By Gregg Stebben, Men’s Health
WASHINGTON — You may have heard about the guy in D.C. who’s trying to get Kenny Loggins coming to his house to do a concert.
It’s very much for real. This all started with Kenny Loggins putting a project up on Kickstarter, hoping to record an album with his band Blue Sky Riders. Then Erick Sanchez launched his own Kickstarter effort, called “I want Kenny Loggins to play in my living room.”
Loggins has told TMZ he’ll perform at Sanchez’s home if he raises $30,000.
This really illustrates the beauty of Kickstarter as low- friction marketplace. Kenny Loggins has something to sell — his performances and his music. Sanchez was able to find and connect with the seller — Loggins — and become a buyer of something that he probably never would have known about or had access to as a buyer in the past.
These kinds of transactions and interactions really revolutionize the relationship between fans, or any consumer, and the objects of their attention, whether it’s music or products that are important to them.
USA Today is reporting that Sanchez lives in a 1-bedroom D.C.-area condo.
While Sanchez is unlikely to get any money for hosting the show, he will get paid in other ways that will probably change his life forever:
- He gets to have his favorite musician come to his house and play for him in his own living room — a priceless memory that he can cherish forever.
- He’s now been on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” which has done a segment about him and his concert. More priceless memories, and it may be good for his PR career — and even his social life?
- He will know he did something that has entertained or amused a lot of people around their world, and how cool is that?
In the name of disclosure, I’ve got one of my favorite musicians coming to play at my house.
On Aug. 24, Eef Barzelay, the frontman for the band Clem Snide, will come to my house in Raleigh, North Carolina, and do a show in my living room.
So what do I get out of it?
I love Eef and his music, and I get to spend a very intimate evening with him and some of his fans listening to him play. What a thrill!
We also get to share the show with some of our friends, who will be comped in to enjoy the show too.
My wife Jody and I will not be paid for hosting the show. All the money for the show goes to the guy who deserves it. And that’s Eef Barzelay.
None of this would be possible without the Internet, cloud-based marketplaces such as Kickstarter and social media.
Before these forms of new media existed, how would I and Eef Barzelay have ever connected? How would Eef have sold tickets?
A lot of pieces have to come together to make this work, and without present-day technology it would have been near-impossible to make it all happen.
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