Originally envisioned as an incubator for artists and musicians, Valparaiso based Sonic Pollen is Chile’s first social network dedicated to the administration of music shows and booking musicians.
Sonic Pollen could be considered the Latin American version of Gig Maven which over the course of 3 years reached nearly 2 million registered users and 20,000 venues. It was acquired by Reverb Nation in August 2011.
On February 5, 2012, Sonic Pollen successfully raised their first round of funding for $20,000 USD, from FONDART. They are currently working on tweaking their alpha version and integrating feedback from beta users (It launched today)!!!
Administered by the Ministry of Education, FONDART (Development Fund for Culture), is a source of state funding, which aims to contribute to the development of arts and culture of Chile.
Led by the collective vision of co-founders Félix Barros Ribalta (Product Design Engineer, UTFSM), CEO and Christopher Pereira, CTO, Sonic Pollen provides a collaborative and useful site for musicians, engineers and vendors working in the entertainment space in the areas of management or promotion.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX9nQfTvouY&feature=plcp&context=C32af849UDOEgsToPDskKJP3Bmlob7hT5QcqeWbFpK[/youtube]
A serial entrepreneur and huge advocate for the arts and culture in Latin America, Félix Barros, knew from day 1 that he wanted to create something for that sector. He is also co-founder of Growly Grow, a company that creates technology for urban gardens, and is one of the lead organizers of Mustach.
Launched in November 2011, Mustach (Music Startups Chile) brings music startups together and allows them to access to what’s new in the local industry allowing Barros and his team to remain very connected to what is developing and happening in the Chilean music scene in real time.
Music Management Made Easy
The Sonic Pollen team, which in addition to Barros and Pereira, includes Thomas Villarroel, Developer, Alejandro Ferrer, Developer & Tester, Diego Hodgson, UX Designer and Felipe Barriga, Event Producer, was originally thinking of collecting a commission on contracts between musicians and producers / managers / tenants but they have since revamped the system to a freemium based model that offers more advanced and customized services for major brand providers.
SonicPollen current platform provides a collaborative space for musicians, producers / organizers of events (and shows) and locations (venues), allowing them to create events, apply to these, create tours and other features.
It is flexible in that it allows artists/musicians, event producers/organizers and brands and institutions to address their respective needs.
For artists:
They offer a platform to manage their events, seek opportunities to perform live and even organize events and shows collaboratively with others.
For producers, organizers and venues:
They can manage dates, search for artists according to their needs and apply for hosting events/shows.
For brands and institutions:
They can organize of events / shows music and the system also provides organization and a platform for band contests.
In March 2012 their pilot will be available for events in the Region of Valparaíso (Chile), and they will kick off a contest through SonicPollen to choose the artists for their firsts events/shows to be hosted in Bar La Cantera, as a real life alpha testing.
How it Works:
1. Go to SonicPollen and register as a user!
You’ll have different profiles you can set up i.e. a band manager, DJ, sound engineer or event organizer, etc. You can also add venues such as bars or clubs. You manage, if not sign any artist or location anyway you can act as a user event organizer.
2. Once registered you have a full range of options from creating events to inviting artists to submit quotes/proposals to requesting a location to host an event/show.
3. The system does the work for you by facilitating connections between scenarios and artists and allowing filtering by musical genre, location among others.
SonicPollen wants to be the most widely used platform for Hispanic Americans in terms of registered musical events/shows and booking of musicians.
If you are a musician/entertainer or somehow connected to the music and entertainment scene, let’s help them reach their goal by registering on their site today!
