Author: John Lawless

If you work in bluegrass music, or some related field, and can see the benefit of reaching both other industry folks and fans/consumers alike with announcements, publicity bits or even requests for information, you might begin to see the value of a resource like Bluegrass Today.

For folks in publicity, artist management or promotion Bluegrass Today offers an excellent way to reach both groups mentioned above, and to time the release of information carefully, or get “breaking news” out there as soon as it is known.

For amateur and student pickers, you can get updates on workshops, jams and new instructional materials as they are announced. If you produce this sort of resource, you can find an effective way to announce and promote events and products.

Instrument builders and folks who market accessories can use Bluegrass Today to get new information out to potential customers along with links to your web sites. Do you have a new endorser, or perhaps want to plug some upcoming in-store clinics? If you let us know, we can announce them on our blog.

Independent bands, artists or songwriters can level the playing field a bit by getting your announcements read by a large number of fans as well as radio people and festival promoters. Established acts can pass along info of particular interest to online consumers, such as inclusion in popular pay-per-download sites, or positive news about your music’s rankings on Apple’s iTunes or Amazon.com.

Radio programmers can use Bluegrass Today to pass along requests for CDs, announce the launch of a new show or a change in time or affiliation. Broadcast syndicators can announce new affiliates and cybercasters and podcasters can announce changes in their programming availability.

Event producers can surely benefit from access to this site, to announce a festival roster for the year when it is finalized (and point people to your site), or maybe get the word out on the addition of some new feature or special event at your festival.

Of course, regardless of whether you fit any of the categories above, the site will be of interest if you just want to follow the news as it relates to bluegrass and acoustic music and keep abreast of what’s going on in the bluegrass world.

All this talk about the potential value of Bluegrass Today may sound intriguing, but what does it matter without a steady stream of visitors and readers?

We have a plan in place to advertise and promote this new site at launch which we feel certain will generate a great deal of initial interest. It will be announced to our sizable database of bluegrass print and radio sources, and to our email list of better than 15,000 bluegrass consumers, artists and players. It will be continually promoted via the popular AcuTab web site and to AcuTab’s customers, both new and established.

We will also do a great deal of online promotion, including posting of announcements on bulletin boards and chat fora, as well as paid advertising on popular search engines. The two primary blog authors (Brance Gillihan and John Lawless) will make themselves available for interviews with members of the bluegrass print and broadcast press and an as yet undecided amount of print media advertising is anticipated as well.

We plan to officially launch the site at some point in September of 2005, but will make our major initial promotional push timed in conjunction with the IBMA World Of Bluegrass and Fan Fest events in Nashville the last week of October. The blog authors along with a number of contributors will be on-site to provide regular updates about the goings on during IBMA week, including photos and possibly audio and video clips as well. Knowing that large numbers of people are interested in what occurs during the IBMA convention – far more than can actually attend – we anticipate being able to generate a great many regular viewers that week who will value the “instant reporting” that we can do on site.