Webcast of December 2013 Season by CMANA

[rapper]

Hi Rasikas,

First time in the history of the CM, CMANA is bringing in a webcast of Kartik Fine Arts concerts to North American Audience at an amazing price of $5 per concert.
Season starts December 6 every Friday,Saturday and Sunday through January 4 2014

Dont miss this unique opportunity to be part of the December Music Festival without having to fly to India. This is also open to all others living outside India.Detailed Flyer http://cmana.org/skin/images/event/1385 ... yer_us.pdf

Season Pass $100 (Early Bird Prices Ends Nov 30,2013)/Regular Pricing $125 for 20 Concerts.

You can buy them at http://www.cmana.org/decembermusicfestival

Dont miss this opportunity to be part of the Chennai Music Festival 2013

CMANA NJ

[Rsachi]

Great Initiative, congrats CMANA.
Please extend access at a fee to Indian audiences also, as many may be interested.

[Rsachi]

They sent me an email - Rs 6000 for 20 concerts. A bit pricey I must say.

[vasanthakokilam]

Excellent CMANA. Great to hear the news. A few years back, when I told my boss that I will be going to Chennai for the December music season, he asked what seemed like an audacious question: 'Aren't those concerts webcast live?'. His thinking is becoming a reality. I see progress towards this every year.

Regarding prices, I do not know the circumstances and economics of the business relationships to advice CMANA in stron g terms but here are some ideas.

CMANA can consider pricing the concerts according to the Purchasing Power Parity, either the U.N. one, or the Economist Big Mac one or even better Sachi's Ilanir PPP index. But here the PPP is between the Carnatic Rasika fraternity abroad and in India.

But just like how local TV stations are sometimes barred from showing games that are taking place in that city so they get live spectators, there may be a fear of that if they price is too low.

If that is not a concern, then the ratio of 1/3 is an excellent proxy for the purchasing power parity of carnatic music rasikas abroad and India. In the U.S., on the average, the front two rows demand a $50.00 price, the next 10-15 rows $25.00 and the rest $15.00 ( adjust downwards for an up and comer ).

If the $5.00 is considered 1/3 of the typical price in U.S., then what will be the season ticket price for Indians?
If the lower priced tickets is rs 120.00 and the median is 300 and the higher end is 600, the equivalent 1/3 price for 20 concerts will be 800, 2000 and 4000 respectively.

May be this is too late for this year, but CMNA can consider three different audio/video quality as a proxy for seats in the back, in the middle and in the front: non HD, 720p HD, 1080p HD for the corresponding prices of 800, 2000 and 4000. Hey, feel free to run with the idea ( one pro tip. Make it easy for people to pay and to upgrade to higher tiers without any penalty ). I bet most people will choose the middle tier.

[Rsachi]

Wow. A comprehensive pricing strategy, based on buy-ability!
My own take... I wouldn't shell out Rs 6000 for this webcast pack.
I have watched several free and priced carnatic webcasts.
Video quality is quite good, rarely HD...and most technologies automatically adjust resolution to instant end to end bandwidth quality (youtube introduced it recently as a selectable option in your browser window for mobile devices..right hand top corner symbol).
Audio is almost always good.
My guess- CM rasikas rarely care about video HD but do care about audio and camera work.
Eventually, if people get a season pass with multiple concert options each day and some tiered pricing options, more will buy.
The competition: many concerts are free, many are recorded and shared free privately and at S'Priya, and one whole series is webcast free via Jaya TV.

[rapper]

This webcast has been priced essentially for North American Audience. The webcast is not being allowed in India due to artist reservations. This is being priced in INR only to mitigate the necessary issues of conversion for different worldwide currencies. Jaya Tv or for that matter any television channels do not broadcast the entire concert but mostly snippets. A major portion of this fee is being pooled back to the artists if that is any consolation. Yes, You tube does have snippets of these concerts- however I can tell you that most of the senior artists are trying to use legal help to bring it down.

This is a very reasonably priced package - with convenient video archives for 48 hrs for the people who missed it to be able to view it.

VK- Yes, i agree to resolution issues- but for $100 for 20 concerts you cannot get this cheaper here in US. I would stick to good quality and delivery as opposed to any tiered packages which will look like a compromise on quality. As for Indian Audience,it is going to be a while before Webstreaming becomes a reality. When i last checked, download speeds by Indian ISP's are still restricted and have quotas on downloads which makes it expensive once someone goes over a plan of 2/4 GB downloads.

[Rsachi]

Just one example of how we in India receive Web casts - please check out shaale.com and also India International Centre website. Both were free when I last watched concerts.

[vasanthakokilam]

rapper, the bandwidth cap issue is indeed a problem in many cases. It will be great if that problem is turned around with internet companies selling data plans to consumers using such cultural programs as the carrot.

Sachi, I guess you are saying that bandwidth may not be a problem in many cases since there are already web casts like the ones you mention.

On the free web cast, my issue with that is, it is not sustainable by definition unless the money comes from other sources like advertisers, sponsors or cultural organization who have their own source of funding. Even with that, we are at the mercy of those organizations. I would like to see a system develop where it survives/thrives with the audience paying money ( decision about how much is a separate issue ). It is not easy since people expect stuff to be free on the internet but I would like to have that alternative develop. Let us see how the efforts by CMANA work out.

[rapper]

Hi RS,

Yes- Livestream is good. We have used it . See it under http://cmana.org/gcd_video_2013. This is free content. What i meant is the Music Season in Chennai will be a while for India to watch it. As you start going up the music pyramid of stardom,they want less and less to be given away for free. That is my experience.

Nevertheless, great work by Shaale.com.

[Rsachi]

Sure, Rapper and VKM.
No need for giving away anything free. I was just telling you what alternatives many people have, to purchasing the Rs 6K webcast. That's all.
I wish all success to you folks in promoting high quality streaming of the Dec season concerts. I firmly believe nothing is actually free and many people can indeed afford to pay for what they enjoy the most.

[sudhakar.ks]

The webcast is powered by Kalakendra.com and we have been offering several free webcasts including the ongoing Namasankeertanam festival and Voices of Tomorrow.
http://www.kalakendra.com/shopping/streaming-c-123.html is the link we have all the live and DVR webcast available. These are powered by youtube with whom we have a partnership to enable us to provide the same for free.

The 20 concert pack is made available using Amazon Web Services to provide reliability of the back end.

One correction from what rapper said, all of the money collected and little more is going towards artists, organization, equipment rental and server rental.

At Rs. 300 (and equivalent) a concert it barely covers the travel cost of going to the concert even if you are in Chennai at current fuel price
The whole idea is make this available to the everyone around the world and with all your blessings and good wishes we should have a successful webcast.

Thanks,

Sudhakar

[harimau]

The 20 concert pack is made available using Amazon Web Services to provide reliability of the back end.

One correction from what rapper said, all of the money collected and little more is going towards artists, organization, equipment rental and server rental.

At Rs. 300 (and equivalent) a concert it barely covers the travel cost of going to the concert even if you are in Chennai at current fuel price
The whole idea is make this available to the everyone around the world and with all your blessings and good wishes we should have a successful webcast.

Actually, it is far cheaper than for a couple to fly into Chennai, stay in a hotel/relative's home, buy tickets for concerts and travel to the auditorium.

Hopefully, the sheeple abroad will look at this from a cost-benefit viewpoint and decide to stay away from Chennai.

That would make it possible for the average Chennai resident to go to these concerts without having to fight crowds at the ticket booth or at the auditorium doors.

The only negative-- from their viewpoint -- is that the sheeple won't be seen attending concerts by friends and relatives in India.

If it is possible to erect several 96" inch screens in the venues and beam in the pictures of subscribers to this series, that problem will be solved.

Hopefully, that step will be taken at least by the next year's season. :p

[kedharam]

If only there is a way to stop folks who flock to concerts in Dec with free passes from the kinds of Nalli and Cleveland Sundaram (to be seen) and demand rights over us who stand in line/pay the price (to listen), then the 'sheeple' and the other kind can have a comfortable co-existence:)
Meanwhile… wishing a happy thanksgiving and a joyful music season:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzwXMnt4 ... 0&index=12

[cacm]

Dear Sri Kedaram, Can you tell me the secret of getting free tickets from Cleveland Sundaram? I have known him since 1968 & been his house guest many times during the season & yet to receive a free pass. Whats is the secret I wonder.......VKV

[VijayR]

I am perfectly fine with $5 per concert, in an absolute sense… However, I think that the point that Sachi, VK, and others are trying to make is that from a consumer's viewpoint, the psychology of pricing is relative… For example, iCarnatic (check out www.icarnatic.org) is broadcasting Charsur's mid-year and December festivals (a total of 24 concerts) for $30, which is $1.25 a concert. Seems to be a significant difference… I am sure there are many unseen factors that play a role in this difference, but the fact remains that, to the end-user, this is a substantial difference...

Regardless of the pricing, this is an absolutely wonderful initiative… Kudos to Sri. Sudhakar and the Kalakendra team for adding to their list of new initiatives and the CMANA team as well.

[rapper]

@RVijay

The difference in pricing is because of the lineup of artists:- Brand Names cost a lot as well
No disrespect to anyone intended.

[sreecons]

Will be logging in from New Zealand to catch a few concerts from the comfort of my home. Many of my friends across NZ, Australia, Middle East and Europe have also decided to support this initiative. Looking forward to a lovely Kiwi summer with lotsa music

[rapper]

Tune in December 6 for our first concert by Malladi Brothers followed on Saturday by Smt Sowmya and on Sunday by Sri T N Seshagopalan.

All Webcasts start at 700 PM EST

[rapper]

Thanks Sreecons,

Individual webcasts can now be purchased by Rasikas at http://www.cmana.org. This has been done due to a lot of requests from people who want to catch the glimpse of action but will either be travelling to India later part of December or on a vacation.

All of these concerts are being archived for a period of 120 hrs ( 5days) with an exception of a few where we have it for 48 hrs (2 days)

Rasikas board members are welcome to go to CMANA website where some promotional coupons are also being offered for signup.

[sreecons]

Just finished viewing/listening to the first concert by Malladi Brothers. Initially had issues with buffering but by the time Thodi raga started it was better. Interestingly I didn't have this sort of buffering issues whilst viewing the Cleveland Aradhana sessions early in the year. Looking forward to the next concerts