Fan Club - to be or not to be

[Clive]

Heres a question. And I would be interested to see plenty of answers (I'm kind of wondering how many people really look in on this forum, despite the theoretical figure at the top). Is there a place any more for a real Fan Club... a solid, non-virtual. You know...quarterly mags, special offers, free CDs...whatever.
Would enough people join?
Would they be prepared to pay the fees?
What can make this something that can't simply 'downloaded' by some 'freedom for the people' moron?
What could we do to make it different?

Or should we just let sleeping dogs lie?

We may have a new album next year... I was just wondering...

[Nicky007]

We may have a new album next year... I was just wondering...

Best news of the summer, Clive. Keep it up, guys!

Or should we just let sleeping dogs lie?

Let's giv'm a proper kick

I'm in for anything that has to do with Arena ...... except maybe selling my apartment (I have to think of Pusle - miau).

"Set them free!"

Nicky.

[funkster]

An interesting notion Clive.

I suppose a decent model would be The Web which is the marillion version, details can be viewed here - http://www.marillion.com/web/index.htm

It would not be something that would appeal to me personally , i think , but i know a lot of people on the MOLF who swear by the Web and the various bits and bobs that come with it.

As a relative newcomer to Arena and maybe picking up an old thread but .... howsabout enclosing a copy of Contagion max with the first years membership 

Just an idea.

PS Clive , best of luck with the new album and thanks for making such amazing music and that inclues Pendragon another band i am a recent convert to. Cheers mate.
 

[mdread666]

(Clive - is this in response to my thoughts of 6th September under Twilight of the Bands ?)

Yes, a return to a non-virtual (nay real !) fan club is the way to go in my opinion to run along side this site.

Something which is apparent from this forum is that the fans really want to support the band in many ways and as long as they feel they are getting something in return, value for money and things which can not be got from other avenues then I can see why the majority on this list wouldn't want to join. So yes I believe if the above points are met then people would indeed be prepared to pay the fees.

What would make it different ? - well I loved the nature of the previous fan club CD's - the acoustic versions, the medleys, rare live tracks and alternative vocals:- these are things which appeal to the real fans and probably not so much to the file-sharing-kids ! So more of releases like these I think, plus perhaps some cover versions etc.

Perhaps you could take a leaf out of Fish's book and make each release available months earlier to fan club members or even just via the Verglas website and enhance the package beyond just the music. By this I mean say full band-signed versions, limited artwork/packaging and perhaps have an accompanying 2nd CD of  alternative vocal versions/demoes or band jamming session which could be made available to fan club members only ?

Perhaps you could send all FC members a Christmas card aswell !!

[maddox]

I truly support the idea of a Fan club. Actually i never really understood why the sudden change of direction in The Cage, which if i recall correctly was the official Fan club of Arena.
Would i become a member and would i pay the fees? I for one would, though i must admit that VoicesUK (Dream Theater) is the only fanclub i'm a member of. Never been a member of anything in my whole life but that's beside the point.

Every well known band, prog or no prog, needs a fanclub. And in my world Arena is well known. 

[PH]

I say a big "YES" to a fanclub!
I'd pay for it!
And whatever this fanclub will bring us, I'd be happy to be part of it anyway.
Very much so.

-Paco

[Lake of despond]

I'm in

[cabo]

I'm in 

[Teunis]

I'm interested too 

[Nicky007]

And in my world Arena is well known. 

Could you explain that, Maddox?

Because in my world, the only people who know Arena are those who've had a bugger (me) accosting them with A-music, and after several such occasions, to their surprise, they end up liking it 

One of the advantages of knowing me (maybe the only) is that after a while people get their radio pop replaced by great music 

Nicky.

[Nicky007]

I say a big "YES" to a fanclub!
I'd pay for it!
And whatever this fanclub will bring us, I'd be happy to be part of it anyway.
Very much so.

Sounds like you're interested, Paco 

Nicky.

[JJ II]

I'm in 

Actually: I never was out!!

Clive, what about his: paying a subscription of 40 euro with the knowledge of getting the album advance, and something extra as well (bonus disc with outtakes or video, or an excli\sive live-compilation).
A magazine would be great, but it's a hell of a job to make it.

Just send us an e-mailnewsletter more often with what you're doing (and the others). Om Jem Godrfey's (sorry to mention him again) blog we can read about the coming-together of songs, which is great.

The great thing with advance payments is that you know exactly how many CD's to make, and I'd say only do so when you have a mimimum amount of people. Make BIG publicity around the new year or so....

Whatever you come up with: I'm with you....

[HelenDo]

Hi Clive

Yes I would definitely be interested in whatever form the fan club takes.

A new album in 2008 - superb news  

Helen xx

[pealo]

100% interested.


Have to say, one of my favourite things in years gone by was getting a christmas card signed by pendragon.

[Clive]

OK... so thats about ten people so far.... wake me up when we get to 100....

[johninblack]

OK... so thats about ten people so far.... wake me up when we get to 100....

89 to go. I'm in, how could I not be interested? Not too bothered about what I got for my money, just pleased to be given the chance to support the band further. I think JJII's suggestion of more frequent email updates is good. I also think that making the release date early for FC members is a great way of saying 'thanks' to the bands most loyal supporters without it costing Arena too much money.

[bluepony]

Is there a place any more for a real Fan Club... a solid, non-virtual.

Well, I think there has always been a place for that... But then for whatever reason (Too much work with the printed magazine maybe? Which I must admit is a reason I would totally understand, having myself contributed to a magazine and all - it IS a lot of work, especially when it's not your day job and you're doing it 'just for fun'.) The Cage turned into this online thingy - which isn't a bad idea at all, but I must say, I personally prefer the 'real thing'.

You know...quarterly mags, special offers, free CDs...whatever.

Yes! Please!! How about 'Contagion - The Max'?    Yippee!
(Doesn't even have to come for free - I'm prepared to pay for it, as long as this means that it will finally be available. *nudge*)

Would enough people join?

I don't know how many you consider to be 'enough'... but I know I would!!
(And I think I know a few others who wouldn't want to miss their chance to join, too. Who knows, maybe we could even get Paco to buy some CDs. )

Would they be prepared to pay the fees?

Again, I can only speak for myself, but yes, I would!

What can make this something that can't simply 'downloaded' by some 'freedom for the people' moron?

Hmmm... I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure that there are solutions to make sure that certain files are downloaded just once. It has to do with personal user IDs, passwords and codes that work just for one single download, files that are 'copy-protected' and can be used only on the computer or MP3-player they're downloaded to etc. Like I said, I don't know exactly how this works, but I know that it works...

What could we do to make it different?

Like others here (I think it was mdread666) said: be exclusive! Give fan club members the chance to get new albums in advance, maybe have special limited editions with a second CD available only for the fanclub members, etc... I quite like the idea with the cover versions, that could be fun and I love the existing fan club CDs with the acoustic versions and ghost vocal tracks. It would be great to have more of that!

Or should we just let sleeping dogs lie?

Never!!! 

[Bupie]

89 to go. I'm in, how could I not be interested? Not too bothered about what I got for my money, just pleased to be given the chance to support the band further. I think JJII's suggestion of more frequent email updates is good. I also think that making the release date early for FC members is a great way of saying 'thanks' to the bands most loyal supporters without it costing Arena too much money.

I'm in too, of course.

[Stuart]

I'd be up for this too. Some of the ways to enhance this and get over the downloaders have been mentioned, but packaging is what most fans pay extra for, the booklet, signatures, little extras like additional mixes, out takes and videos of the recording process.
As JJII mentioned Jem Godfrey's View From The Cube is a great way to keep interest and an information flow on what is happening. Fish does the same with his regular emails that are also available on the web site.

Pre-Ordering is another great way to raise funds to pay for recording. Make a limited edition Digipak with an extra CD of whatever (it really doesn't matter what it is - honest), and you can take money in advance.

So I think the summary is fans want information and extras from any fan site. They need to feel they are getting something special that isn't available to everyone and has a personal touch.

[keyboardistmatt]

To be honest I'm not so sure that there is a place for a 'non virtual' fan club anymore.  Although I would pay the fees, and join and I like the idea of special offers, magazines and special free cd's, technology seems to have developed to a degree where all of the above can be loaded onto a computer in one way or another and shared around. 
These things don't seem to be so 'exclusive' any more, and I would say that it would be a whole lot of work which could potentially be ruined by complete tossers. 

[bellanova]

Yep definately. Come on everyone even if you dont post on here regularly!!!

[ironcow2103]

Is there a place any more for a real Fan Club...

Didn't we used to have one? :-)

Seriously, as it is Arena, yes I'd join (or join my son up) but as I regularly forget to re-sub his Iron Maiden FC membership the question is what is it going to offer to get people to join and stay joined (I was also in the Marillion FC for a while but the mags were generally pretty boring)?

Yes, the CD's are a good idea but how about killing two birds with one stone and having a Neo-Prog FC?

You'd have more interesting material to put in a mag (no more thoughts of the bus driver, tour caterer etc), CD's (hell even CD-R's to keep costs down, Twelfth Night do it) could contain all the remix's, radio edits (something Threshold are good at - got to be worth Arena trying it for these freebie CD's on mags, ProgPower etc), acoustics, rare lives etc, which not only giving fans something would also serve to introduce bands to fans of others (I like my Prog but I am pretty ignorant  of the likes of Gallahad and Jadis - the former I found on a CR CD and it sounded pretty good as did Black Bonzo who I'd never heard of).

Just a thought...

Steve

[mdread666]

To save on running costs (printing/postage etc.) instead of a 'non-virtual' paper issue, the regular 'magazine' could be either sent via email (as mentioned by others before) or perhaps be as a members only area of the web site. Surely this would be easy to do as it would only need to be an updated version of the Cage as it currently stands, but with a lot more regular updates, interviews, photos  etc. and with contributions from ALL members of the band  

Perhaps you could then just limit an actual mail out to a once yearly Membership welcome pack/renewal pack, with signed photos, membership card (for discount at gigs) plus bits-and-bobs.

What would make it special would be for signed photos, CD's etc all to be personalised.

Ideas for members only merchandise which would really appeal to me (which would be fairly easy and cheap for you to do I believe) would be to re-release all the past fan club DVD's but in slightly better packaging with better picture quality (if possible) and proper chapter breaks/menus, and also to transfer the old videos onto DVD (and I do mean the 'old' videos - the likes of Lionhearted, Open Your Eyes and Story of My Life - surely, somewhere you still have the masters or at least copies of these ?). But the main thing I would really like (don't know about anyone else ?) would be for the audio of all of these DVD's to be made into proper CD's.

[Stuart]

As Clive says - let's see who really reads these forums. Let's face it if there are only a handful of fans willing to read and contribute to a free forum, how many would actually pay money?

If you look at the forum activity, out of  the 545 registered members, only 60 have posted 40+ posts.

There are a staggering  192 members who have NEVER posted. OK some of them may lurk and read posts, but that's a huge number.

An additional 198 have posted 5 times or less.

HALF of ALL posts on the site are contributed by SEVEN people, yes only SEVEN.

Out if the 23585 total posts, 20,000 were contributed by only 45 people.

From this there is almost no way there will be 100 individual replies to this thread in support of a paid for fan club

Sad, very sad. What will it take to get fans off their rears and do something positive for the bands they will so quickly complain about were they to disappear?

[mdread666]

Yes, the CD's are a good idea but how about killing two birds with one stone and having a Neo-Prog FC?

Well, hopefully if the 'mag' is done properly and includes all members' side projects then it should cover quite a slice of the prog world  

Perhaps you could have a contribution from a different 'guest' artist each issue, but my view would be to keep it primarily Arena based.

A thought Clive - could you not also generate some revenue from the mag by seeing if you could get some advertisers on board ? - online CD/DVD retailers for example, specialising in prog.