Posts by Matt Ford - Founder and CEO
From Cornfields to Downtown: John Ugolini Tells the Story of Kickstand Productions
John Ugolini launched his company, Kickstand Productions, after graduating from Northern Illinois University in 2004. He learned the ropes booking rooms in secondary markets in central Illinois before moving into Chicago about a decade ago. His calendar is packed—he often has multiple events running each night—and the shows he promotes represent a wide range of…
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How to Play Music on Your Venue’s PA (Without Getting Sued)
Try to picture complete silence between the opener and headliner at your venue. Difficult, right? It’s not just crowd clatter that contributes to that between-set buzz—your venue likely plays recorded music over the PA as showgoers get hyped for the next act. And if your venue has a bar or restaurant area, chances are you’re…
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Staying Plugged In: The 5 Best Music Industry Podcasts
Music promotion is, to put it mildly, not an exact science. Already a wildly unpredictable gambit, the last 20 years or so have seen innumerable sea changes to the business of music promotion and venue ownership as the internet and social media turned our (and every other) business completely upside down. The ever-hectic world of…
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An Overview of Ticket Resale Then, Now, and Soon
Although many venues, artists, and primary ticket sellers have taken umbrage with secondary ticket sellers, ticket resale is here to stay. The multi-billion-dollar resale industry comprises a wide variety of competing entities that resell tickets first purchased elsewhere, often for much higher prices than the original cost. Although the industry sometimes gives concertgoers a second…
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How to Promote a Concert: A Digital Advertising Primer
As more and more content is published online regardless of what happens to print, creating digital ads is a bet that’s only getting safer with each passing year for advertising your band’s or venue’s upcoming events. But to figure out your digital advertising strategy, you first need to know how each type of ad can…
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CIVL – Chicago Independent Venue League
In cities around the world, once thriving independent art scenes are under siege by big corporations. A perfect case study of this fight comes in the form of Chicago’s music scene and its battle over a massive mixed-use development called Lincoln Yards. The proposed 50-acre real estate development would essentially create a brand new neighborhood—one…
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How to Promote a Concert: Accessing Arts Funding
Most are aware that there are grants for funding local performing arts, but not everyone knows how to access them. It often depends on your location; the famous Red Rocks amphitheater has helped make Denver an enormous cultural hub for musical performance, which in turn led to fostering of the Denver Music Advancement Fund, as…
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From Apps to VR: New Live Music Technologies To Look Out For
There was a time when the idea of incorporating “technology” into your concert venue meant making certain the strobe lights were plugged in. But there more ways than ever to enhance the concert experience these days, from speeding up the lines to virtual reality. Here are some of the top technology trends to look out…
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Six Venues From Film and Television
From The Bronze on Buffy The Vampire Slayer to The Peach Pit on Beverly Hills, 90210 TV shows and films are filled with fake clubs where the music is never so loud that the characters can’t banter over it. But sometimes shows and films go for a bit of extra verisimilitude by shooting in real…
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How to Promote a Concert: Using Facebook Events
In the vast and seemingly unending sea of content that is Facebook, it can be exceedingly difficult to stand out. It is not, however, the Sisyphian task it may seem on the surface. Facebook’s current status as most of the world’s digital town square (an estimated 35 million people view a Facebook event everyday and…
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