Rondo – Exclusive Interview

There are so many possibilities now for musicians and artists with the growth over the last 10 years of the internet and social media.  One company making a move in 2017 is Rondo, who have created a platform that helps to showcase and promote DJ’s, producers and Electronic Music Acts.  You may have spotted them at one of the many conferences in 2016, demonstrating what they do.  DaGeneral is one of the artists on their platform so he touched base with them to get an idea what they are looking to achieve.

Thanks for taking the time guys please explain a little more to our readers what Rondo is?

1. Rondo is a platform that features artists and also connects them directly to our global promoter’s database for real time bookings.

I have noticed over the last few months that you have showcased artists on your mixcloud page, what was the thoughts process behind this?

1. We are proudly sponsored by Mixcloud, which provides Rondo the unique ability to promote on a weekly basis, up and coming as well as more established artists to our super fan base. We believe strongly in collaboration and the power of music and social media, so you can find Rondo on Facebook, Instagram, Soundclouds and Twitter.  Our strategy has consistently increased the fan bases for featured artists and this is very useful for Promoters, who also take these metrics into account during the booking process.

So for our readers benefit how much does it cost for an artist to sign up, and do you take a cut of bookings when people are recommended through Rondo?

1. Rondo is 100% free for artists to create their profiles and we do not charge any fees of the bookings. We currently have many thousands of Promoters and Venues on our database and we promote Rondo to them on a regular basis, via social media and weekly mail campaigns, we also feature artists in these communications.

What exciting features are you looking to add moving forward?

1. We are currently deploying many new and exciting features, just this week we integrated our new “calendar” so talent bookers and promoters click the magic “book” button and see an auto-updated calendar showing artist events and free dates. The promoter can select a date, complete the booking form and send to the artist, their agent or manager. We have integrated “Bands In Town” and soon will have FB events and GigaTools also.
2. We created 4 new sections in the artist profiles, 2 interactive widget boxes for “Music and Video” (Mixcloud, Soundcloud, Youtube and Vimeo) and “Social” for Facebook and Twitter. We added music and social media stats and then the last box has other links.
3. We have integrated an “Artist Map” which tracks 370+ artists geo location based on primary location and soon this will show the venue location when an artist is on tour, so promoters can make bookings and complete their line-ups with better data and reduce their logistics and transport costs globally.

Is the site just for artists and booking agents or are you looking to hit the fan bases as well to make what could be a social network for music?

1. Great question – Yes our long term goal is to create added value for artists by including fan base engagement components. However with current Social media we have a collective outreach with the artists now at hundreds of thousands. So it is a challenge and could be a case of working smarter not harder and just integrating existing social media deeper into our platform.

Will you be looking to integrate with brands to create branded pages and areas to promote both the brands and Rondo as a platform?

1. Currently we have a ‘collaboration” section on our main website, where we showcase brands that we work with and links to their content from. When we do co-branded campaigns we also use social media. We are also in the process of re-imagining our front end website and are working with an amazing creative agency to come up with some really innovative ideas around brand experiences.

What sets out Rondo to be different, and have a unique selling point that will make users want to visit frequently?

1. Promoting artists across music and social media with weekly guest mix slots and our new 4 hr show on Soundtrip Radio,
2. Real time Geo-Location on an interactive global map also linked to the artist calendar
3. All in One interactive profiles (Electronic Press Kit) each with a unique link that can be shared across all artists social media and out to potential talent bookers.
4. Regular distribution of new content, tracks, EPs, events and more from the artists across all our social media
5. We go beyond the regular B2B by digging deep to discover and provide experiences that are forward thinking, generate real opportunities for artists on Rondo. We connect music industry insiders to each other to collaborate on projects and also give new talent a resource for learning from more established artists through direct connect for collaborations.
6. We also connect artists to labels for EP and Album releases and a highlight of 2016 was signing 2 artists’ original tracks to a soundtrack of a movie in post-production in LA.

https://www.rondo.me