CASH Music Crowdfunds Musician/Technologist Summits, Next Event In LA 11/16

CASH Music is a music tech nonprofit known for its free open source and hosted tools designed with DIY musicians and indie labels in mind. This year they're adding events to the mix with CASH Music Summits and hack/build/make workshops. Their initial events went well and they not only have their next summit in Los Angeles on November 16 but they've also launched a crowdfunding campaign to support future summits. Designed to encourage dialogue between attendees, small unrecorded group discussions are an important feature of CASH Music's approach to such gatherings.

Last year CASH music conducted an exceptionally successful Kickstarter campaign to create a "totally free platform of tools for artists and labels to sell, share, and promote music directly to their fans." This platform was planned to take the open source tools they were already developing and making them more usable for those who aren't coders, i.e. most musicians.

They then launched the platform in beta earlier this year. You can find out more or sign up for the hosted platform in beta.

CASH Music Events

Now CASH Music is turning more attention to events designed to bridge gaps between the worlds of music and tech while supporting indie artists.

Hackathons are part of the mix with a unique twist to "The Rules":

"Rules are dumb. Many hack days are done as competitions. We're doing something different. We've got art and music, code, and a clean slate. Let's make something amazing."

But as they state on the events page, it's the summits that will be a big focus going forward and they may well include the hack days:

"We hope to make the summits the core of our outreach and learning efforts; expanding them to include a hack/build/make day, and bringing more of the themes and ideas back online for ongoing discussion."

CASH Music Kickstarter Pitch

To fund this next step, CASH Music is again turning to Kickstarter for a fundraising campaign:

"We built a platform, now we're building community. New summits will bring together musicians and technologists in ATL, CHI, NYC & SEA."

Next CASH Music Summit In Los Angeles

But they're not waiting for additional funds to hold their next CASH Music Summit in Los Angeles November 16:

"This time to inspire new perspectives we're staging several short conversations to be held on-stage. These will combine different perspectives, look at issues at the core of what we're working on, and raise questions for the attendees to discuss further."

"We're still placing a focus on private discussions — small unrecorded groups allowing for candid comments and new ideas. Those conversations lead to deep insight and helped facilitate open and positive dialogue."

"We will be live-streaming and archiving the on-stage conversations so anyone can get involved."

Confirmed conversations include:

Mike Watt (renowned bassist) & Pascal Finette (Mozilla Chief of Staff)

Allison Wolfe (Bratmobile, Ladyfest) & Tatiana Simonian (VP of Music at Nielsen)

Sounds like an interesting event that actually addresses some of the questions I've had about the numbing programs of most conferences I've attended. Forefronting private discussions certainly heightens the best part of conferences, one-on-one encounters and focused small groups.

Support the CASH Music Kickstarter Campaign

I encourage you to find out more about CASH Music and to support their Kickstarter campaign.

For more on the realities of life at a small nonprofit, CASH Music's Jesse Von Doom shares his "Thoughts on fundraising and the other boring parts of building a nonprofit."

More:

Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch/@crowdfundingm) also blogs at Flux Research and Crowdfunding For Musicians. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.