Leading Second Life Musician Featured in Today's Los Angeles Earns USD$100-200 Per Gig

Today's Los Angeles Times has a long profile of Second Life's live music scene, which will not come as news to New World Notes readers, but is pretty good nonetheless. Much of it features LA-based performer Craig Lyons, whose music has been licensed by MTV and Universal Music, and who regularly performs in Second Life as the avatar known as Craiglyons Writer (a name the Times story failed to mention.) Here he is performing in-world at the POP ART LAB sim for Treet TV, in an impromptu show arranged for the LA Times reporter:

Excellent stuff. And according to the Times, Lyons makes $100-200 in Linden Dollar tips per gig, often performing three shows a day.

Which helps answer a question another writer just asked me last week: Can you make a living as a musician performing in Second Life? I answered that the top performers can definitely make a decent side income, but unlike real estate barons and top fashion designers, they probably can't do it full time. But assuming Lyons performed 8 gigs a week and averaged $150 in tips per show, that'd come out to $4800 a month, a pretty good living for an artist. (To be sure, that's assuming Second Life's market is large enough to sustain enough foot traffic to the same performer for that many shows.) Geek rock superstar Jonathan Coulton made around that amount selling his music online before going bigtime, and it's nice to know some of SL's top musicians can also reach close to that level even now.

Thanks to Claus Uriza of POP ART LAB for link to and background on the Treet video! Photo credit: Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Adric Antfarm]

It's refreshing to hear a story about someone doing well in-world.

[Ziki Questi]

"$4800 a month, a pretty good living for an artist" ... Oh my, that's quite a statement, Ham!

But as Adric said, it's a good success story. I had often wondered how well SL musicians were faring.

[brinda allen]

yes...getting return business is where it gets harder. (And of course /me wonders if the IRS ever catches on...assuming he's subject to US law.)

[Crap Mariner]

Good for Craig.
Hopefully, good for all.

-ls/cm

[A1]

guy needs 2 adjust his av's guitar

[Anya Ristow]

Do the math.

[NOMAFALTA]

MY jaw drops at this..and I am shaking my head........
*just a working SL/RL musician*

[mj zaurak]

wait.....headline says he earns $100-200 USD.....but the story says he earns 150-200 LINDEN DOLLARS.....and the math offers a weekly total of $4800 LINDENS - hmmm....don't know many who would consider earning $20USD (actually a little less) as a means of support or a success.
and noma has a point..."just a working SL/RL musician" down plays the time,energy and commitment required for both those jobs.....

[Anya Ristow]

zaurak, the story says he earns USD$100-$200 per gig, in Linden-dollar tips. So, he's reportedly earning 27,000-54,000 linden dollars in tips.

Now, if you know how many people are able to attend and how much, on average, each would have to tip, you realize this is highly unlikely. He'd be considered very successful if he made 1/5 of that.

[dancefan81]

actually the article doesn't say tips... it says $100-200 per show. with venue pay, tips, cd and mp3 sales, merch, donations, etc., there are 5 or 6 acts in sl making this much per show.

anyway, the article is really about how the sl music scene is picking up while the rest of the industry is falling. keep it up!

[s]

Hi I'm Belladonna Lemondrop .. SL musician ..
I have been playing live guitar in SL for about 1 year and would say $20 US per show is a good show for me. 100-200 US sounds crazy but who knows maybe the SL Gods will smile upon me and I will also make 100 -200 US per show one day.

come to one of my shows ..
https://www.google.com/calendar/[email protected]&ctz=America/Los_Angeles&gsessionid=OK