Instant Concert CDs, Sold on the Spot
Even before draining their final beer, clubgoers in Boston can now get a take-home CD copy of the musical performance they just heard. Communications giant Clear Channel has launched Instant Live, and it wants you to take home more than a groggy memory of the live shows they promote.

A modest launch of the new service is now underway in Boston, currently involving only a few clubs and smaller concert theaters, but Clear Channel hopes for enough success to make Boston a model for a national rollout.

At each Instant Live show, an engineer mixes together the band's music, taken directly from the sound board, with the ambient sounds of the room, taken from additional microphones. The result is a bona fide live concert recording that SOUNDS like a live recording, warts and all. The master recording is immediately transferred to an on-site mass-duplication machine, which quickly cranks out all the CDs that customers need.

Concert-goers can take home a two-CD recording of the night's show for $15, and at many of the first shows (which started Feb. 27, 2003) thirty-percent of the attendees purchased a recording. Visitors to the web site can purchase additional copies of any of the concerts online, anytime.

So far the performers involved have been local and regional acts without major label contracts. The music industry is watching the project closely -- on the one hand looking for ways to augment concert revenues, but on the other hand fearful of a flood of discs that compete directly with their own official releases, and of the contractual complications that might arise.

Learn more about Clear Channel from their corporate site, their live entertainment division, or their new Instant Live venture.

See an example of how Clear Channel promotes its Instant Live artists: the May 30 show by Kay Hanley at The Paradise

Read press about the launch from Rolling Stone and the New York Times [fee required]