Larson Hicks’ love of music led him out of the sales and economics world five years ago and into the music industry when he started Stereopathic Presents, a concert promotion company in the Moscow-Pullman area focused on Indie, Indie Folk and Indie Rock bands.
But now he’s taking that love to the next level. Hicks and his business partner Andrew Forsman plan to start a non-profit organization, Outland Music Project, geared toward helping small-town concert promoters.
“We want to sort of be like a co-op or a better business bureau of sorts for small-town promoters,” Hicks said. “We want to kind of certify them, educate them, make sure they do good work and then lobby on their behalf to the music industry.”
Hicks said his decision to create OMP is based on three issues — the Moscow-Pullman economy, the current state of the music industry and poor treatment of musicians.
Good music in Moscow and Pullman would attract better talent and more tourists to the area, therefore boosting the economy, Hicks said. Part of this idea is based on an economic impact study Stereopathic conducted. Hicks said Stereopathic concerts have brought more than $630,000 into the Moscow economy and more than 4,600 visitors from out of town.
“And a lot of those people get a hotel room, go to dinner, bars, etc. while they’re here,” Hicks said. “So for economic reasons, it’s really great for the town to bring in outside money.”
Hicks said through different surveys, he discovered that 50 percent of concert attendees said if Stereopathic wasn’t hosting a specific concert in town, they would drive out of town to see the band.
“In economic jargon, that’s called import substitution,” he said. “So we’re basically keeping money here that would have leaked out of our economy. So that’s another local benefit.”
Hicks said the big picture is that the music economy has changed with the Internet, meaning live music is the most lucrative area of the industry.
“So festivals and live shows are really the only place that bands and the different support industries like labels are making any money anymore,” he said. “There’s kind of this monopolization that’s happening.”Live Nation — a company that owns hundreds of venues around the country and puts on festivals such as Sasquatch — merged with TicketMaster in 2009, which Hicks said is an indication of how large companies are trying to “own” the live music scene.
He said the problem is that the only place people can see live music now is if they drive to a big city or go to a huge music festival.
“And if you’ve been to a huge festival, you can attest to the fact that most of them are a pretty lame experience,” Hicks said. “You can check a bunch of bands off your bucket list, but you can hardly say you saw them. You’re standing a football field away, next to a port-a-potty and not to mention, it probably cost an arm and a leg.”
Hicks said large festivals and music venues often have a negative effect on the sound of music, opposed to smaller venues such as the Bell Tower in Pullman.
Another issue is the manner in which bands are treated due to the large “bloated” nature of promotion companies, Hicks said.
He said bands often don’t hit a “split point” on a deal because the promotion companies’ expenses are so high that there’s no back-end profit for the band or the promoters.
There was a time when a concert was more of a business partnership, which Hicks said is the way things should return.
“You’ve got the concert promoter … who’s coordinating all of the details on the ground to make a successful show,” he said. “And on the other side of the partnership is the band and all its people, and they’re working hard to sell tickets with good music. That’s a healthy relationship when it’s an equal partnership.”
Hicks said now it’s more like an employee-employer relationship, in which the promoter is the employer and the band is the employee.
“Ask bands about how they’re treated at most concerts and they’ll usually tell you they’re treated like dirt,” he said. “It’s like there’s this mindset of ‘Oh, they’re just the talent.’ The reality in a small town like this is that we’re so excited and grateful to have the bands that we bend over backward to make them happy and have awesome hospitality.”
Hicks said not only is it a better experience for a band to play in a small town, but it’s also possible to make more money due to a lean budget and low overhead costs.
For now, the duo is waiting to obtain its non-profit status. Hicks said this doesn’t mean they can’t start, but funding is a large part of their value proposition for businesses.
“One of the items in our value proposition for businesses we hope to attract is that their donation would be tax deductable,” he said. “And it wouldn’t truly be at this point because we don’t have that non-profit status approved yet.”
Hicks said OMP’s focus will be in the Pacific Northwest, and will most likely target larger businesses such as Avista or Schweitzer, as well as grant-awarding organizations for funding.
He said for the last fifty years, bands have been touring the same big cities and the same clubs.
“That needs to change,” Hicks said. “And that’s what OMP wants to do. Our primary focus is helping small towns establish music scenes like the one we’ve got here. We want to make this scene even more vibrant, and then I think we can help other small towns do the same thing.”
Britt Kiser can be reached at [email protected]