Abney Parks huge risk.

When Covid hit, 95% of our gigs disappeared over night. That was our whole income...gone over night. 

In an act of desperation we attempted something few had ever tried before: "if people can't come to an in person concert, would fans buy tickets to a concert they watched online?"

The answer was a resounding "YES!", and soon we settled into a scedual were we'd play a new concert every two months. It replaced our touring income with a much more reliable income. 

We were saved!

There was only one downside: album releases. An album takes years to write, but when we released an album in the same months we had online concerts, we found people EITHER Bought tickets to the show, OR bought the album. Rarely both. Meaning we made the same, whether or not we had made a new album. So for a couple years, when we released a new album, we made zero dollars from it. 

Finally we stopped writing albums. 

Until recently. Last month we released our first new album in years. Instead of releasing the album on a show month, we released it BETWEEN show months! The goal is, if fans still buy tickets to the shows on either side of the album release, then we actually get paid for the album. If they don't buy tickets, if they choose to EITHER buy the album OR by show tickets, then we are back to having made no money on the years of work it takes to make an album. Making it pointless to write albums.

So that's our great danger: if we don't sell tickets to the next show, because people just bought the album, then it's like we didn't get paid for the album. 

And we are right down to the wire. The show is next week. If we sell enough tickets, then the album launch is a success. If we don't...if fans choose to skip the show, because they just bought the album, then we are back to, "why make an album if we don't great paid for it?" 

And I must admit, sales are light on this so far. I'm getting worried. Ticket sales should be twice this high, at this point, so we are in huge danger of this being our third album flop in a row - not because people didn't buy the album, but because they bought the album instead of tickets. 

So if you are on the fence about getting tickets for the next show, please consider it. It means soooooo much to us. 

 

August 31, Abney Park is celebrating the release of our new album, "Ghosts, Demons and Ancient Lore!" Your support has made this album release a smashing success, So To celebrate, we are going to have an live online concert!

We'll be featuring music from the new album, and matching  its eerie mystical tones with deeper cuts from early abney park albums, which is why we've chosen "Dark Forest, Deep Magic" as our theme.

Abney Park albums like "from dreams or angels" and "ancient world" explored this dark forest theme, and we think it fits delightfully into the ghost stories of our new album.

So join us August 31 for "Dark Forest, Deep Magic", an online concert to celebrate the release of our new album. 

NEW SHIRT!
This is the latest in a series of collectable shirts we put out, featuring each of the instruments of Abney Park. This concerts shirt features the viola.