Watch your favorite #BHSNASH performances on YouTube!
One of the most frequent messages to our Harmony Hall team is “MORE VIDEO!” And we agree… to the tune of nearly 500 new videos added to the BHS YouTube channel in 2015, including all competitor performances from our Convention in Pittsburgh.
Getting our best performances out into the world is a total win all around, and we’re ready to make it happen again this year on a much faster timeline. Look for all convention recordings to hit our YouTube channel on August 15, ready to be watched, shared, and enjoyed by everyone.
But… what about the convention DVD!?!
While we honor the tradition of the convention videos (and your carefully curated collection of them,) the reality is that the production time and expense of creating them VASTLY outweigh the demand for the product. Sales have been sharply dropping each year, with less than 2% of our membership purchasing a quartet DVD in 2015 and even fewer for chorus DVDs. This, combined with skyrocketing YouTube views on our channel, tells us that it's time to evolve our strategy and provide content in the format that members will use most.
For the past several years, the Convention DVDs have been supported solely by the BHS operating budget - using up significant financial resources and staff hours on production, clearances (a months-long process), and design work. We would rather make all of our convention content available much sooner (and at a more reasonable production cost) and focus our resources on other important projects that will benefit you, your quartet, and your chapter.
Does this replace the Delayed-Viewing Webcast?
Not in our book! The webcast offers subscribers a way to experience the contest as it happened, capturing the pacing, the expert commentary, the interviews, the excitement of the call-off… a YouTube playlist could never replicate that. For those who want the as-close-to-being-there-as-possible view of the convention, the delayed webcast will still be the very best option. (You can still order the 2016 webcast here!)
Why YouTube is great for us… and YOU!
Moving our video distribution entirely to our YouTube channel has a lot of benefits that we already mentioned, but here are a few more:
ANYONE can watch any video from the contest, share it on their own social media, embed it on their web site, and show it in a classroom, seminar, or rehearsal.
YouTube’s proprietary ContentID system ensures that everyone with a stake is compensated (hello there, copyright holders!), and at a MUCH faster rate than the arcane and cumbersome DVD sync license process allows.
Immediate access (anywhere!) to top performances that can be a gateway to even more Barbershop. Case in point: Main Street’s Pop Songs Medley video from the 2016 Convention has a suggested video list featuring Lunch Break, Old School, Kentucky Vocal Union, Storm Front, Lemon Squeezy, GQ (SAI), Ambassadors of Harmony, and FRED. There’s something for everyone in that list!
