We recently connected with Isabella Erardi and have shared our conversation below.
Isabella, appreciate you joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
As an indie singer/songwriter who has been actively pounding the pavement for a decade, I’ve been exposed to my fair share of disappointments and frustrations within the music industry. I’ve been scammed out of money, been made countless empty promises, and gave my energy to projects I thought would take me to the next level, but didn’t. I’m only 23.
During Covid, I found myself in the gig scene, playing 3 hour cover sets in the backs of restaurants and bars to fund my recording projects. I didn’t have a manager. I just targeted restaurants with phone calls and in-person visits until they were annoyed enough to give me a shot. I was grateful for the money, but at my core I knew I wasn’t a gigging artist. I’m a performer. I didn’t want to sing someone else’s songs. I wanted to play my own.
Surrounding me were hundreds of other artists in the same boat. The music industry for artists isn’t exactly a straightforward career ladder like in other industries, where there’s a relatively clear path to where you want to go. Every artist I know has dreams of playing their own shows, but the landscape of how to get there changes almost constantly, especially with the unpredictability of relatively new developments like streaming and social media. I’ve even sat down with label executives who couldn’t give me a clear answer on what it takes to make it in today’s environment. Many of the “underdog” “organically viral” artists who just so happen to blow up on social media are really industry plants backed by label funding. But social media, for most artists, is a shot in the dark. And if you don’t magically know someone to get your music in front of the right people or have a college amount of money to market it yourself, social media is really the only tool grassroots artists have to bring exposure to their music. I don’t think it’s a bad thing, I just don’t think an algorithm should be our only option, especially when it fails most artists.
Social media is the digital way, but what about the live way? Artists’ options aren’t much better. Playing your own show at the local level is a turn off for most artists because it’s expensive. Many opportunities are “pay-to-play” – where venues justify charging *artists* for providing *them* a service with… exposure. On top of that, artists are usually paying their bandmates for their time. It amazes me that artists are the backbone of the music industry, and yet the show producers, sound techs, instrumentalists, venues, production crews, even down to the ticket teller are paid for their work (as the should), but the artists are not. You would also be surprised to know that most tours, even the big ones, operate at a loss. Executives have told me stories of artists taking leans on their homes to pay off their tour debt. Stories like this are common, and they’re normalized.
Everyone as far as I know can see the music industry is a burning ship, and instead of doing something about it, they’re accepting the reality as it is. But if the vast majority of artists can’t make a living doing this, they’re eventually going to jump ship, and the local industry will cease to exist. I’m not satisfied with major labels and social media algorithms being the only ones to draw significant attention to music. Why? Music is apart of our culture, and culture is a direct reflection of our beliefs, morals and values. Music history is fascinating- it has been effective propaganda for both good and evil. Entire revolutions have been born out of music to drive social and cultural change. Look it up! ChatGPT can rattle off endless examples. Music may not be essential to human life but it is essential to humanity. It does something to the human heart that laws, politics and force simply can’t. It creates empathy for others’ experiences in ways nothing else can.
With this in mind, it should be deeply concerning that the music industry is not profitable for most artists. I cannot pretend to have all of the answers, but something must be born, somewhere, to change the tides.
I moved to San Diego in 2022 and God gave me an idea. I wasn’t yet big enough to sell out a theatre, I was brand new to the area, had no connections, and didn’t want to pay to play. But what if I started my own show? What if I invited a few acts a night, we combined our fan bases, so each artist could not only play their *original* music, but cross promote it to the other audiences? What if they didn’t need followers or streams to get on our stage, only talent? And get paid for it? This is how Bloom was born.
Fast forward two years, and I’ve received incredible appreciation for what I’m doing from the San Diego music scene. Artists are stoked to be handed an opportunity where they’re not background music at a bar, but the main event, where they can connect to the audience and gain fans. And they’re actually getting paid. Our audience really enjoys the show, which is relieving for me. I’m happy with what we’ve accomplished so far, I’m just far from satisfied. For Bloom to continue as a movement independent of me, it can’t just run on my passion. We have to start making significant profits to prove our way works, so the industry actually follows suit. Which means more ticket sales and expanding our reach.
Despite the mountains we face, I’m optimistic about what Bloom will look like a decade from now. I believe we can one day be a tried and true avenue for breaking independent artists and change the music industry at a whole for the better.
Isabella, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
In full transparency, I never struggled with what to do with my life, because God called me to music young. It is impossible to honestly talk about my career of choice without mentioning my faith in Christ. He was central to my decision to pursue it. I’m a very purpose driven person and know I can make a positive impact on the world through music.
As stated before, I believe music to be a severely underestimated weapon. It has historically proven itself over and over to start and end conflicts ranging from within the human heart to global issues. It may not be essential to human life but it is essential to humanity. And the current state of our world is desperate for humanity to show up!
This is why I know Bloom, my concert series, to be so imperative, as it aims to give platforms and funding back to independent artists. The creation and exposure of art is imperative to an empathetic culture.
As an artist myself, the content of my music stays true to these beliefs, including topics on forgiveness, mental health, freedom, honesty, and humor.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Followers are not everything, engagement is.
Especially in the music industry, there’s a lot of fraudulent accounts out there, with hundreds of thousands of followers, but only a few hundred or few thousand views on their reels.
I’d much rather take an account with a few thousand followers with an active and engaged community than those other accounts. Because building engagement is how you actually get customer conversion.
Figure out who your audience is, what their interests are, why they need what you provide, and create posts that are relatable and helpful to them. People don’t go on social media to be SOLD TO. People are on social media to scroll and escape their lives, which means you need to draw them in with relatability or entertainment before you say “please buy my product”.
For Bloom, we’ve phased out of creating “ad” type posts basically telling people to buy our tickets. Instead, we post high quality video content of our shows, focused on REAL, AUTHENTIC experiences and encounters at Bloom- maybe an artist hit a high note and the audience went nuts. Maybe the artist got them to sing along, or laugh. When you capture these positive, entertaining experiences, without branding, it gets the viewers coming to *you*, not the other way around. The psychology behind selling something is very important. People don’t want to be sold something, they want to feel like they’ve discovered something.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I believe in my vision and will stop and nothing to see it happen.
That means, like most small business owners, I have to wear 10 hats at my concert until it financially makes sense to hire help.
I’m the artist scout, the stage hand, the production crew, the manager, the producer, the occasional ticket teller, the social media manager, video editor, the MC, the sound guy, the trouble shooter when things go wrong, the point of contact, and I also play a set as an artist. I’ve had to learn entirely new skills to keep my concert going- probably the most daunting being sound engineering. Staring at a mix board full of countless knobs, buttons, and faders that all look exactly alike and all do something different yet are all essential to creating a live mix was overwhelming. I used to just hire a sound guy and cut my losses. Let me tell you, they get their money. But like learning a new language, I started recognizing the uses for different parts on the sound board, and now I’m engineering and unashamed at all of our shows. I still can’t wait to hire the work out, though.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.isabellaerardi.com/bloom
- Instagram: @isabellaerardi
- Facebook: @isabellaerardimusic
- Other: Bloom: @bloommusic.collective
My Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0Xn1WE5RSmV4zHHBpehBx9?si=ZHT09ccEQiy9Wd7jcpSCrQBloom’s Spotify playlist featuring artists from Bloom: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0DryJdr4FFkwU4EABykojN?si=ouCwjCCvTkyRbIzqOPBo_A&pi=ofbksGSjROyby
Image Credits
Images 1 and 6 @haus.ov.mad
Images 2 and 5 @wslysctt
Images 3 and 4 @pauldal