Fanbassador lets you crowdfund shows from your favorite bands

In addition to being undeniably the greatest band of all time, The Beatles were famous for playing shows in the smallest of cities. Take my hometown for example, which is a tiny dormitory town on the periphery of Liverpool. At the height of Beatlemania, the Fab Four graced it with their presence five times.

Today, things are a little bit different. When bands tour, they seldom visit smaller towns, instead choosing to target larger markets. But Fanbassador wants to change that.

It bills itself as “the first competition based crowdfunding platform” which allows fans to compete against fans in other cities for shows. By working directly with musicians and their team in the early stages of planning a tour, Fanbassador allows musicians to work out where most tickets are likely to be sold.

CEO and co-founder Chris Ring says:

I have been promoting concerts for nearly 20 years now and the booking model really hasn’t changed. Promoters keep taking risk after risk, hoping for the best while artists roll the dice on the secondary and tertiary markets they are playing, not knowing if the shows are going to be great or duds. With the reach that social media has and the popularity of crowdfunding we don’t need to take that risk and send artists out on the road wondering how shows will be.

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To demonstrate that there’s interest in a particular date, fans can reserve admissions to future hypothetical shows, and purchase additional VIP perks. These can include merchandise, a music lesson, or even coffee with the artist.

Former Fueled by Ramen staple Cute Is What We Aim For recently used Fanbassador to plan their upcoming 2016 US tour. The platform helped them decide to tour Boston, rather than Baltimore, and work out that there wasn’t enough buzz for them to profitably visit Greensboro or Knoxville.

Shaant Hacikyan, the frontman for Cute Is What We Aim For, said:

By using Fanbassador’s platform, fans in smaller markets finally have a shot at bringing a tour to their city that would have normally gone somewhere else.

Two more bands are scheduled to use the Fanbassador platform: Buffalo metalcore band Every Time I Die, and veteran rockers Punchline, who recently released their seventh album on InVogue records.