HW: Free Hawkfest CD Giveaway (but be quick)

[M Holmes]

Paul Mather writes:

> On Sat, May 10, 2003 at 01:04:43PM -0400, Rik Rx wrote:
>
> => + ++ +STAR WARRIORS + ++
> =>
> => The buyers of the first 500 Hawkfest tickets will be eligable for a FREE
> => exclusive LIMITED EDITION cd, which
> => will *not* be available for sale in this format.
>
> That reads like a lesson straight out of "How to Make the Kollectors
> Mad 101." ;-)

Yep. There's a key misunderstanding of the fan base evident in this
scheme and I thought something would have been learned from the previous
roastings received by these schemes.

OK, I assume there's an economic incentive for the band to want to get
piles of 50 quid notes accrued, to wit: starting to get contracts signed
for the festival.  The logic that this be translated into incentives for
the fans to send in 50 quid notes faster (than other fans presumably) is
excellent economics. However, in that it's known that a certain element
of the hard core fans are Kollectors this is bound to cause trouble
since there are always going to be some who can't get to the festival
due to other commitments. They could always of course do what I did for
the London party with the free CD, which was to get a ticket and just
not go. The two problems with this here are:

A) 50 quid is quite a premium to ask even a diehard Kollector to pay for
a rare CD. We're not made of money, particularly after a spot of
Kollecting.

B) Attendance at the gig is apparently also required to obtain said CD.

I hate to be impolite to the band about this. After all, they are
organising the festival and this is basically a free gift. I do wish
though that a little consideration were put into these schemes based on
what's known about the fanbase. It'd save tears and unnecessary bad
feeling.

Now I reckon Colin will get right back here and say "OK Mike you
smartassed bastard (or words to that effect) tell us what *YOU* would do
goven that we want the spondulies in pretty quickly and that means
motivating the fans who *are* coming to the ball."

In order to save Colin some finger wear, I'll answer this question right
now, and *please* pass it on to Kris and Dave for their perusal, with
the reasoning above:

I would offer these CD's free to the first 500 folks who order tickets,
and for sale to any other passport holders who want them, so long as
they register for them by the time of the Hawkfest. It might also
increase passport numbers and thus the size of the direct mailing list.

As a punishment for thinking up the original scheme, I'd also give the
band 500 lines (in this universe finger wear is conserved): their
signatures on the first 500 CD's.  I suspect this would get the moolah
flowing in at a considerable rate as rare CD's which are signed are
veritably as beer to a thirsty man where Kollectors are concerned.

Of course, to really hurt the Kollectors, you could have the band
members individually sign a bunch each and then we'd have to get a CD
for each member of the band. This might cause problems though when beer
sales crash at the festival because despite seven of me buying tickets,
only one of me turns up...

FoFP