A while back I did a pretty long and in depth review of Kickstarter. Well they just released their stats for 2011 and I thought I’d quickly revisit what I thought was true, but couldn’t prove.
In that post I claimed that Film and Video was the driving force behind Kickstarter. The only proof I had was the Top 100 Most Funded Projects, which said that 35 of these were in film and video, but only 5 were in Music. I also saw that most projects that were funded were in the $1000-$5000 category, which I assumed, was mostly music. Well the 2011 numbers are out, and they broke it down a little better for us.
Total Pledged
$99,344,382
Music
$19,801,685.21 pledged
3,653 successful projects
260,178 backers
Film & Video
$32,473,790.40 pledged
3,284 successful projects
308,541 backers
So here’s what we can decipher from these numbers. One is that Music was about 19.9% of the total money pledged. Film and Video was 32.7% of the total money pledged. That’s obvious math. But now look at the projects VS backers. FIlm and Video had about 400 less projects, but about 40,000 more backers. The reason is because Film and Video projects are bigger projects that require more pledges than a Music project, yet the cost of the standard reward is about the same. Think about it, an album and a DVD cost about the same amount. So most people will be pledging the amount it takes to get those items. Therefore you need more pledges to fund a Film and Video project.
I think I was vindicated by these 2011 numbers. Clearly my thoughts were correct. I also have a theory that they didn’t release the actual dollar amount for each category in their last press release, because it showed exactly what I stated in my previous post, that Kickstarter is really Filmstarter. These 2011 numbers do bring Music & Film and Video a little closer. A third of all money pledged is for film and video, but a fifth of all money is music. Not bad for music.
Yesterday morning Tom and I went for a hike in Blydenburgh County Park. We use to mountain bike there a lot when we were younger, and in better shape. Now we’ve been reduced to hiking. In a way though it works out cause it’s easier to think and talk while hiking. When your mountain biking on a single track, you’re really just doing your best not to fall into the lake or bust your nose on a low hanging tree limb.
I use this really good iPhone app called GPS Kit. It’s like a $20 app, which is pretty expensive for an app, but it’s worth it if you hike a lot. I have no idea why it thinks my max speed was nearly 40 mph. But the average speed is dead on. Also another interesting thing is it says we were stopped for almost 50 minutes, which we weren’t. But I guess it counts all the times you’re in one spot for a few seconds. Hmmm I think I just figured out why it thinks my max speed was 40 mph. If it thinks I was stopped for say 10 minutes, but I was actually moving, then when it saw that I was moving, I would be very far away from where I was when it thought I was last moving. Therefore it would assume I was moving extremely fast. I bet there’s something in the settings about accuracy, that might help this.
I think Tom and I are going to try and get on a hiking schedule. 7+ miles wasn’t that bad. Hither Woods in Montauk has longer trails. Maybe we’ll hit that once Blydenburgh gets real easy.
This Saturday the 4 show Danzig Legacy Tour made it to the Hammerstein Ballroom in NYC and Tom and I went out to catch it. If you don’t know what this is, it’s Danzig doing songs from all three of his bands, Danzig, Samhain, and Misfits. I love all of his bands a great deal. Enough to spend thousands on shirts, artwork, and tattoos, yet I had never seen them live. The problem is that even though I’m in my early 30s, I was still not around for the Misfits, Samhain, or into the original Danzig lineup that toured prior to 1995. I didn’t start liking these bands till the late 90s when the local bands that I grew up loving started to break up, and I began to look elsewhere for music to listen to. What’s even more interesting than getting tattoos from a band I never saw live, is I had never been to a concert before. Live music of course. I’ve probably seen more live music than 99.9% of the world. But an actual “concert” I had never been to. From my teens to my mid 20s I probably saw 7 to 12 shows a month. All local shows from touring bands or bands based out of Long Island. Never more than a 1000 people and most of the time no more than 200. I grew up on a steady dose of Punk and Hardcore. There was only one time where I questioned if I had been to a “concert” and still to this day, I’m not completely sure. The year was 2003 and my buddies from a Canadian band named Moneen invited my friend Brian and I to see them play with Taking Back Sunday and Saves The Day in Asbury Park, NJ. This was the largest show/concert I had ever been to. I’ve went to fests sure, but that’s a fest, this is just 3 bands. There might have been 2000 people there. I felt pretty out of place. I didn’t even go out into the crowd, just hung out behind the rail near an emergency exit. Maybe that was my first concert, but since it was my friends playing, who really aren’t huge or anything, I never really saw it as a concert. I could have been in denial. Either way, seeing Danzig is a concert and I think no matter what that Saves the Day tour was, the cherry is no doubt popped.
A couple of things of note about Saturday night. One is that, even though I love Misfits and Danzig, for some reason the Samhain set was my favorite. Most people think this is his worst band of the three, and I might agree with that, but Saturday night it was his best. It might have been Tommy Victor. That dude can play. He handled the tempo change well. Danzig was smart about the set layout too. They did new Danzig, then went into Danzig I – IV stuff, then went directly into Samhain material. Basically it allowed the entire band to slow down naturally with the songs. It also allowed for less guitar changes which helps keep the crowd into it. And maybe this tempo changed worked on me as well. By the time they got to Samhain material I was ready to jump over the railing with anticipation. They played Let The Day Begin and I didn’t stop smiling till I paid my $41 parking garage bill and Tom and I hit the LIE for a rare October snow storm.
Last thing of note. We’re about an hour into the set when they lowered the Misfits backdrop and I was amazed to see how many people pulled out their cellphones to take pictures. Lot of punks out there grew up, got jobs, and turned into adults. Yet they still get gitty when they see the crimson ghost.
