Over the last few years, I’ve been generally able to get press access to most events. In the early days of 8BallRadio, it was harder because internet radio was still in its infancy and nobody took it seriously as “real” media. Towards the tail end of ‘03, there were hardly any events we couldn’t swing passes for. In 2007 you have to be high to not give press credentials to a media outlet based on the fact that they are internet based. You Tube is making and breaking careers everyday with their reach. Podcasting is selling records and breaking new artists. For a festival like Coachella that says they have their finger on the pulse of pop culture, they should know better – the internet IS the media. Two months ago I started emailing their press people asking for credentials. Several emails were ignored, a few shot back an “out of office” reply from “Marcee” so I know I reached the right person. Finally, a week ago I sent a final email, again, respectfully asking for press passes to cover their event. I explained I did a podcast that reached a large audience and was also aired on Sirius Satellite Radio. A day later I got an email back from my beloved Marcee stating that at this late juncture, all their passes had been given out. Are you fucking kidding me? I had been emailing them for months with no response, then she shoots back an email implying that I shouldn’t waited until the last minute to get a credential. I, of course, shot back an email stating my case, and she, of course, didn’t respond back. I would have preferred that she told me to “eat shit” rather than give me some bullshit excuse about “this late date.”

Coachella is the premiere festival in the U.S. – they know this, and quite frankly, they need to be knocked down a peg. There is attitude oozing out of every pore of their existence. Don’t believe me? Head on over to their message board sometime and look for any one of the thousands of postings from “Pyschic Friend,” a Goldenvoice employee whose only job, as far as I can tell, is to belittle and berate forum members for their “stupid” questions. Goldenvoice (aka Coachella) seems to think that we are lucky to even be able to buy a ticket to their event.

Don’t misunderstand me, they put on an amazing festival every year. This is my third year going and I’ll probably continue to go for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, they are so disconnected from technology and new media that I wonder how long they can stay relevant. I understand that they get hundreds of requests for credentials each year and there needs to be a limit. That’s why I tried to qualify myself in my email giving a brief rundown of why my coverage may be beneficial to them. If they had follow-up questions about my audience reach, they could have followed up. It does burn my ass though when I see the local Indio, CA newspaper with unfettered access to the festival and they probably have 1/20th of my total audience reach. But, because they are “real” print media, Coachella thinks they are worthwhile.

PR firms need to understand the value of new media. If you work in PR and don’t fully grasp it’s power then you’re not on top of your game. A few weeks ago you’ll recall Brian and I covered the Tempe Music Festival. The PR people we worked with were awesome. They were friendly, accomodating, and gave us the keys to the kingdom. There wasn’t anywhere that was off-limits to us. The reason for this was two-fold. First, the PR contact we had loved the buzzword “Sirius.” When I originally wrote to her to get press access, I gave the same pitch that I gave Coachella – “I do a podcast called American Cliche that is also aired on Sirius blah blah blah…” She loved that someone from Sirius wanted to cover their event. The second part of that equation was that the TMF didn’t have a lot of national press coverage. They see themselves as a smaller regional festival, and are happy to continue that way. However, when Sirius Satellite came knocking, they were thrilled. Nevermind the fact that the per-show online audience for Cliche is about ten times larger than the number of people that hear us on Sirius. It doesn’t matter, the PR person associated us with Sirius and Howard Stern and so on, so we werew in. Don’t misunderstand me, I am thankful to have a weekly spot on national satellite radio to say whatever I want for 30 minutes each week. I am extremely fortunate and grateful for that. However, the real foundation, and the people that matter the most to the show, are YOU, the online audience. You are the ones that read the site, post comments, and send emails. We have an interactive relationship. How many “real” media outlets can say that about their audience? There is real value in that and PR people need to understand that, or they’ll be obsolete in the very near future.

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This entry was posted on Friday, April 20th, 2007 at 10:31 am and is filed under Scott. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.