Benevolent Benefactor or Scammer?
I am not familiar with Mankind Tracer, who bills himself as Second Life’s Premiere Rock Performer, claims he “was disturbed after hearing many residents complaining about artists charging too much for concert tickets. As a performer in Second Life and a strong proponent of keeping Second Life music free for residents, Mankind has taken it under his wing to do something.”
Mankind claims he wants to form “Mankind Tracer New Artist Program (MTNAP)” to help keep Second Life Music Free.
I would like to take a couple of moments to examine just what he has in mind.
Mankind is attempting to plan a “big” two hour rock concert, broadcast over 20-30 sims, with the cost to the sim owner being a staggering $8000 lindens per venue… but wait … half of that will go to start “Mankind Tracer New Artist Program”…. hmmm 30 X 8000 = $240,000.00 Lindens… half… $120,000 lindens is going to start the “Mankind Tracer New Artist Program” to “provide promising new SL musical artists, who have shown initiative and strong work ethics, the opportunity to play live in SL by way of a free stream, introductions to club/sim owners and help in developing their in world talent.”
I can’t help but ask isn’t the other $120,000 lindens a bit much to with hold from such a beneficial purpose? These figures do not take into account that the “Home Base” for this “big” concert is being auctioned off.. and early on stood at $20,000.00 lindens and supposable climbing.
Maybe it is just my thoughts, but it seems the true benefactor in all this is Mankind Tracer.
June 6th, 2007 • 
Weirdharold • 
Audio, Avatars, Events, Live, Promotion, Reviews, Second Life, VR, Virtual Life • 
10 Comments »
comment | June 7, 2007 at 09:54 | individual comment-link
Dear weirdharold;
since this is a public forum I will keep My response to your rumors and innuendo as PG as possible. I do hope your mouth is large enough to hold both your feet though because it appears that you open your mouth to change feet frequently and this time you have them both in there.
Now, if a scam were being done, would it make sense for the scammer to tell you not only how much money is going to be (hopefully) collected but where that money is going to as well? and make it all public so everyone can check on it?
I spend roughly $2,500 USD (USD=U.S.Dollars) a month running My own sim and the bulk of it is lindens given away to help residents have the money to buy the things created by the content creators.
This in turn allows the content creators the ability to create more clever and beautiful content and the circle continues.
Live performances. Have you ever done one? I think not. Because if you had you would know that content creation is also the artist singing his heart out on his own songs and sharing them with (literally) the world, for FREE. As a club owner I pay the live artists that perform in My club and 10,000 $Lindens is a normal fee for a 1 hour performance. That is about $37 USD for a 1 hour live performance by an artist doing music that they write themselves. You can’t even get one standing area concert ticket in real life for $40?
I buy lindens 100,000 at a time for prices around $372.46 USD so if mankind tracer actually makes 200,000 lindens and takes half for his expenses, then lets see what he has done to earn his exorbitant (by your statements) fee of about $375 USD.
And lets ignore the fact that he is setting up the way for new artists to get started for free with the other half ($375 USD) of HIS earnings.
First off, he is performing at the concert for two hours….LIVE….. in 20+ sims simultaneously. A two hour live concert??? hmmmm you want to give Me any USD number on that? or are you thinking because you got a free account on second life that everything should be free there? Well the concert IS free to you there. All costs are paid willingly by the club owners not you.
But before that… How do you think that a live concert got started? well it had an executive producer come up with the idea, sell that idea to his capital investments group and get their input on costs and trade offs. Then that executive producer got with the sales staff and made the pitch to them and the sales staff each went out and tried to contact a sim owner in their territory and tell them about the concert and sell them on the benefit to their club. (Oh mankind tracer does pack the clubs he plays at so there is a benefit to the club.) The the sales staff got together with the production coordination team to get streams (a 2,000 listener stream for 2 hours – ah what do you think that costs weirdharold??) the install into each club simultaneously, and the tech support to back it up.
Now the advertising team kicks in and starts to spread the word about the concert and the goals of the visionary who is giving it. And some of that word gets to people like you weirdharold. And you take a few words from what you hear and you decide that this visionary is probably a scammer… I can only surmise that is because you are a scammer and judge all others by those standards that you have for yourself and of course the 20 club owners are too dumb to see the scam you see.
Costs? Oh, all those people on the production team, sales team, advertising team, those people putting in their time, the seconds of their life, for something bigger than themselves…. they are all one person… mankind tracer…
He has a few volunteers who help but he has spent countless hours putting this together…. oh and the 20,000 Lindens bid for home base of the concert? I bid that because I believe in the idea behind the concert and I know and trust the man giving it, and selfishly, I want his avatar at MY club when it is simulcast into the other 20+ clubs, and around the entire world….
weirdharold, I can only say that you are truly a person running you mouth with few facts and no understanding of the worth and value of the creators who make things that the rest of us enjoy. If mankind tracer takes half of the lindens spent to get his concert, he is still losing money and is getting paid about a dollar an hour NOT counting the fact that he is doing the concert. Perhaps you can volunteer your time and find out the facts before you start spreading shadows on a great idea and a man who is honestly trying to help grow the artists in second life. Those who create beautiful things for us to enjoy and not just blogs of innuendo knocking something you know little or nothing about, because you see that it is getting some notice.
PS. one last error in the many you have made. “Second Life’s Premiere Rock Performer” is a title given to mankind tracer in a review by a reviewer at one of his concert performances. The billing title is not from him but from an outside reviewer…
comment | June 7, 2007 at 10:24 | individual comment-link
I’m sure Weirdharold will address your other points, Harleywood, but this statement (or did you mean it as a question?) is incorrect:
“You can’t even get one standing area concert ticket in real life for $40?”
Attendance to Ozzfest is free this year. That’s a well known concert with more than a dozen bands on the bill. Also and although this isn’t a “area concert” per se, several local casinos offer live entertainment for free. Sure, they expect you will do a little drinking, eating and/or gambling, but there is no cover charge for the performance.
pingback | June 7, 2007 at 15:24 | individual pingback-link
[...] Harleywood Guru commented on Benevolent Benefactor or Scammer? [...]
comment | June 7, 2007 at 15:31 | individual comment-link
Harleywood, I have addressed your points on the main blog. There were tomany points to address in the comment section.
comment | June 7, 2007 at 16:17 | individual comment-link
Gee, Harleywood .. .I want to play your club … I DEFINITELY want to raise my rates … oh, and a 2-hour gig? Heh, big deal … I did a 7 hour gig SOLO for the NMConnect events earlier this year …
comment | March 5, 2009 at 14:03 | individual comment-link
Since when do people charge listeners to listen to a live show in SL? I’ve been in SL as a live musician performing for over 3 years and have not charged or paid for a live event!
comment | August 23, 2009 at 21:22 | individual comment-link
Mankind is one of the most sought after performers in Second Life, the fact that he can even command money should be commended. If a guy like him can’t even make a living playing here in SL, then there is hardly hope for any musician. And Sparky, just because you do things for free doesn’t mean the rest of humanity needs to. Not to mention when you stream to 700-800 people it costs MONEY. This whole mentality that everyone can afford to do things for free will kill the virtual economy, and second life with it.
comment | September 23, 2009 at 21:00 | individual comment-link
Since some of them are very talented, and deserve beyond easily, what, yer 42.50?
comment | September 23, 2009 at 21:09 | individual comment-link
*correction 97 cents? oh wait, it might be … $2.23 for a L500$ show, live, rocking originals, takes requests, and is well beyond a “nice guy”.
Shup.
comment | October 27, 2009 at 05:48 | individual comment-link
Mankind Tracer, is the talk of many, as he has given his CCS project away to anyone that asked for it, myself included, and nobody has used it yet to my knowledge or his, I will probably be the first aside from him. As far as getting paid or paying to see artists, i think it is great, i have made my living, at a fraction of what he charges, but I am busier than he is most days, between shows i do other projects as well.
MK is setting a standard, and nobody is really following him, just going through motions, the idea was to help venues get back a little something, but there are too many that dont want to pay to see a show in sl, when they could see it free somewhere else on sl, and that will be the demise of the music scene in sl.
for some time now MK has taken FAR less then his usual fee, to make sure this system he designed, got kicked off nicely, and kudos to him, you are talking about a FRACTION of his normal fees, last I heard quoted was 25000 lindens.
Most fans that tip me, tip me 200-300 l others tip 500-1000, not as many, and my avg tip take is about 1400 on the avg day. I charge 5-6k a show, and avg 3 shows a day most days, sometimes 5-9 depending. Now I may not have 98 avatars on a single sim, but i stay busy, and then i have venues that pay me so they themselves can hear me. I do well over 100 cover songs, with an original flair, more genres than anyone else, and solo virtuosity style shows as well.
I work hard for my L I dont think bashing mankind for his generosity is cool. Free music, wow, its like you want to download whatever songs you want from the Kazaa programs or something, musicians bust their asses in some cases, and yeah maybe some are and should be in the lower ranks, but then someone will inevitably say ” oh dont classify musicians”, well, sure, you dont want to have to pay, in which case you will end up with joe shmoe avatar that cant sing his way out of his karaoke box instead of premiere music brought to you by any one of the 40-50 really good artists in SL.
I dont do shows for free, you stand for free music in sl, so I am guessing we will not cross paths . . . but if we did, I can guarantee you, I would not be playing a free show for you, not even out of kindness, because you are ruthless in your desire to take advantage, whether you choose to see it that way or not.