Touring and merch have always been essential to artists' financial viability. Streaming has transformed the music landscape by expanding reach and discovery, but it has also meant artists must explore new ways to earn a living, connect with fans, and stand out.
Fans still love a good T-shirt, but they're looking for more products to support their favorite bands. To address these demands, bands and their teams are looking for innovative ways to sell experiences, collectibles, and authentic connections to the music itself, which not only generate revenue but also address broader challenges like connecting fans and musicians in authentic ways, reinforcing that music is worth paying for, and helping artists distribute their music beyond streaming with more revenue returns.
We’re introducing the “Collectible Music Card.” This fully patented product utilizes NFC (“near field communication”) technology to transform your smartphone’s “Tap ‘N Pay” feature into “Tap ‘N Play!” The cards contain the same NFC chip that’s in your debit card or credit card. Just one tap on your phone, and music plays. No app or downloading required. If you prefer not to carry the card, you can download the company’s app, which features a private library and pairs a single card with a single user ID for one-time use.
This product is the brainchild of Scott Arey, founder of Community Musician, a company dedicated to helping musicians secure a significantly larger share of their music's profits. Today, Community Musician manufactures Collectible Music Cards, selling them to musicians for $4 each. Musicians turn around and sell them for $20 directly to their fans, often at the merch table at their shows. This means the musicians net 75% of the profits. Unlike other providers, Community Musician is focused on giving artists the right quantity and will do volumes as low as 25 cards. Arey got this idea while executing the well-known cross-platform Fortnite gift card for Gearbox, which became a $200 million business in three months, selling more than one million cards a month.
"We know with certainty that there is a one million card a month artist out there just waiting to be discovered, and when we find them, we know exactly how to get them into Target, Walmart, and 80,000 retail outlets, completely circumventing the existing music industry system of streaming and artist exploitation," Arey said. "More importantly, we're giving the small independent artist a vehicle that will help them stay in the game longer and have a better chance of developing into a major artist. That's what this is all about."
Community Musician's "live" version of the Collectible Music Card is also making waves. Fans can go to a concert and buy super high-quality audio, right off the mixing board, of the concert they're at. Bands typically include an unreleased track on the card before releasing the concert audio, which becomes available the morning after the concert.
Community Musician's latest product innovation is putting the NFC chip into exclusive concert-only posters. Arey points out, "It is incredibly exciting for fans to be able to buy a poster of a band at a show, frame it, hang it, and then have their friends come over later and tap their phones on the poster to hear the audio from that show! It creates a bond between the fan and the artist that is powerful and long-lasting. We're long overdue for a realignment in the distribution of value creation between music companies and artists," Arey said. "Those companies aren't going just to lie down and give the artist a fair deal. We're going to take it from them. Don't think we can do it? Just watch us."
Community Musician is bringing together artists, artist representatives, merch experts, and innovators to keep creating products that resonate with superfans, strengthen fan communities, and generate sustainable income streams for musicians.