Hello,
We are looking at different ways to sell digital live stream content this season, and since TNEW's gated digital content feature has been moved to release in late August, I am wondering if any Tessitura users out there can share what they are doing now to sell gated content, particularly if you are using Tessitura/ TNEW for the sales path, and connecting to a third party stream from there somehow? What I am currently envisioning is selling on Tessitura/ TNEW, and then emailing a link to ticket buyers close to the time of a performance. Of course there are easy ways to break through the gate with this method, for example if we use VIMEO, where the password or direct link could be shared with non-buyers. While I'm not incredibly concerned about the dishonesty of our ticket holders forwarding their direct links along to other people, I'd love to know others' experiences and approaches have been with this. Or, maybe there is something simple that I am missing which would allow me to make the streaming more secure.
For Tessitura staff - We are looking to begin selling gated content before the TNEW release, but the actual performances may take place after the release, and so in addition to any third party workarounds that Tessitura users can provide, would we be able to take a performance sold before the release and convert it to a gated digital performance?
I have been searching the community forums and have not found a recent discussion on how people are selling gated content currently, and so if there is already one in progress that I missed, I'd love to be linked to it.
Thanks for your help, and I hope everyone is staying healthy out there!
Andrew
Good afternoon.
We at Cal Performances are also in the midst of figuring this out (on sale mid-August, with our first performance released the last week of September or first week of October). We have met with Brightcove, Vimeo (as a standalone platform), MadeMedia's CultureCast Tessitura-integrated payment gateway to Vimeo platform, and finally with Eventive (which is a small, start-up-like company that focuses on film festivals, but our understanding is that they are open to expanding genres and have more non-film orgs approaching them now that The Hop at Dartmouth has been talking about them to other University Presenters). They all have strengths and weaknesses, but interestingly Eventive is currently winning -- and not because they are a fraction of the cost of, say, Brightcove. Outside of an API connection with Tessitura, they meet our major requirements -- VOD and Livestream capability, OTT options, community engagement (chat, in this case), some branding ability, varying after-the-fact access based on certain criteria, their own paywall, can get it done by our first perf -- but then unless we go with Made (and deal with issues on the Vimeo end), none of them have a built-in working connection to Tess. At worst we will sell tickets (single perf or a subscription) via TNEW/Tess until a cut-off time tbd, upload a list of those who purchased, then after that cut-off, whichever platform we choose will take over sales via their paywall (Stripe, etc), then upload the difference in the final list back into Tess. And in lieu of the upcoming gated digital content feature via TNEW that has yet to be released, Eventive seems very willing to work with Tess to make the API piece happen, though it won't probably be in time for our first performance. We have also approached Tess Extended Services to help us work with the third-party (here perhaps Eventive?) to develop the API part.
The issues around copyright, permissions/restrictions. etc, are another ball of wax that we're discussing and considering, and making sure it isn't a problem with whomever we choose. One of the reasons we ruled out YouTube completely and early is because we recently livestreamed a dance class in partnership with a dance company that owns the music -- a class led by a company dancer -- and YouTube took it down halfway because of what it considered to be copyright infringement.
More to come.
Lynn, very interesting. I've been told that Facebook and Youtube have a blanket ASCAP/BMI license built in for live streaming, but any recorded and archived videos are not covered and would be in jeopardy. Have you come across any solutions so far? We've been going in circles trying to figure out how to best stay in compliance, but it seems to come down to getting permissions on each individual piece of music featured which is not easily or efficiently done.
Good morning Becky. We are steering clear of those for that reason. With Eventive (who we are hopefully going to use as a platform) and even Vimeo, it isn't a problem.