So, as it goes, weather you know or not, I work for Kirkwood Hospice as one of the retail managers.
Recently it was decided by the trustees (after a 2 year battle with PRS) that we could no longer play music in the shops we have due to the huge cost implications.
Now as we currently have 15 shops, I realised a few major things needed to happen so I looked into the PRS laws & guidelines...
Long and short was, if a band or artist has not been signed to a label, AND has not copywritten their materials yet, that we could, by law, download and play them in our shops if granted by the artist(s).
So, a little more research (which sounds obvious really), led me to facts like, customers are 40% more likely to make a purchase, if background music is played, this being down to the more comfortable atmosphere provided and, the time they will then spend brousing! (no-brainer really!)
So as a fellow promoter / music fan & shop manager, I realised, not only could this be a great opportunity to have artists heard by a huge new audience, but, with some careful planning, it may be possible to sell their cd's in our 15 shops too.
At present we are only allowed to play music by composers who have been dead over 80 years (Beethoven etc). Now our bosses are not so bothered as the licence is around £1000 per shop and they dont actually have to work there! So I have taken this challenge upon myself to try to gain around 100 songs of local artists that we can legally play in our shops.
I guess you probably know more than me about the legal PRS bits, but, with a little help, If I can compose 10 cd's say, to play in our shops, I reckon I have a great chance of putting a proposal together to the Kirkwood trustees to sell cd's on bands behalf. Thus benefitting all parties.
Obviously, as a charitable group, a percentagage would probably have to be negociated, but I do have a lot of backiing in our retail sector and I think a fair fee could be easily agreed.
So lets say for instance, a fairly unknown artist/band was willing to accept this offer, they could provide us with just 3 albums per shop (produced by them) we sell at say £6 per cd, take half for the hospice.
In return they would gain 'air'play to our kirklees-wide customer base of around 200,000 customers locally. Now after semi-pilotting this in my shop alone, with only 3 albums, we have had vast comments and enquiries as to who is being played and where their albums could be bought.
For your information, we, as a retail group, turned over more than 1.2million pounds in 2009, all from donated goods.
Not only do we have a huge support network and customer base but also massive local support and fantastic media links.
This really could be a win win situation!
Now I'm not asking for hours of your time or donations of cash, but if you could forward this email to anyone you think may be able to help us and benefit from this opportunity, I only ask that they send a cover letter & (non-explicite) demo cd to;
The Retail Manager, Kirkwood Hospice, 46 Market Street, Milnsbridge, Huddersfield, HD3 4HY.
They MUST include;
Full name, telephone number and a postal address for the artist/band,
A brief biog,
rough date established
recent gig dates & venues
& why they would like to get involved in this promotion.
If any of the above information is not sent, we would not be able to consider for album sales so please include as much information as possible when submitting cd's.
Pat, if you can help, I'd be very very greatful.
Kind thanks & much respect,
Hannah xxx
P.s - feel free to forward this message to anyone who you think may be able to benefit from this opportunity, x
http://www.myspace.com/HuddstockFestival
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