Would you let your fans play your instruments before the show, if they paid? Having setup and run VIP Meet and Greet Packages for many artists I find this a interesting extension and something that I think many fans would love to do.
From a Bob Lefsetz email on September 23, 2011
From: Justin Gosnell
I know band members giving lessons is nothing remotely new but lately there are a few bands in the metal scene taking it to the next level and reaping some major benefits in doing so. Periphery is a band that comes to mind right off the bat. A HUGE amount of their fanbase are musicians and they’ve made some decent income giving lessons on tour for many years but on their new tour they are selling these VIP packages that sell like hotcakes where fans not only get a meet and greet but they actually get to play through any of the band members rigs they so choose. It’s not limited either. You can pick up any guitar out of a case, crank their amps, tweak their pedals, kick it on their drumkit…just COMPLETE access right on the same stage they are going to play on later that night. Furthermore, you have sites cropping up like Bandhappy.com where kids can pay a really reasonable fee to take a lesson from some HUGE names in music. Not some prerecorded ones either-LIVE interactive lessons. The thing is, it’s pretty much all still really only catching fire in the metal world. With all of that said, do you think this could be the future for bands of all genres, that even decent sized bands all the way to the bigger ones should break down that barrier between their fans and provide them with complete access-could this be the answer to the question of how bands can ALL make more money on the road seeing as how so many tours for mid-level bands and such don’t even break even lots of times?
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