Conspiracy of quality

Perhaps I’m preaching to the choir or beating a dead horse, but I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and with between 40k and 60k people online at any one time, live music in Second Life should be a little more popular. So why isn’t it?

I suspect a good deal of the lack of interest is due to the fact there is such a glut of questionable talent, that the quality musicians become quite deluded. Example, say you have a bill of eight artist and only two are anywhere near competent, what is the over all effect of the show?

In all likelihood, the average viewer would have left after two back to back suckfests unwound before them thinking, “man that was a suckfest”

Now lately I’ve been in the “Zone” and playing a bunch of great shows back to back. The results have been a good deal of growth in my fan group, and a good number of possible repeat bookings. I’m actually starting to think I might be as good as I pretend to think I am.

I’ve recently played an event called “The Originals”, and it was well attended despite Second Life having a technical hissy fit about mid show. The hostess told me there were 110 people in the door and that is not bad. The Sim had a max capacity of 40 Avatars, and during portions of the show, people could not get in. Keep in mind the show featured 100% original songs, so the draw was not due to any “Popular kids” effect. The Popular kids don’t play original songs or they would be much less popular. But the acts featured ranged from very good to great. For a two hour and thirty minuet show, 110 is a good attendance number, and if the Sim had a larger capacity, and if Second Life got it’s shit in one sock, I could imagine the attendance figures doubling.

Quality shows at quality venues is the path to growth. And when I say quality I don’t mean popular or connected. A good deal of the coming and goings in Second Life music scene are personality driven. But personality has less over all effectiveness toward growth then quality music does.

There are lots of parties with lots of agendas toward growth. Most of them seem to think the problem is lack of awareness of people involved with Second Life, however I see it more of a matter of lack of interest. Few people are interested in watching somebody live out their rock and roll fantasy, but almost everybody likes good music. Once something gains a reputation for consistent quality, it’s going to grow simply by word of mouth. Nothing you write in your bio is going to have the credibility of a recommendation from a friend.

Let’s imagine where the numbers could lead. Lets take the lowball number for people online 40K, and grab 1% of that. That is 4K people interested in Live music. Break it down a bit further. Lets say there are 10 venues at any one time featuring quality music, that is 400 people showing up for those shows. How many venues could support that kind of crowd?

The fact there are so many shows so poorly attended suggest we are doing something wrong. I believe that error is putting on shows that are not worth inviting your friends to see.