Jewel Signs on to Instant Live CD Program

06/26/2004 4:55 PM, Reuters
Ray Waddell

Instant Live, Clear Channel Entertainment's live concert CD program, has signed its first major-label artist.

Billboard has learned that Atlantic Records artist Jewel will sell live CDs at select dates on her summer tour.

The company also has nailed down a series of dates to record and sell CDs on the summer tours of Kiss, Peter Frampton , the Allman Brothers Band and the Cowboy Junkies.

And on June 28 Instant Live will announce expanded retail availability of a series of concert CDs through an agreement with Newbury Comics' Toothface Distribution unit.

Participating retail chains include Virgin and FYE. Internet sales sites include newburycomics.com, amazon.com and cdbaby.com.

The company says it is close to announcing a new agreement with a leading online music distributor whereby Instant Live recordings will be available as MP3 files, with a share of the profits from digital downloads passed on to the artists.

"We're trying to create a new revenue stream for artists and a new way for them to connect with their fan base," Instant Live director Steve Simon says.

Instant Live creates master stereo recordings of concert performances, burns them at the venue and delivers them on-site minutes after the show ends. Prices range from $10 for a recorded club performance to $20 to $25 for multi-CD Digipaks.

In basic terms, Instant Live is a new concept in concert merchandise that can add $6 to $8 per unit to an artist's revenue each night. "Some artists will only want to participate in that aspect of the program," Simon says.

"But others may want to take advantage of a fully fleshed-out menu that includes after-market retail, digital download and sponsorship opportunities," he continues. "This is a full-service proposition with a lot of add-ons, but at its core it's a new merchandise revenue stream."

Participation from a major-label act is a milestone for the program. Previous participants either run their own labels or are signed to small indies.

"For the labels, it's a way to create revenue, with no additional investment, from concert merchandise," Simon says.

So how is the pie sliced? "In a general sense, the artist and label combined will make more than we do, and that's fine," Simon says.

The Allman Brothers Band participated in a "handful" of shows last year, Simon says, and will increase that number in 2004. He adds that about 19% of ticket buyers purchased concert CDs.

Taking Allman Brother concert CDs to retail was a logical extension after seeing Allman Brothers Instant Live CDs on eBay, Simon says.

"Allmans fans know how to tape, burn and rip, yet these original-issue CD Live three-CD sets were going for $350 on eBay," he says. "That's when the light bulb goes off that there's an after-market for these things."

Artists participating in the program include moe., Michael Franti & Spearhead, George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic, Dickey Betts & Great Southern, Karl Denson's Tiny Universe, the Smithereens and many others.

DiscLive, the biggest competitor to Instant Live in the concert CD market, counts the Pixies, Billy Idol , Kim Deal , Newsboys and Doors of the 21st Century among its clients.

Other bands, including the Dead and the Who, have their own live concert CD programs. "All the more power to them," Simon says. "Their model is different; they deliver by mail order several weeks after the shows."

For Kiss, no stranger to creative merchandising, Instant Live is working well on the band's Rock the Nation tour.

"This is something that we've never done before, and we don't know if and when will be back," Kiss manager Doc McGhee tells Billboard.

McGhee says roughly 20% of Kiss fans are buying CDs at the concerts, but it's still too early to tell if showgoers are moving dollars from other purchases to buy the CDs. "The jury is still out as to whether it will impact other sales," he says.

Reuters/Billboard