PopUp People – Stephan From Gigflip
Living in Berlin puts us in the comfortable position to get to chose which one of our favorite bands we’d like to see today, tomorrow or next weekend. Most people living in smaller cities don’t have that luxury though and have to tour themselves in order to see the artists they love performing live on stage. gigflip and their concept of fanbooking is providing remedy by changing a whole system and thereby getting the mountain to come to Muhammad.
Stephan, what is gigflip?
gigflip enables fans to bring live events of their desired artists to their hometown. Artists and managements use gigflip to leverage and track real fan demand in order to adjust tour planning, prefund tours, eliminate the financial risk of demand fluctuation and to reach a highly engaged audience.
Why did you guys found gigflip? What was the need you saw and wanted to supply?
The traditional way of producing concerts is very inefficient and stuck in old structures. Promoters and bookers prefer to make the same deals in the same cities, they ignore a lot of fans who have a real demand for live concerts.
My vision is to eliminate the frustration fans face on the live market and disrupt the whole existing system. That‘s why we’ve created a platform where fans can organize and make their favorite concerts happen in their hometown. They have an impact on where their favourite artists perform live events. gigflip is the platform that makes this possible.
How do you ensure both fans and artists are happy with a concert that originated on your platform?
Fans are happy because they get rid of the frustration to be forced to travel far distances to see their favorite artists perform live. Established artists are happy because by using gigflip they generate unique PR in the German music and entertainment sector. Upcoming artists use gigflip to gain a much better negotiating base with promoters that have never booked the band before.
In fact, by involving fans in the decision where to play gigs as part of an upcoming tour, bands create an unforgettable (concert-) experience that fans will associate with them in the long-term, they actually emotionalize their brand.
We have realized over 15 live gigs on our platform so far with ticket prices between 15 and 20 Euro. We are still at the very beginning and have to test the market to learn what the people really want and what they would like us to improve. It’s a little like doing a pop-up store as a small label! The direct connecting to your customers is the most valuable thing, they will tell you what’s missing. We are going to bring some movement into the booking business in smaller cities like pop-up stores do in the field of retail.
What great experiences have you personally made so far with gigflip and its impact?
What really touches me is the effort the so called hardcore fans (we call them SuperFans) take on to promote campaigns. Last year, one or two SuperFans in Aschaffenburg designed and handed out flyers and posters in schools and other public places to promote the Killerpilze’s crowdfunding campaign. Also, they intensively shared the campaign across their social media channels. They actually realized the goal of the required ticket purchases and thus the Killerpilze show itself. Even today, fans still express how unique the feeling was and how proud they were to attend a concert that only took place thanks to their effort.
Channels
Where to find us
gopopup.com
facebook.com/gopopup
@gopopupcom
#gopopup
