When people told San Rafael residents Shelley and Dave Champine that there's nothing to do in Marin, they knew that couldn't be true.
The couple's kids were getting more self-sufficient and they were looking for fun events that they wouldn't have to cross a bridge to attend. Shelley began searching for local music events, and found over 100 shows in Marin County every week.
Armed with this discovery, the couple decided to centralize those events in one place and launched the website Local Music Vibe in 2008. The website currently serves as a platform for musicians and promoters to upload their events, and users can access the events closest to them based on their location. Almost five years later its launch, Local Music Vibe is planning to expand after announcing their new partnership with San Francisco-based BandPage.
BandPage is an application that allows musicians to manage their profiles, media and show dates. The new partnership, named BandPage Connect, makes it easy for a site to pull in rich content once a musician has a profile, while allowing them to keep their information up-to-date within BandPage. The deal includes platforms like Wordpress, Swarm.fm, WeDemand, The Social Radio and others as well as the Champine's website.
With a staff of three, Local Music Vibe averages 30,000 users a month and has over 4,000 registered musicians and promoters in Bay Area, most of whom are in the North Bay. Although a Local Music Vibe can exist in any community, the majority are based in Marin where the company started.
"The startup environment has created this bubble where you have to explosive growth," Dave said. "We did not take on a bunch of funding. We have just focused on grass roots and providing great service to local musicians."
For Local Music Vibe, BandPage Connect means bands will no longer need to create an artist page from scratch. They can pull in their BandPage information and have it create the page automatically, in a matter of seconds. Local Music Vibe will also have access to BandPage's half a million musicians from all over the world.
The partnership is milestone for Dave, who currently works on the site part-time with a day job at Semantech. Shelley works full-time overseeing social marketing and customer service and Dale Geist works on the website's design.
"We weren't explosive but we've gotten large enough to attract the attention of larger partners like BandPage," Dave said. "In 2013, we wanted to bring this to as many communities as we can."
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