should yield substantial lower sales as people will just get it without problems.
Bust best of all, prob the people on each concert are different so he can try one price one day and one the other, to try out the market and see where he gets more sales as a % of attendees.
Whether and at what price I can acquire the recorded music elsewhere is irrelevant, it’s more an opportunity to exchange gifts with the performer and to be a patron in a small way rather than a consumer. I’d be thinking the price of the bottle of wine you’d bring to a party.
Grad student/artist: I last paid $15 for a CD, but there was no entrance fee. I did it to help another artist.
$10 seems fair price. Late 20s, professional, 4person family – $110K.
$7 = if I like it even a little
$10 = if I like it a lot
$15 = he better be the next Dylan
(22yo, ~50k per year)
27, male, low six figure income with a wife and three kids.
I would pay $5 if I liked it at all and as much as $10 if I really liked it.
37, male, now student in SDM@MIT, usually a system architect in high-tech industry ($100k or more): I would say not more than $10. It also depends on the price of the concert: if the tickets were expensive, I am not willing to pay much for the CD after it, and vice versa.
At a show I assume that the artist is getting most of the price of the CD.
I’ll pay $5 just to encourage live music, $10 if I’m actually going to rip/listen to the CD, and up to $15 if I love the music.
39, male, about $125K/yr, I co-own an IT company, and have a PhD in M.E. that I’m not using all that much.
I’m a 31yo male IT consultant.
I think $10 is a fair price for an album. I was on the other side once – trying to start a label – and I know the costs of making a real CD with artwork and color print on the disks run little less than $2/disk (I managed to get very close to $1/disk by having to assemble the cases manually and it was a terrible waste of my time), so given that you’re the one prepaying all the costs before you sell even 1 copy the retail price of $10 is reasonable. The most I ever paid for an album at a concert was, I think $18 for a Residents CD, but it was such a good concert after all (and given that the tickets were about $25 or $30 the price of the CD seemed not that large).
However, anything less than $10 sounds like a bargain. I bought Robby Roadsteamer’s CD for something like $5 or $7 and even that I think it’s bad, I’m not complaining at all – $5 is less than a price of a lunch in many places anyway.
I would pay $3 to download the tracks into my iPod on the spot. Or, I would pay $10 if I could get a discount to the next show.
I’m a 41yo computer guy, and I’d be willing to pay $10 for the album. I’m more likely to pay if the group is less well known, as the money is more necessary and their volume is low.
33 yo male, Software Engineer, $90K. I would pay $5. If I like it $8. I think that $10 is too much for U2 or Britney Spears’ CD, not to mention a small time local band.
Definately buy (and I liked the music) $15 Australian (about $10 US). Of course, CD’s, chocolate and books were the only things that were cheaper in the UK than here… Grad student, male, 26, Brisbane, Australia.
$10-15. Lawyer, 27 F, who regularly shells out money for concerts. I’m more incensed by the various ticketing charges (that often amount to $10-15) that Ticketmaster tacks on my my concert tickets. Their software can’t be that expensive to run. Monopolists!
$10. any less would be an automatic buy if I liked the artist.
Poor 26 y/o Grad student, male, Southern California.
Is the CD (1) something that the artist has already done or (2) is it a copy of that particular show?
If (1) then either $5 or $10. Dealing with change is a major PITA. 🙂
If (2) then $20/25. Why? Because if I’ve bothered to spend the time and money to actually go to a show, usually with family/friends then I’d really like a useful souvenir of that particular show. The Grateful Dead are doing this for at least some of their shows (buying them online is $22.50 + s/h for 3 CDs, I don’t know what they charge at the shows).
If the artist can afford to give the CD away in order to get his name and music out there, I think that would be a good idea, especially if he made decent money on the concert. That said, if I “sort of” liked the concert I would think about $4 would be a good price for the artist to ask; but if I liked it a whole lot they I would be happy to pay $15. 47 M. 24 K per year.
I’m a 31-year-old quite-well-paid programmer. I don’t have a problem with paying $10 for a CD at a show, maybe $6-8 for a good EP, especially if that money’s going directly to the performer and I can get items signed. More than $10 feels like a bit of a rip-off — I certainly almost never pay the standard $18 price for a CD at the mall. On a similar note, I’ll pay up to $20 for DVD of live performances at a show, since that usually gives me more value than just an audio recording.
$1/song. Unless you are Pink Floyd or selling a movie soundtrack, it’s the individual songs that matter. Break the outdated mode of releasing “albums” and instead focus on making each single a hit in its own right. Release early and often.
Another thing: that’s $1 for LOSSLESS audio (CD, FLAC digital file, etc.). MP3/OGG is a convenient playback mechanism, but should not be the only means of obtaining the track.
30, Male, $60’s
Depends on what he wants to do. Get his name out or make a little money? If it’s just to toss around the name, give them away if possible.
I never spend more than $10 on a CD unless it’s someone I admire quite a bit. If I was at a concert in the first place, the fact that I dealt with the traffic, smoke, line, pat-down, expensive watered down alcohol and the general ass that shows up at concerts says that I was interested in your music beforehand. For that, I don’t see selling for less than $10. Think about the venue also. $10 is cheap, easy and you don’t have to make change. I’d skip a CD for $12 just because I don’t want to deal with a bunck of singles in my pocket, although I’d drop $10 no problem.
The best thing your friend could ever do at a concert is mingle with the crowd and do a shirt/CD signing near the exit after the show.
$10 is fair all around. Charging less (unless it’s an EP or a single) just implies that the product is not “the good stuff”. Typically if the show is good, I am glad to give the $ to the performer directly in this form as well as snag a souvenir (the music, not the cd-object anymore, I rip ’em). I agree with the previous poster about the convenience of $10 vs. $12 or whatever.
When a show is good, there is a reason people go to the merch table: they actually want to have some kind of transaction to express their enthusiasm, identification with the music, etc.
25yrs, M,45K;
Because I listen to a lot of international music, I generally have to pay a premium for imports so I pay as much as $15 at concerts. I’d rather support the artist than the conglomerates.
59 years M
59 years M
Programmer. I will pay $5.
Network Engineer, Ohio, $50k/year. I would gladly pay $5.00. At $10.00 I would think about it.
30 year old mom WHY PAY $5 AND MORE WHEN I JUST CAN ORDER FREE CD ONLINE IN http://www.store.yahoo.com at just the postal rates as low as $4.78 per cd . I JUST GIFTED ONE TO MY NIECE A LIVELY COLLECTION OF SINGABLE DANCEABLE TUNES CALLED ” DANCE IN YOUR PANTS ” BY 3TIMES, PARENTS GOLD AWARD WINNING CHILD RECORDING ARTIST DAVID JACK (I HIGHLY RECOMEND IT AS A GOOD GIFT IF YOU HAVE YOUNG ONES IN YOUR FAMILY TOO!!!!!!!) COME ON SUCH DECENT FABULOUS MUSIC FOR CHILDREN ARE REAL HARD TO FIND. ps i have mentioned above the website where i ordered it from ie http://www.davidjack.com SAVVY
35-year-old male.
At $5 I wouldn’t think twice about it, though I might not be willing to wait in line.
I’ve spent $10-$20, I forget exactly how much, on CDs sold by musicians that way.
Have paid $10-15 for a CD, mainly at free concerts. Don’t go to any concerts with covers because I’m Officially Cheap (TM) and don’t have the time or energy for that very often. 43/M/upper-income.
I routinely buy cd’s at shows for anywhere from $5-10. My favorite artist is one that charges $10 each, but also gives a few away for free to either loyal fans, or someone who was a good audience member. Some of the time if I buy one he’ll throw me a second one because he knows I’ll give it to a friend and make him a new fan. Because everyone is paying $10 he can afford to give a few away.
At most of the shows I go to, I end up dropping at least $5 in the tip jar. If the artist has a CD there, usually they’re asking $10 minimum, and that’s an automatic sale. So, $10, but often that’s just $5 incremental.
Which I hadn’t thought about before, I may have to up my amount.
37M, currently working on a startup and expecting that income this year will be < 0.
Last concert CD was a Jazz show for a local guy John Ellis and I paid $12 for the CD after the show and it had 6 songs on it I thought it was an Ok deal and yet I refuse to pay 9.99 for a full album download at Itunes. I rather buy used CD’s at a local shop. oh ya doctors make bank right: $ 80K in the bay area !
‘Comfortable middle-class’ is an oxymoron.