Un-“Fair” practices at Ourstage?
The first record that I was given the opportunity to produce was “Momentum” for Lisa Piccirillo. Together with our team at The Co-Op, we’ve worked hard from day one to make the songs great, the record great, and to help Lisa continue to pursue her career.
So it was with great optimism that she entered the Ourstage.com competition to get a slot on a side stage at Lilith Fair in Hartford, CT.
Assuming that the contest would work as advertised, and the winner would play the festival, we pulled out all the stops to get our supporters to vote as often as possible in 3 rounds of competition, all with the express purpose of winning and therefore playing the festival.
It came down to the 11th hour of voting in her group but through good old fashioned promotion, we got out the vote in a major way. We’d like to think the song “You Never Say” was strong enough to garner many votes from all the good-natured fans voting because they simply love music as well.
It was after the results were finalized and Lisa had secured the winning slot that things got complicated. We got wind that Lilith was reserving the right to choose the performer from the pool of contestants.
We honestly didn’t think this was a possibility—-that it was a measure to prevent truly terrible music from getting onstage or something. Either way, ourstage is all about fans choosing winners so that, again, it seemed outlandish.
I guess not.
Not only was Lisa passed over, she never heard from anyone personally at either ourstage or Lilith. Instead, she found out on twitter.
To add insult to injury, now the two companies continue to promote the partnership as though it was decided by fans.
Was ourstage so eager to be associated with the Lilith Fair that they set aside their commitment to “letting the fans decide”?
My experience with ourstage as an artist was positive - I entered a song into a similar competition to play the Virgin Music Festival in Baltimore, won the fan voting, and played the festival.
That’s how it should work, that’s how they say it’ll work, and I’m dissapointed in ourstage but more importantly, my heart goes out to Lisa who was pursuing a lifelong dream to play this legendary festival. It certainly doesn’t stop here for her though, she’s got plenty of career left to go. Lets hope that when the next opportunity comes her way that requires fan participation, her supporters trust that their voice will be heard.
