Ticketmaster Strands echo Clients
String Theory Media reporter Craig Havighurst reports that Ticketmaster Entertainment’s echomusic will shut down sites of “between 100 and 200 clients” on June 15-18. Most of those artists involved are independent and/or developing artists. echo has said there will be no refunds and most upsetting to many of the clients, there is no pathway to move their existing sites to another vendor. String Theory Media quotes an unnamed, but prominent manager of an Americana singer/songwriter, “It’s shocking. You’d think with all the years and money the artists put in they’d maybe go not the extra mile but just the extra half mile. We’re really being left with no options.”
Former echo employees confirm that echo’s platform is completely proprietary, meaning that artists being forced to move their sites must completely rebuild.
The article ties echo to corporate leader Irving Azoff and points to a series of additional inequities…[read here]
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RE: Echomusis/Ticketmaster, etc. — Oh no! A big company screwing the little guys? That doesn’t happen here.
Many lessons can be learned from the demise of Echo. The recession probably makes that much more difficult, but if Echo proved anything it’s that artists need a marketing partner, and the web has to be a part of the equation.