Skating Music Business Research Question

Hi everyone! I got so many great responses to my last post about cities to host this music business in, so I want to hear your feedback on the business idea itself.

ArtifICE, the business I am writing a plan for for my entrepreneurship class, will be a one-stop shop for skating program music and costuming. Design of these crucial aspects of a program in one creative house will present a well-crafted and cohesive vision that enables a competitive skater to look their best, feel their best, receive better judging marks, and engage with the audience in competition.

My question to you all is, is this a type of business you would be interested in as an investor or consumer? Do you think other investors or consumers would be interested in it? What do you see as the strengths or weaknesses of such a business?

This is all hypothetical, of course, and nothing you say on here will be shared outside of the class unless you give permission for me to do so.

Are we talking about a service that selects and cuts music for the skater and then designs and creates custom costumes?

Or just a music library where skaters can buy pre-cut music and then pick out a pre-designed costume to match?

I'm a little confused over the concept.

karne said:

Are we talking about a service that selects and cuts music for the skater and then designs and creates custom costumes?

Or just a music library where skaters can buy pre-cut music and then pick out a pre-designed costume to match?

I'm a little confused over the concept.

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Ah, good question. There are different packages they can select from based on budget, so either scenario is possible.

fullmetalflamingo said:

Ah, good question. There are different packages they can select from based on budget, so either scenario is possible.

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To have an extensive library of music for skaters to buy from would cost a lot of money in licensing fees. Additionally, to have pre-designed costumes to go with those would also cost substantial money. The startup costs and overheads for such a business would be huge.

Based on my research that won't be a problem (costumes definitely won't because I own my own sewing business), and licensing fees for music from major record labels usually gets taken care of by rinks where competitions are being held and/or skating feds. Otherwise, the company will employ music engineers (including myself) so building a composition library will be done in house.

I guess I'm more just curious whether or not people would be interested in using this kind of a service.

This is an interesting concept. I made skating costumes for many, many years but the music was chosen by the skaters and / or their coaches. Then either I designed and made the costume or I worked with everyone involved to have a great costume to go with their music.

So are you offering the service of cutting a chosen music in addition to costuming?

The main issue is that unless you're a big costume house, you're basically an independent contractor. And I think the same goes for those people that cut music - they work solo. You'd have to have a heckuva a lot of business to actually "employ" music engineers. And they might prefer to work as independent contractors on an individual basis to customers and not have to give a monetary cut to a third party (i.e. you).

Also, in these days of computers with music slicing software, it's very easy for one to cut their own music precisely. Even I can finally do it!

sandraskates said:

This is an interesting concept. I made skating costumes for many, many years but the music was chosen by the skaters and / or their coaches. Then either I designed and made the costume or I worked with everyone involved to have a great costume to go with their music.

So are you offering the service of cutting a chosen music in addition to costuming?

The main issue is that unless you're a big costume house, you're basically an independent contractor. And I think the same goes for those people that cut music - they work solo. You'd have to have a heckuva a lot of business to actually "employ" music engineers. And they might prefer to work as independent contractors on an individual basis to customers and not have to give a monetary cut to a third party (i.e. you).

Also, in these days of computers with music slicing software, it's very easy for one to cut their own music precisely. Even I can finally do it!

Click to expand...

Yes, we'd be offering the music and costuming together. The music engineers and costume makers would actually be employed full time by the company, not on a contract basis, so there wouldn't be the "third party" issue. But for sure, we would need to make sure we have a good customer base before launching o be cost-effective in paying salaries.