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Pledge Music delay in artists receiving money raised


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Pledge Music are notifying artists there is a delay in receiving the revenue they have raised from their campaigns. 

https://www.pledgemusic.com/blog/pledgemusic-payment-statement?referrer=carousel_article_&fbclid=IwAR1l2HTIRm8SkbohZ233RcxZWpLuZwLrFrI7gBzcMUkWD0NUyxnlG6wE1AE

They are claiming this will be rectified within 90 days, but there is some speculation they may be about to go insolvent. This would not surprise me as their prices were always exceedingly high. Some artists have now pulled their campaigns and others are advising fans to cancel their orders and re-order directly from them where possible. 

Not sure if many on here actually use them, but thought it was worth letting people know.

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5 hours ago, Roandy55 said:

tl;dr - "if someone doesn't buy us, we are going bankrupt and never paying anyone."

 

sounds promising

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Okay so I've never bought anything from pledge music, for some reason it'd turn me off from releases when I saw they were handling the release. But I am super curious, especially for big artists, what was the appeal of pledge music. What made it any better than just selling the record on a merch page?

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8 minutes ago, RockPuppetz said:

Okay so I've never bought anything from pledge music, for some reason it'd turn me off from releases when I saw they were handling the release. But I am super curious, especially for big artists, what was the appeal of pledge music. What made it any better than just selling the record on a merch page?

My uneducated guess is that they networked/marketed themselves well within the music management and record label world. The bands I saw on Pledge Music were larger or older acts who seemed like they'd have no personal experience with self-releasing stuff for a decent retail price and would just take the advice of someone else as to what platform would be best.

Edited by swb
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It certainly seemed to be a somewhat eclectic mix of older established acts who perhaps aren't as popular as they once were, and newer unsigned artists looking for a breakthrough.

I currently had one order in for a band in the latter category. They are now planning to relaunch tonight via their own website, and many pledgers including myself have cancelled their pledges and plan to re-order. Which is possibly not helping the situation as far as Pledge Music are concerned.

 

Edit: statement from Benji Rogers

https://medium.com/@lovingyourwork/to-the-pledgemusic-artists-and-fans-dd2977df2cb7?fbclid=IwAR39_hwQKle0WIC825jeqEkDowZuNInJQ7qcXIjfJJPMNdKJHiGi2AjRfZ8

Quote

all funds coming into the company from now on will be managed by an independent third party (to be named soon)

 

 

Edited by Roandy55
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I've used Pledge quite a lot over the years albeit begrudgingly and can confirm that the items always ended up being more expensive through them then at retail. Most of the bands I've supported through there have either ditched the platform already (Vennart, British Theatre)  or disappeared entirely off the map (My Vitriol, iLiKETRAiNS, Sucioperro). Thankfully I don't have any money currently tied up with them having received my last item in October.

It may be that kickstarter isn't very user friendly for overseas acts as most of the bands I've seen use Pledge are UK/EU acts but I don't really know.  Pledge did allow people the chance to do some inventive things, one band had the offer of meeting them at a pub for a game of scrabble but the world can live without that I imagine.

Strikes me that most of you are probably on point that it catered to mostly bands that were once on a label be it big or small and were too uncertain as to handle all the other parts of their business. Even the little guys I supported through it were on labels several years before the record industry took a tumble.

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i never understood the purpose of the site.  I always disliked it because there were like 50 bundle options when there should be no more than 5 options.  I never cared about the prices, they can charge whatever they want and its up to the buyer to decide if its worth it to them or not.  but the site just always seemed weird to me.  I couldn't believe seeing such successful bands on that site (because my knowledge was that bands who didn't have a label or enough money to record an album used it).  the whole things was always just weird and now it looks like its done.

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On 1/29/2019 at 11:46 AM, Roandy55 said:

It certainly seemed to be a somewhat eclectic mix of older established acts who perhaps aren't as popular as they once were, and newer unsigned artists looking for a breakthrough.

I currently had one order in for a band in the latter category. They are now planning to relaunch tonight via their own website, and many pledgers including myself have cancelled their pledges and plan to re-order. Which is possibly not helping the situation as far as Pledge Music are concerned.

 

Edit: statement from Benji Rogers

https://medium.com/@lovingyourwork/to-the-pledgemusic-artists-and-fans-dd2977df2cb7?fbclid=IwAR39_hwQKle0WIC825jeqEkDowZuNInJQ7qcXIjfJJPMNdKJHiGi2AjRfZ8

 

 

After reading his statement I know they are fucked. They had a great thing that was poorly managed on all ends. Too bad.

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Ugh, I have used pledgemusic a handful of times in the last 4 years to support older artists and never had a problem receiving the items i ordered until now..... back in July i preordered a couple of the Matthew Sweet remasters. I received on and am still waiting on one (which is two weeks overdue). I fear i will never see that final record and have already ordered it directly from Intervention Records.  Not sure if i'll receive a refund from PM or if the item will eventually ship.... One thing is for sure, I'll never pledge with them again. 

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I've pledged on 10 different campaigns. Initially, it went smoothly and the items I purchased were delivered on time for the most part. The last 2 pledges I've made were less then stellar. One took numerous emails to get everything I ordered to be finally sent and with the most recent pledge (The Posies) it took almost 13 months to the day to get the vinyl I ordered - which has now been available via retail since October. There's really no excuse for the delay.

Edited by ScottInDallas
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I can’t remember, I’ve only bought a couple of things from the site and it was years ago, but don’t the bands fulfill the orders? I didn’t think PledgeMusic did anything but provide the store/order management/payment processing?

 

If that’s the case, wouldn’t any delays be on the artists themseles?

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With the item I have pledged on, the artist has stated they will honour all pledges and all items ordered will be sent regardless of whether or not they have been paid by Pledge Music. However I requested a cancellation  as I would now prefer to re-order directly via the band's own website. This was last Tuesday, and I'm still waiting for a reply.

 

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On 2/2/2019 at 6:46 PM, Roandy55 said:

With the item I have pledged on, the artist has stated they will honour all pledges and all items ordered will be sent regardless of whether or not they have been paid by Pledge Music. However I requested a cancellation  as I would now prefer to re-order directly via the band's own website. This was last Tuesday, and I'm still waiting for a reply.

 

I inquired about a refund for the Matthew Sweet record i was waiting on. They took a couple days to reply but eventually said they refunded me.... that was Thursday or Friday last week and i have not seen the credit to my credit card account yet.... I hope they have actually refunded me.

 

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On 2/2/2019 at 6:28 PM, unknown pleasures said:

I can’t remember, I’ve only bought a couple of things from the site and it was years ago, but don’t the bands fulfill the orders? I didn’t think PledgeMusic did anything but provide the store/order management/payment processing?

 

If that’s the case, wouldn’t any delays be on the artists themseles?

Whenever i've received items the shipping notices always come from pledge. I'm not certain if the items were shipped from pledge or the artist, i honestly didn't pay much attention when the items arrived. 

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