Said The Whale

On Wednesday night, I saw a live stream concert that left me disappointed. It wasn't so much the performer but the choice of platform. The set opened with Maggie Koerner growling a bluesy drawl on If I Die. It was a good start but I was nonplussed. This seemed a departure from what I knew of the artist. Then I laughed because all this time my brain fart had me thinking it would be Maggie Rogers.

In addition to the virtual audience, there was a smattering of live attendees since the show was taking place at The Chloe in New Orleans. It was a duo set with Joshua Starkman on guitar, and later on Zack Feinberg to close out the show, to celebrate Koerner's birthday IA good performance with original material like Love Drug and an excellent cover of Funkier Than A Mosquito's Tweeter, but it didn't have the fire of her show in Toronto last year.

I didn't enjoy this concert and my first experience with the platform StageIt. They gave a viewer the option to tip the artist "gift coins" where 10 pieces would be $1. So the chat screen, instead of being full of insightful or appreciative posts like Molly Tuttle's last show, often filled up with different tip amounts.

I don't begrudge paying a performer; artists sometimes put links to venmo or paypal as a virtual tip jar. But I became astonished tonight to see some viewers were contributing hundreds of dollars. I then noticed in the show's description a list of rewards for top supporters. The #1 supporter, if they contributed at least $444, would get a private performance. No doubt this structure was meant to follow StageIt's FAQ that "rewarding top supporters often incentivizes fans to tip who otherwise may not have."

 

It was nice payday for a $1-ticket show, probably worth thousands. After all, I noticed that the #3 supporter tipped almost $400. Yet there were still 2 others ahead of them and another 80 behind. I wondered if they thought getting a sticker and a koozie was worth it. This online platform felt cynical and grubby: tipping without limit, displaying your current rank in the queue, showing the top 5 but of course not their contributions ("Maybe if I keep tipping I'll move up!"), and that bald-faced FAQ.

 

StageIt's monetization scheme was of a kind with paying streamers and youtubers (which can lead to them churning out right-wing and polemical content to keep their fans' "engagement"), loot boxes, in-app purchases, and chasing microtransactions big-spenders. It's nasty business and I won't use them ever again. But they weren't the only guilty party. Koerner anticipated (and incentivized for) $400+ from a single viewer. She should give that private performance to at least her top 5 supporters.