The first article I wrote for 944, on a DIY booking service called Zebratour, ended up never making it to print. There was ultimately some kind of miscommunication between the guy who founded the company, and the magazine about how close the Zebratour site was to launching at the time of the interview and subsequent writing of this article. (No kill fee, by the way.) I’ve finally given up on this ever seeing publication, but this is what it looked like, pre-edit:
“As a musician, one of the biggest problems I saw was booking shows.” Erik Ahroon, founder and president of the online booking service ZEBRAtour, tells me from his office in Newport Beach. “There’s a huge inefficiency in the market. So the idea came to me: Why isn’t anyone doing this on the web?” Necessity may be the mother of invention, but creating solutions that evolve with the changing needs of the user is where invention becomes innovation in a digital information age. “I searched around and couldn’t find any services for online booking,” he continues. “That was kind of the light bulb moment when I just said, ‘Let’s get this going.’ That was about 14 months ago.”
ZEBRAtour, which launched this summer, is best described as a meeting point between musicians and venue promoters. The site (currently focusing on the west coast) gives venues the ability to post information about preferred genres, capacity and open dates in the upcoming calendar. The site then allows musicians to find the right out-of-town club for their touring needs, particularly in a feature that offers a listing of club results between tour-starting point A and ending point B. Musicians can upload their music and past performance histories and also utilize a feature that will allow fans to rate the performer from localized user profiles, all of which give a venue promoter some perspective as to potential turnout if the musician is booked. The concept is simple — the club posts its details, the musician contacts the club with its music and past performance information, the club books the musician — but the genius of the idea comes in bringing all of this information exchange into one space this is easy to use for musicians, promoters and music fans alike.
Creating a brilliant and functional concept to apply to the localized music industry is what 28-year-old Ahroon has spent the last several years training for. Last year he completed an MBA from UCI, emphasizing Entrepreneurship and Strategy, which focused on the digital music industry and emerging entrepreneurial opportunities. “I shifted my focus to a service where artists could take 100 percent ownership of their music: Song sales, marketing and, most importantly, performing,” he tells me. “I built a business model concentrating on touring and providing a connection between venues and artists. Each user has the ability to create profiles and exchange information easily and understand each from a solid perspective prior to any negations taking place.”
An emphasis on the needs of the artist is what ultimately makes ZEBRAtour appealing to a seemingly unlimited market of musicians who want to play live. Consider how heavily emerging musicians utilize MySpace, and you will get a sense of the potential of ZEBRAtour — which will, in Ahroon’s words, “never charge bands.” The service puts the basics of booking in the hands of the musicians, making a venue promoter’s job that much easier and creating access to a far broader musician pool. “Musicians have tools to operate independently,” says Ahroon, “but they still lack tools to aid in what music is all about: performing.” With ZEBRAtour, that’s all about to change.
