New innovators: beatvyne

If you’ve always fancied your talents as a would-be impresario, then musician, manager and concert promoter Kenn Davis may be able to make your dream come true.

Davis is the brains behind beatvyne, a new live music marketplace designed to promote performances by emerging and established musicians in new and unconventional music spaces both big and small. The platform will be officially launched in June, but so far beta trials have been successfully carried out in a variety of venues including back gardens, a converted fire station, living rooms and on a houseboat.

“We are reimagining how artists are discovered and booked and redefining what a music venue is,” says Davis whose background is in media production, management and business development. “beatvyne came from my frustration as an artist and music fan. Everything just seemed so ‘samey’ – the same gigs in the same venues with the same safe content. I felt the music scene needed a shake up.”

Davis set up beatvyne in March 2015 and the company now employs three people. Development costs for version one of the platform have been in the order of €60,000 and the company has been supported by Davis' brothers, Enterprise Ireland and the Lucey technology fund.

"beatvyne is the first social music marketplace of its kind that turns ordinary people into promoters and any space into a music venue," says Davis, a graduate of the New Frontiers programme at Tallaght IT.

“It is using collaborative spacing and shared economy principals to democratise the industry and offer people new ways to play a part in the music process.”

Davis believes the time is right for beatvyne as the music industry is going through a period of huge change and disruption.

“In ways it’s a broken industry that has seen digital slice recorded music revenues from $25 billion to $15 billion in 10 years,” he says.  “Artists now have to play live gigs more than ever to earn a living and it can be very difficult and costly to secure gigs in conventional venues. There is also the issue around how digital and streaming are killing the experience for the fan, saturating the music market and turning fans into passive consumers. beatvyne fundamentally challenges this model.”

beatvyne is open to all genres of music from indie to classical, jazz to rock and new acts can use it to get known while established artists can use it to expand their fan base and find new venues. The service has three types of “customers” – fans, artists and potential hosts and the site can be used by individuals or commercial venues (such as restaurants and exhibition spaces) to book artists. Each artist will have their own profile page with background information and audio and video clips.

The company will make its money by taking a commission on bookings and by offering monthly subscriptions to the site. Davis says the beatvyne platform has global potential and following its Irish launch the company will be taking the platform to Germany later this year. To help fund the roll out beatvyne wants to build its team to seven people and to raise about €300,000 in investment.

“As things stand music has been a pretty boring experience for both fans and artists so it’s not surprising artists have been finding it difficult to get people to their gigs,” Davis says.

“I saw that the problem stemmed from the lack of fan engagement and participation. People have been faffing about trying to solve this issue with all sorts of platforms and apps but none of them actually involve the fan sufficiently. So I thought what if you could truly put the fans centre stage and give them more of a part to play? That’s at the heart of beatvyne.”

– OLIVE KEOGH