Answers to a few of the questions people ask about OnStage Global Entertainment…..
Q. Your “About Us” section describes OnStage as a platform for streaming live music concerts but it doesn’t seem as if that’s what you’re doing now. When are you going to begin streaming shows?
A. Our business model is built around streaming concerts as premium content, essentially pay-per-view shows. We can do that now but we prefer to continue working to attract the partners and investments that will ensure the product we put out is closer to perfect than anything else out there. Meanwhile we probably will go ahead with some free shows just as demos.
Q. Aren’t you concerned that some other company will take your ideas about live streaming shows and run with them?
A. Not really. We don’t own the idea. We weren’t the first to come up with it and aren’t the first to act on it. It’s been around for years. On the scale we’re talking about the question isn’t who else is doing it but have they also figured out a compelling approach to marketing and viewer engagement.
Q. Why are you convinced folks in DC will pay to see a concert or show they aren’t actually attending?
A. DC is our home and we know the love of good music in this town is off the charts but DC represents a fraction of the market we want to sell to. OnStage DC has site visitors from around the world, like Eastern Europe which is strong, and China, Japan, Canada. They love this music. And we showcase videos from artists from New York and California and Pittsburg and Atlanta because we want to build brand recognition in those markets as well.
Q. What about those videos in your OnStage Video Showcase; how did you get permission to put them on your website?
A. These are all YouTube videos that link back to YouTube channels, many of which were sent to us by the artists themselves. We did a couple of them. Others we see out there and when we add them we hit the artist up to say we put the video OnStage. There aren’t many working artists who don’t want their work as widely disseminated as possible, so we get a lot of good feedback. Obviously, anybody who doesn’t think their work is good enough to be featured in the showcase can let us know and we’ll take it down right away.
Q. Do the OnStage partners have music backgrounds?
A. We’ve all been involved in music or the business of music, yes. Our webmaster also plays guitar, Khari, our co-founder is lead singer for the band Bombaye (formerly The Insurrection) and is a great music critic, Diggs started putting together shows when he was still a junior in high school and has been involved in club promotions, and James has had a fairly long hiatus before these past two years but also produced and promoted shows and briefly managed one of DC’s most popular R&B groups at the time.
Q. Are there artists or companies involved in music that you want to work with eventually?
A. Absolutely, pretty much everybody that follows us on Twitter we could see ourselves working with.