[Kirk]

Doesn't touring and playing shows give the band most profit?

You beat me to it. I always thought bands made their money touring. Get the fans to plop money down for tickets. Thats where the money is.

[Drez7]

With no Puretracks here in Buffalo I resorted to downloading the song off an FTP. Do I feel bad, nope. And it's a great tune by the way. I've even played it for others who didn't know much of The Hip before this and will too buy the CD and maybe catch a show or two. So there, downloading the song can lead to more profit. They need to look at both sides of the fence. I own every CD and have spent big bucks going to their shows and still will. We all will buy the CD when it comes out. If they didn't want it to be downloaded they should have just waited for the CD to come out. The whole article is really a bunch of crap. Every band deals with the same stuff. It comes with the changing of times. Still love the Hip and when IVE actually drops, this whole thing will be forgotten.

[mark]

i love this part:

"That means it’s fans of the Hip — their own fans are doing this," Henderson says with a hint of disgust. "And the CDs that they could be buying? They’re all mid-price. Every damn one of them is mid or budget and available for under 10 bucks in any store in this country. Now, you tell me that’s overpriced."

where in the hell is he buying cd's for under $10? i have never seen CD's that cheap before.

the whole Puretracks thing just shows how disconnected the Hip are with their fans.

[mark]

if the new album leaked, you can bet your ass that i will download it.

but, i, as a fan of the Hip, will also buy it. i didn't pay for VS, tho. i am not going to go through the hassel of registering on a site (that i will never visit again) and charge $0.99 to my CC. it took me less time to find it and download it.

as said before, the Hip Club would have been the proper way to distribute it.

[macyme]

And to those of you who think that The Hip are already well off enough without your hard earned cash, "Oh come on," Henderson retorts. "The guys live in Kingston, they’re not on MTV Cribs."

Just because the boys are living in Kingston, I think they're doing just fine in the ole' financial category. I know i've already contributed over a thousand bucks towards the hip in someway or another, cds, records, concerts, posters, t-shirts...... I would love to know what the hip have earned/profited since they begain.

It just bothers me that they release this single 2 months before the album which is not accesible to everyone. If they would have just frigin released the album people would go out right away and buy it and wouldn't be downloading the single. people are downloading it because they're impatient to wait for the album to come out and don't want to buy something twice (the album and the single) which is the exact same song, no bonus songs or anything.

[direwolf74]

Doesn't touring and playing shows give the band most profit?

You beat me to it. I always thought bands made their money touring. Get the fans to plop money down for tickets. Thats where the money is.

You guys are both right. When I lived in Ottawa I worked at a record store for three years and learned quite a bit about record companies. Bands are lucky if they make even $1 off each CD sold. The Hip have sold almost 6 million records (mostly in Canada), so they've definitely made some dough from that, but I can almost guarantee that the majority of their income is from touring and merchandise sales. I'm not sure what the Hip's price-tag is in Canada for playing a big show, but I'm guessing it's upwards of $100,000 per gig, maybe more. In the States they're playing smaller venues, so of course the money will be less, but let's not forget they're making American dollars down there. Considering an average Hip ticket for a U.S. show is about $25, I wouldn't be surprised if they make upwards of $15,000 per gig depending on the capacity of each venue.

[macyme]

You guys are both right. When I lived in Ottawa I worked at a record store for three years and learned quite a bit about record companies. Bands are lucky if they make even $1 off each CD sold. The Hip have sold almost 6 million records (mostly in Canada), so they've definitely made some dough from that, but I can almost guarantee that the majority of their income is from touring and merchandise sales. I'm not sure what the Hip's price-tag is in Canada for playing a big show, but I'm guessing it's upwards of $100,000 per gig, maybe more. In the States they're playing smaller venues, so of course the money will be less, but let's not forget they're making American dollars down there. Considering an average Hip ticket for a U.S. show is about $25, I wouldn't be surprised if they make upwards of $15,000 per gig depending on the capacity of each venue.

What about the Canadian Tours where tickets are roughly $30 and they sell out the ACC for 2 nights in Toronto, ACC roughly holds Around 18,000 people x 30 per ticket = $540,000 times 2 nights = 1.08 million.....don't get me wrong i know there are a lot of people they have to pay and i'm sure there's a lot of hidden costs that we don't even realize but over a 1 million dollar in ticket sales for 2 nights and that doesn't even include merchandise sales......so for these people to complain about people not paying their 99 cents to puretracks, that's garbage.

[beanmedic]

thats the problem. it's not the band that's complaining for the most part, it's the record company

[direwolf74]

You guys are both right. When I lived in Ottawa I worked at a record store for three years and learned quite a bit about record companies. Bands are lucky if they make even $1 off each CD sold. The Hip have sold almost 6 million records (mostly in Canada), so they've definitely made some dough from that, but I can almost guarantee that the majority of their income is from touring and merchandise sales. I'm not sure what the Hip's price-tag is in Canada for playing a big show, but I'm guessing it's upwards of $100,000 per gig, maybe more. In the States they're playing smaller venues, so of course the money will be less, but let's not forget they're making American dollars down there. Considering an average Hip ticket for a U.S. show is about $25, I wouldn't be surprised if they make upwards of $15,000 per gig depending on the capacity of each venue.

What about the Canadian Tours where tickets are roughly $30 and they sell out the ACC for 2 nights in Toronto, ACC roughly holds Around 18,000 people x 30 per ticket = $540,000 times 2 nights = 1.08 million.....don't get me wrong i know there are a lot of people they have to pay and i'm sure there's a lot of hidden costs that we don't even realize but over a 1 million dollar in ticket sales for 2 nights and that doesn't even include merchandise sales.

Yup. Now that I think about it, my $100,000 price tag estimation was way too low. In fact that's probably what they get paid initially, before ticket & merchandise money comes in. I was actually thinking more about smaller-venue shows, but I'm sure for the big arena shows they're pulling in some serious coin. Your post just reminded me that when the Hip played that huge Edenfest show in the summer of '96, they were reportedly paid $1 million to headline the second night.

[direwolf74]

thats the problem. it's not the band that's complaining for the most part, it's the record company

Exactly. Go back and read the Gord quote from that earlier post. It's obvious the band isn't too worried about this file-sharing nonsense.

[beanmedic]

Basically, if you want the single now, get it from puretracks. if you live outside of canada and you choose to download it, make sure you buy the album.

[direwolf74]

i love this part:

"That means it’s fans of the Hip — their own fans are doing this," Henderson says with a hint of disgust. "And the CDs that they could be buying? They’re all mid-price. Every damn one of them is mid or budget and available for under 10 bucks in any store in this country. Now, you tell me that’s overpriced."

where in the hell is he buying cd's for under $10? i have never seen CD's that cheap before.
.

Actually I think he's talking about the Hip's back catalogue which are all available for $10 or less. From what I've seen at record stores lately, only In Violet Light is being sold at full-price right now. (14 or 15 bucks). I think it also depends on where you live. When I was living in Ottawa I found CDs to be quite expensive in most of the stores there. In Alberta you can get new releases for fairly cheap. I recently picked up the new Sarah Harmer disc for $12.99 at A&B Sound in Calgary.

[colin]

When M@W was leaked, the Hip were upset, but they weren't upset about the $. They were upset that the album couldn't get the proper promotional treatment they had intended. Imagine putting all of that work into an album and planning for its big release only to have the whole plan thrown out the window. The only thing this article is telling me is that record companies are greedy and writers are manipulative!

[ron]

cds under 10 bucks i just bought the new Thornley cd for 6.99 us at circuit city . as for downloading the hips new song someone transfered it to me through msn . If the hip didn't want it out there then why in the hell release it on pure tracks. Well just a thought sit back , shut up,& count your money.

17.99 cd
50.00 concert ticket

shit the money i have already dropped on the hip is in the thousands i would think maybe that is high but i am only one person .

might be time to find a new favoirite band .................. NAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! cratch:

[thipfan73]

Just like I posted it on the main page...

I'm american and could not download the song from puretracks. I don't think it was fair for the hip to do that. They should have said "for all of the fans or none at all". Like someone said, they need to just hurry up and release the album.

and I'd like to add that I don't download anything anymore, with exception of the hip vids and live boots I have. I'll admit I did download VS, but I fully expect to buy the album when it comes out.

When I did download it was just to see if I wanted to buy an album. I would not dream of downloading and entire album just because I wanted it.