Hello and happy Friday!

Here’s something most independent artists don’t think about: when someone buys a ticket through the venue’s platform, that person’s contact information belongs to the platform (not you). They come to your show, they leave, and you have no way to reach them again.

Cody DeLong has spent more than a decade helping artists close that gap. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Sound Rink, a live-music technology company built around VIP experiences, artist pre-sales, and direct-to-fan commerce. Before Sound Rink, he co-founded Armada Merch and has years of experience booking tours, so his perspective on the fan relationship comes from working every angle of the live music business.

Here are some insights from our conversation.

Pre-sale ticketing is the right starting point.
​Most artists assume they need a full VIP program before they can start capturing fan data from live shows. Cody says that’s backwards. A standalone pre-sale (selling tickets directly to fans before the general on-sale) is a lower-friction way to start identifying your most committed buyers and owning their contact information. It doesn’t require venue coordination or a dedicated VIP infrastructure. It just requires a system that puts the data in your hands, not the platform’s.

Your label deal may already own your mailing list.​
This one is a sad reality. Some label deals include provisions that give the label ownership of the artist’s mailing list. The label creates and manages it, and if the relationship ends, the artist can lose access entirely. Cody’s advice is this, before signing anything, make sure you retain ownership of and access to your own fan data. It’s one of the most overlooked points in deal negotiations for independent artists.

The follow-up is where the relationship is built.
​Artists who handle fan data well don’t just collect it, they use it within a week of a show. A thank-you message, a merch discount, some kind of acknowledgment that the fan was there. Cody described artists who send thank-you postcards to early ticket buyers. It’s a small gesture, but it’s the kind of thing that can turn a one-time transaction into the beginning of a long-term fan relationship. Artists who don’t capture data have no path to that follow-up at all.

What actually kills a VIP offering​
Cody says the biggest reason VIP experiences fail is artist participation. It's things like showing up disengaged, going through the motions, or not showing up at all. Fans who buy VIP are your most committed buyers. If they leave feeling like an afterthought, you don’t just lose that sale. You lose the fan.

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