Bootleg: Beyond the Setlist
Notes on live music, connection, and the emerging future.
Bootleg: Beyond The Setlist. What a Difference a Year Makes
Notes on live music, connection, and the emerging future, by Bootleg founder and CEO, Rod Yancy This week marks exactly one year since we sold our first Bootlegs, partnering with Kaitlin Butts on her hometown show in Tulsa last December. What a difference a year makes. This year has taken me and our company to places I never imagined. From great American music cities like Tulsa, Nashville, Upstate NY, Atlanta and Athens, GA, to global hubs like New York, Los Angeles, London, Dublin and Dubai....
Bootleg: Beyond The Setlist. End of Year Acceleration
Notes on live music, connection, and the emerging future, by Bootleg founder and CEO, Rod Yancy Usually around this time of year, things slow down in a big way. The weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s can quickly turn into a blur of holiday parties, tying up loose ends, or getting a head start on planning for the year ahead. This year feels different, especially for Bootleg. If anything, we are accelerating. Ever since I returned from my retreat in Japan, doors have opened and new...
Bootleg: Beyond The Setlist. The Currency of Connection
Notes on live music, connection, and the emerging future, by Bootleg founder and CEO, Rod Yancy Music is the heart and soul of this industry, but it runs on relationships. Building a company like Bootleg requires more than a great product, the real building happens through thousands of individual interactions that become relationships, that become partnerships. What’s amazed me most is how serendipitous it all feels. One introduction leads to another, a single conversation opens ten new...
Bootleg: Beyond The Setlist. A Brand That Moves Like Music
Notes on live music, connection, and the emerging future, by Bootleg founder and CEO, Rod Yancy Today I’m proud to unveil the new Bootleg brand identity, a design system that pays homage to the print, design, and cultural eras that once gave music its visual soul, while building something made for the future. A lot has changed about music culture since the rise of streaming. We now have millions of songs in our pockets, hundreds of festivals each year, and unprecedented visibility into the...
Bootleg: Beyond The Setlist. The Return of the Live Album
Notes on live music, connection, and the emerging future, by Bootleg founder and CEO Rod Yancy 🎤 Sound Check Something is happening in the music world right now: artists and fans are rediscovering the magic of the live album. In the past year alone, we’ve seen a surge of new releases that celebrate the raw, human energy of performance. Radiohead unearthed a live recording from their 2003 Hail to the Thief tour, Elton John released Live From the Rainbow Theatre this spring, the Jonas Brothers...
Bootleg: Beyond The Setlist. Superserving the Superfan
Notes on live music, connection, and the emerging future, by Bootleg founder and CEO Rod Yancy 🎤 Sound Check I spent last week in New York for the Mondo NYC conference, where I joined Ted Cohen, Killian Gesicki, Michael Delle Donne, and Felicia Palmer for a panel on Superserving the Superfan. I genuinely loved connecting and sharing the stage with these folks, and we had an inspiring conversation about how the next chapter of the music business will be built through the depth of connection...
Bootleg: Beyond The Setlist. The Next Phase of the Industry
Notes on live music, connection, and the emerging future, by Bootleg founder and CEO Rod Yancy 🎤 Sound Check When major paradigm shifts occur, they rarely announce themselves with fanfare. More often, it feels like one morning we wake up and realize the world has changed. If we weren’t paying attention to the signs, the new reality can feel bewildering, even disorienting. But looking back, the markers are always there. Think about the moment CDs disappeared and mp3s took over. No one could...
Bootleg: Beyond The Setlist. The Festival Afterglow
Notes on live music, connection, and the emerging future, by Bootleg founder and CEO Rod Yancy 🎤 Sound Check This past weekend was a milestone for Bootleg. We had the honor of sponsoring Woodsist Festival in upstate New York, a gathering created and curated by artists with a focus on delivering something truly meaningful to fans. Festivals have always been more than just a string of performances. They’re cultural moments where music, community, and memory collide. They’re places where new...
Bootleg: Beyond The Setlist. Going With Flow
Notes on live music, connection, and the emerging future, by Bootleg founder and CEO Rod Yancy 🎤 Sound Check A few weeks ago I shared my thoughts on the pros and cons of raising capital versus bootstrapping Bootleg. At the time, I was on the fence. The act of putting that uncertainty out into the world brought the clarity I was looking for. Investors have been reaching out and major funds are doing diligence. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in life and business is knowing when...
Bootleg: Beyond The Setlist. The Music is the Merch
Notes on live music, connection, and the emerging future, by Bootleg founder and CEO Rod Yancy 🎤 Sound Check Working in the music industry it’s not hard to look around and see where it is broken. Artists struggling to make a living from streaming, fans paying inflated ticket prices to middlemen, and whole systems designed to profit off the music without truly supporting the people who create it. One of the clearest signs is that artists today seem to be selling everything but music. It wasn’t...
Notes on live music, connection, and the emerging future.