THE NPGMC RESCUE PLAN.

Ok, so this may be a little late to organise this year. However, it may be worth considering in the future.

What does NPGMC need?

Members.

Last years NPGMC members fell into 3 distinct groups:

- Satisfied Members (Completely happy with what they got)

- Unsatisfied members (Thought that it could have been better, but tolerated with what they got)

- The BBB members (Those who felt completely ripped off to the point they complained to an organisation that questions companies to run a better business).

From this, it would seem one third of last years members were satisfied with what they got. Most of the members are fans / fams of Prince. But if a casual listener or non fam was considering joining the club, more than likely they would be hesitant to join knowing that some existent members weren't happy with what they got.

WHAT'S IN IT FOR A POTENTIAL MEMBER?

Let's face it. Prince is not a commercial artist anymore. That doesn't mean the music isn't good. But how would a new listener be exposed to Prince when really their only knowledge of Prince would be back catalogue songs?
Promotion is minimal, no videos, no record company backing.
But there is a way that will draw large amount of new listeners, while at the same time satisfy current members of the club.

THE PLAN

Cast your mind back to the mid 1990's, Prince was at odd's with his record company. Around this time, Prince granted an interview with a guitar magazine. In the interview, Prince played the interviewer a CD copy of "THE UNDERTAKER" (a CD version of the "The Undertaker" video). The interviewer said that he was blown away with Prince's guitar playing.

The magazine also mentioned that there was a plan where with every copy of that guitar magazine with the Prince interview, a free copy of "THE UNDERTAKER" CD was to be included on the front. It never happened apparently because Warner Bros knocked the idea back.

This was a shame because most of the guitar magazine buying public are the guitar heads that generally have the attitude that "Prince is a Fag" or "not really a guitarist".
The CD might have turned the tide, and those small minded few would have been new converts (no doubt if they heard "The Undertaker", they would have.)

Flash forward to 2003, and now as an independent artist, a free CD on the front of a music magazine is a good option.

CONSIDER THIS

Prince makes a deal (and gets some sort of cut, of course) with:
- a guitar magazine
- a keyboard magazine
- a bass player magazine
- and a drumming magazine
each sister publications of each other.
He grants each magazine an interview, contributes some music transcript for the readers to play (technique, etc) and promotes the NPGMC.

As an added bonus, each magazine comes with a relevant CD. For example:

-The guitar magazine comes with a CD that shows Prince as a kick arse guitar player (like "The Undertaker")

-The keyboard magazine comes with a CD that shows Prince's piano / synth stylings (like the "One Night Alone" piano CD - it was only like a 30 minute CD anyhow).

-The bass magazine has bass solos of Prince, with Larry Graham, Rhonda etc to showcase their fantastic bassplaying. Or release a CD of songs that have killer basslines (like "777-9311", or "Get It Up").

-The drum magazine can be the drumming techniques of Prince / John Blackwell , as well as Shelia E

This way, Prince fulfils the fams need for music (Think about it, If each fam bought a copy of each above, and no doubt they would, right there, even before they resign to the club, they have their 4 CD's of music). It also is a sure fire way for the non fams out there to:
- expose them to the music of Prince
- Change their attitude of Prince as a player
- Become new NPGMC members.

From this, you have pleased the fam base, and captured a new audience.
An extension to this is to make the CD's either CD ROM or DVD enhanced, to show the way Prince plays, or just to promote the NPGMC club.

The possibilities are endless with the magazine cross promotion. Prince could at the same time strike a deal with some of the European dance magazines, that put dance music CD's on their covers. Prince is getting good club coverage through white label DJ mixes of past songs at the moment. Prince could do the same as above (with either new songs, a DJ mix of his songs, or vocal and musical samples for DJ's to use in their own mixes). Then link it all back to NPGMC.

SO WE'VE SIGNED UP, NOW WHAT?

So, just say the above was done. You got at least one CD (and up to 4 or 5 depending on how many magazine crossover promotions NPGMC do). So you as a member are already in front.
- You pay a low, one off flat fee.
That flat fee gets you nothing. No CD's, No front row tickets, no aftershow, no celebration, nothing. The flat fee is just a way of registering with the club. Kinda like if you signed up with a credit card company (let's say VISA. Fill in your application, pay their fee, and your a member).

- You get issued with a NPGMC card.
Has anyone bought DAFT PUNK's "Discovery" CD? What did you get inside? A DAFT PUNK credit card. When you went to the DAFT PUNK website, you used the number on the card, and you got downloads of their mixes of their tracks. Prince could do the same. But lets go further.

You sign up to NPGMC, pay the flat fee. NPGMC mail to your home a "NPGMC card", each with a unique personal number, maybe even with an ID strip on the back, or a hologram to prevent card copying.

Now, all Prince has to do is...anything he wants and have it as a user pays system.
If he releases one studio album in the duration of the club, then the members pays for it on top of the membership.
If he releases more than one, same deal, they pay for each release, be it a CD or DVD.

Celebration? No problem. NPGMC put up the dates, members log in online, quote their numbers on their cards as a confirmation, get's billed. You're done. When you go to Paisley Park, take your member card, swipe on at the front door, you're in!

Prince does a tour. Same deal. In the past, NPGMC have sent members passwords before ticket sales to quote to get the front row tickets. Problem though is non members getting leaked the password. The card system eliminates that problem. If your a member, you use the card when you buy your ticket. Same with an aftershow.

So look at it like this:
You join as a member for say - $50
Prince releases a CD, if u opt to buy say - $15
Releases a DVD, if u opt to buy say - $18
Does a tour, u get soundcheck, aftershow - $50 (not including concert ticket)
Go to Celebration (let's use last years price) - $250

In this situation, Prince is guaranteed to make $50 minimum from the join up fee, but no member is going to sign up and buy nothing, so at the very least they buy a CD, so the minimum Prince makes on each member could be $60. The maximum (and the possibilities are endless, as far as releases go and the price they're set at) using the example above could reach nearly $400.

But this way, the fam buys what's within their budget, and within their reach. If Prince once again decides not to tour Australia ( and let's hope that doesn't happen), the Australian NPGMC member just pays for what they decide to buy. If he tours, they can be billed for the tour option if they wish. If the member decides to go to Celebration, they get billed for that.

Prince can make more money this way than the previous $100 flat fee option, and at the same time, no one can complain as to what they get as members. Each slice of the pie is even and fair, and the member gets what they pay for.

THE USER PAYS SYSTEM WILL WORK FOR NPGMC

What do you think?

(just as a side note on DAFT PUNK. Their 2001 CD "Discovery" is an example of how 80's instrumentation works in this day and age.(to give you an idea, it sounds like Prince's "1999" CD). The CD sounds cutting edge, and no doubt if Prince worked on it right, he could do the same thing with the Linn Drum and OB1 Synth sound. Hey, maybe even Daft Punk could produce it???)

Great ideas.
I think they should hire you for PR and marketing.
Not that they would listen or respond, but, have you passed this on to NPGMC?

No, I haven't passed this on. I was just hoping that Prince's staff that scan the net (and these pages) find this post and consider it for the future

If someone can pass this on to them direct, please do so!

So if Prince released four cd's again we would pay $110 instead of $100, but we wouldn't get to go to a soundcheck or an aftershow.

Nice plan...Let's find a way to make it even more expensive to be a Prince fan.

Impressive--I hope they get the message- you should send this in an email..maybe they'll consider.

Dont want to pass that on. Should be 1 fee for all the perks and releases except ticket charges on shows and the celebration. Money for this and money for that? Daft.

lovemachine said:[quote]but we wouldn't get to go to a soundcheck or an aftershow.

Again, I make the example of Australia. The 2002 membership saw them pay US$100 (which equates to AUS $200 roughly), and got only the CD's, no tour, no concert, no soundcheck, no aftershow. The same fam in the US, who paid the same amount to join, had the chance to go to the soundcheck, aftershow, etc. The plan outlined above means you get what you pay for.

What if the tables were turned for the next NPGMC club year?
Let's just say,You pay $100, and does a tour of everwhere else except where you live. The fams in the other countries get a tour, and your's doesn't, and you paid the same amount as them. That's not very fair on you is it?

dnaplaya said:[quote]

lovemachine said:

The plan as outlined means that you are paying more for less. The Australian people would pay $110 for what they received this year for $100.

The main problem with your plan is that it costs too much money to join before the cd's. Nobody would join without buying the cd's and or DVD's and this would mean that the club would be more expensive for EVERYONE and it would be a lot more expensive for those who were able to use the perks such as soundchecks and aftershows.

Why do you want us to give Prince extra money?

I think it's a mute point as I would say there is virtually no chance that Prince is going to tour this year.




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[This message was edited Tue Mar 4 6:50:47 PST 2003 by lovemachine]

I think everybody needs to stop complaining and let the man RUN HIS BUSINESS...

By the way dnaplaya U did a mighty fine job on putting a BUDGET BUSINESS PLAN together.
A mighty fine job. Well done...I C your willing to do the work.
NOBODY SAID WORK is easy...its supposed 2 B fun.
WHEN U take the FUN out of A CLUB U TAKE THE FUN out of having one.

I hope everybody realises that WE CANNOT
DRAIN PRINCE OF HIS FUN, if U DRAIN THE FUN
out of his DREAM...
then where will HIS DREAM Manifest?

C? LET THE DREAMS BEGIN AGAIN...and LET HIM DO HIS WILL...

DNA PLAYA U really did a fine job on what U did here...
THANK U. I am sure it wont go unnoticed...

With Love
SingMia

dnaplaya said:

I've said all along that I feel bad for the Aussie fans that got no tour or anyone who was in an area where the tour didn't stop. BUT I gotta ask - if you take Princes track record into account while making your decision to throw down $100 and you KNOW he rarely (if ever) comes to your area, don't you KNOW you're taking a big risk by joining the club if it's mainly for the tour??? I mean, some of the responsibility has to go on the participants who are willing to pay, knowing a tour would be a miracle club or not. We can't put it all on Prince here. People have to be realistic & if the tour is the main focus of joining the club for you, then you need to look @ all factors & make an informed decision. Hell, I live in the Bay Area (where he ALWAYS stops) & I STILL waited until a date was announced to join...

what staff? don't ya'll know it's just Prince and Mani in that whole big building by themselves?

lovemachine said:

Oh yeah ! what if Prince does not release any CD for this year ? You would pay 50 $ for nothing ?

Thanx 2 those with the positive feedback.

Whatever NPGMC decides in how they run their club, there will always be someone, somewhere that will get their nose out of joint on how it operates.

The whole reason for this post really was to get a feel with all you guys on what you think about the idea of the CD's on the front cover of the music magazines.

I guessed I went on a bit with how I'd like the club to be operated, which is a user pays system. The figures I gave were just dollar amounts that I pulled from the air to give an example to illustrate the points that I were making. Personally, I don't think the joining rate should be $100, nor do I think it should be $50 (like in the example that I gave). I think the joining fee should be low to get the people in (say no more than $25), but if I wrote in low amounts in the examples to benefit in our favour, I know that if NPGMC staff read the post, they'd just dismiss the whole thing with the notion that they wouldn't make their money, and that we're just using them to get something for nothing. (I also think that the Celebration shouldn't cost $250, but hey, try telling Prince that).

Basically I'm just suggesting an "Idea". They don't have to go for it, and if they do, I'd fully expect them to get the feedback from potential members before they implement it, so we as members are happy with it. If the majority oppose the user pays system, that's fine. That's democracy, and the majority vote wins. At least this is ONE of many options that they can consider.

My reasoning behind each idea was this:

The user pays system - fairness in that each member gets what they pay for (like Prince said at the end of last year, "What price do you put on aftershows, etc, etc")

The card system - Well, for starters, if each member had a card for one year in any way the club is run, they could do an end of year audit to see what every member gets (and sometimes they get something different to what they promise).
It can also curb numerous users on one account (sharing passwords, etc) proof of membership when buying tickets to concerts, registration at Celebration could be done with a swipe of the card, ID for downloads, whatever.

CD / Magazine idea - Was to give promotion for the club to increase members, and for the wider public to be exposed to his talents and get the props he deserves.

I could either be REACTIVE (like complain to the BBB)

or PROACTIVE (and come up with some sort of plan and some ideas, like a CD / Magazine promotion, or the card system that would both benefit fans and the club alike, and the user pays idea. They don't have to do all of them, or any of them. I think if we all give them the feedback, some great ideas can come of it)

I chose the latter