, the new music distributor for the band, announced that it will begin selling "Official Concert Recordings" of each night's show right on the spot, plus a collection of the CDs from the entire tour.
Welcome to an exciting new offering from
The Dead. For the upcoming
Summer Getaway 2003 tour, the band is printing and selling CD recordings from most of the tour concerts as soon as each respective concert is over. The concert recordings, called ©¯Official Concert Recording Series©—, are available for purchase over this website as well as at most concert venues at the concert.
Our long standing tradition of allowing concert goers to record their concerts for personal use with their own portable audio equipment will continue. However, the Official Concert Recording Series are the only concert recordings authorized for sale by the band. Each concert recording will consist of high quality soundboard recordings on 3 CDs, mastered by legendary sound engineer Dennis ©¯Wiz©— Leonard, and offered for sale at the price of $22. We will also offer a limited edition commemorative CD ©¯box set©— of all the available concert recordings from the tour. We decided to go with CDs for now as they are still the most convenient and widely used media for high quality music recordings.
I've heard of some other bands doing this, but I guess it's going to become a regular practice. It does make a nice souvenir. It also shows that while modern technology may threaten some traditional forms of music sales and distribution, it also allows for new ways to make money. Here are some more ways: include a discounted version with the ticket purchase; allow folks who can't follow the tour to subscribe to it, that'd be real popular; and last but not least, webcast the entire friggin' tour live. Why not? People would pay.
