darknet: echo artist clients face imminent web shut-down

When news broke in April that Echomusic of Nashville (popularly known as echo) was being closed by parent company Ticketmaster Entertainment, it was reported (all too briefly) as a story of some 60 lost jobs on Music Row. What hasn’t been reported is that early next week, on June 15-18, between 100 and 200 echo clients – most of them small or mid-level, independent or indie-label bands and artists – will see their websites go dark with no refunds and no ability to transfer their sites seamlessly to another host.

The echo platform, touted by the company for years as a unique integration of web site, e-mail list, merchandise sales and fan connection tools, was built on an architecture so proprietary and one-of-a-kind that sites “powered by echo” must be re-built from scratch. This is according to current and former Echo employees, as well as artist managers who are currently scrambling to rescue their artists’ vital presence on the web.

         “It’s shocking,” said the manager of a prominent Americana singer/songwriter who has at least a three-year relationship with Echo. “You’d think with all the years and money he’s put in they’d maybe go not the extra mile but just the extra half mile. . .We’re really being left with no options.”

         Clients were formally notified in mid May that the sites would go dark on June 15-18, but managers and artists are reporting that web designers and hosts need 60-90 days at a minimum to code and launch sites. Some, like country singer Travis Tritt, have already posted placeholder “under construction” pages. Others are routing their domain name to a MySpace page. Echo employees have been working overtime to walk clients through a seven-step process that will put them in a position to re-build their websites elsewhere. Those clients are on their own for the unanticipated costs of the changeover, which run from a few thousand dollars up to $10,000 or more. Moreover, the investments clients made in their echo sites, which are regarded as among the more expensive in the local market, as well as their monthly maintenance and hosting fee (averaging $300/month but running up to $1,000/month), are said to be unrecoverable.

         Why is this happening this way and happening now? Well that’s where this gets really interesting, because it actually has to do with one of the most far-reaching developments in the music business – a set of mega-transactions taking place far from Nashville.

Indirectly, it’s Irving Azoff’s doing. Briefly, Azoff, one of the most powerful and wealthy managers in the history of rock (the Eagles are among his clients), recently presided over the merger of his company Front Line Management Group with Ticketmaster. Simultaneously, Ticketmaster has announced plans to merge with Live Nation, the concert promoter formerly known as Clear Channel’s market-dominating SFX. In other words, Azoff is about to assume corporate control over the management of most of the biggest-grossing musicians in pop music, most of the venues in the U.S, and the titan of ticketing, the much loathed Ticketmaster. More HERE and HERE. And for those who haven’t been following Nashville music business news at all, echo was bought out by Ticketmaster in 2007 for a reported $25 million.

         So to use a strained metaphor, echo, launched ten years ago as arguably Nashville’s most progressive digital music marketing company, became a flea on the back of a dog being eaten by a bigger dog. And a money-losing flea to boot. While Ticketmaster showed some patience in trying to let echo be echo from Nashville and find its way to profitability while growing rapidly, the new company, appears to have been in no mood to be nice to Music City or echo’s longstanding clients.

         There are more specific injustices here worthy of investigation. Echo insiders knew for weeks that the shutdown of client websites was coming but were forbidden by higher-ups to disclose it until the 30-day warning in mid May. Numerous clients were also informed that a revised accounting of their fee schedule revealed sales tax that had not been disclosed on the front end. One artist manager said she was informed that unless she paid a previously unknown tax bill of $900, echo would not allow her access to her artist’s digital assets, e-mail lists or transition services, and she doesn’t appear to be alone.

         Furthermore, it was hard not to notice that while echo the local start-up of the late 1990s was a refuge and service provider for many independent, non-star-trajectory artists, the echo of recent years (especially post Ticketmaster) focused on big-time clients like Rascal Flatts, Kanye West and Alicia Keys. In a triumph of inequity, some 20-30 of Echo’s largest clients are slated to remain in the echo system, managed from Los Angeles. Insiders say that it goes even deeper than that; when recent mega-clients signed on to echo, at least some had the  $20-30,000 fees for their web design and setup waived in exchange for an ongoing share of revenue generated through ticket and merchandise sales. This arrangement, according to sources, was not afforded to mid-level clients, who paid cash up front.

         The larger tragedy here is that just as a new generation of artists were challenging the dominion of a calcified record label system and its decades-long chokehold on career development, tour support, radio play and national album distribution, along comes another, unanticipated near-monopoly with vertical control over the most lucrative and influential parts of the music business – touring, ticketing and management. And then that company, through a few orders from on high, is able to dismantle a company that at one time carried many of Nashville’s hopes for a self-determined, locally-controlled digital music infrastructure.

         There’s a precedent for this parable. In the late 1990s, Gaylord Entertainment, which had built The Nashville Network (TNN) from its origins into one of the most successful cable companies in America, sold the network to a company it knew and trusted. That was Westinghouse, a diversified corporation that had for years been TNN’s marketing partner. Little was to change, they agreed. TNN was still producing programming from Nashville, and Westinghouse was supposed to give the network access to new advertisers and larger amounts of capital to go to the next level. Then,  abruptly, CBS bought Westinghouse and then Viacom bought CBS. And to Viacom, TNN was the flea on the dog. Voom, it was absorbed into Viacom’s MTV Networks and the entire Nashville production operation was shut down, throwing hundreds of TV people out of work. And TNN had its name and format changed twice in two years – first to The National Network, and then to Spike TV, as un-Nashville a network as exists today.

         One wonders if this is Nashville’s fate – if its most successful entrepreneurs are inevitably destined to lose control. It’s enough to make one wonder how Music City will negotiate this new and unfathomable music business.

(This article represents original reporting by author Craig Havighurst and should be attributed to the String Theory Media blog.)

Comments

[Jon Walker]

If you need a new design, development, hosting and digital marketing partner please check us out - http://www.aristoworks.com.

[Scot Evans]

Big ugly corporations can suck the creativity and energy out of everything. They did here. We were one of the first echo clients from way back, and hated to see the grassroots energy get eaten up over the years. So it goes.

[Roe Frazer]

For a helping hand, check out www.digome.com or email me, Frazer@digome.com. We are in Nashville, and recently hired some top developers at echo and a fan club marketing whiz.

[Rebekah]

Yes... Echo definitely screwed us over. We got invoices YESTERDAY (thursday) for stuff they did in 2007, and told us that we needed to pay them before they gave us our domain info. Our sites are set to go out on Monday. So they gave us one work day to pay them and we sent the checks but now we can't get in touch with anyone to get our domain names. I've called the main #, the customer service #, and our account manager's cell... and emailed numerous times and cant get an answer. So we could be really screwed because we can't get our domain names.

From a client's perspective, I highly recommend going with Otterball (www.otterball.com). We started moving our sites over there a few months back (before echo announced their demise) and we are nothing but happy with them. They are WAY cheaper in every way than Echo and their sites look much nicer. Everything is extremely customizable (so you aren't pay $150 to get one link changed), and they give you access to FTP. They are the only company we've found that not only has a great CMS, but also has fantastic design.

Only thing with Otterball is that they do not do email communities, ecommerce, or marketing. So if you're looking for the full package, then they aren't the solution. But if you're looking for a great looking site that's easy to update and really customizable, I highly recommend them.

[Anthony]

Would love to offer a solution: The FanCue platform has been built to assist the artists leaving echo, www.FanCue.com.

Built by iDesign Inc, a Nashville firm, (www.idesigninc.net), FanCue has signed up a few former echo clients already, and time is of the essence. The process is more difficult and time consuming (thus expensive) if converted after the site is taken down. The files provided by echo/Ticketmaster as you can imagine are not great, so it helps to reference the current site when rebuilding to a new platform.

The platform has the e-mail marketing, tracking, reporting, e-commerce, fulfillment (through WFS, same warehouse echo used for convenience factor) and intensive control features. iDesign is also working with former employees of echo for marketing and street if needed. iDesign is offering some good deals currently to move sites over....

[Chris]

Check out the ground control people - www.groundctrl.com

[Taylor]

As a former echo employee, I totally feel for these clients. That's why I co-founded Strategic Blend, to help offer that same original service to these smaller and mid-level clients. The difference - with us you OWN your website, you don't rent it.

[John W. Robertson]

SEEMS YOU FOLKS ARE MISSING ANOTHER SOLUTION TO ALL OF THIS...THE OWNER OF ECHO, MARK MONTGOMERY RECEIVED $25 MILLION FROM TICKETMASTER AS A BUYOUT, AND RECENTLY SPLIT THE COMPANY SEEMINGLY WITH ALL HIS CASH. IF IT WERE ME, I'D FIND A GOOD ENTERTAINMENT ATTY AND GO AFTER MONTGOMERY & ECHO/TICKETMASTER VIA 'CLASS ACTION'...MONTGOMERY'S REALLY THE ONE WITH ALL OF YOUR MONEY.......HE MAY HAVE HAD PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE SOMETHING LIKE THIS MAY HAPPEN TO ECHO CLIENTS...(PREMEDITATED) THIS IS NOTHING SHORT OF THEFT(FELONY) AND MAFIA STYLE SHAKEDOWNS!!! just sayin.......

[Craig H]

I debated whether to remove Mr. Robertson's comment because I think it's poorly informed but this site is here to foster discussion so I won't. Let me just say that in talking to many echo employees and clients, current and former, I've heard almost no animosity toward Mark Montgomery. He achieved what many aspire to, building a company over a long time with hard work and inventiveness, and most folks say he did the rational thing in selling. Nor should he be held responsible for corporate decisions made above his head or after he was gone. Whatever ire I heard has been directed at Ticketmaster and the corporation it's rapidly becoming.

[Sherry Anderson]

I can help rebuild/recover your websites. We also offer social media marketing services. Give us a call at 615-746-2935. We are local and have content management tools available.