It’s all about compelling musical content, stupid
The itunes festival is amazing. Not just from a branding point of view for itunes but from a truly holistic “content is everything” point of view.
With music sales plummeting and piracy rife, CD sales are on the floor. The Hut Group, one of the UK’s largest independent on line entertainment retailers recently revealed that only 1% of their profits came from CD sales. Artists now make most of their money from touring which uniquely can’t be pirated. You can’t replicate the atmosphere of a live concert with an amazing live band like Linkin Park.
By combining live music in an intimate venue, The Roundhouse in Camden, with the most successful artists around and using it to market both the bands and itunes and selling the unique content that is produced from it, itunes have cracked the magic formula of what people will pay for.
The fact that you can’t buy itunes festival tickets makes the content that comes out of it even more attractive. Clearly the music industry has woken up to this too as this year’s line up is simply awesome, Linkin Park, Foo Fighters, My Chemical Romance, the Manics, White Lies, Kasabian, the Arctic Monkeys, Noah and the Whale and for those who like mainstream music Coldplay, Adele, Paul Simon, Moby and more. There’s something for everyone who loves music and even for those who just like Adele and Coldplay!
