iClips

At iClips.net we stream live concerts and events FREE for those who aren't able to be at the venue. We capped off our summer festival season by broadcasting the Echo Project, the Voodoo Music Experience and proudly streamed the 46664 World AIDS Day Concert from Johannesburg on December 1st. more

The Future of Live Concert Streaming

Interview With Nate Parienti

by Chris Lowry

At iClips.net we stream live concerts and events FREE for those who aren't able to be at the venue.
iClips capped off their summer festival season by broadcasting the Echo Project, the Voodoo Music Experience and proudly streamed the 46664 World AIDS Day Concert from Johannesburg on December 1st.

Join Chris Lowry and iClips CEO Nat Parienti in an exclusive interview highlighting the history and personality of iClips.

How did you come up with the idea for iClips?

Basically my partners and I were discussing a few different business ideas. We started talking about live music on the internet and the idea of iClips started to materialize.

I love the Deadheads for Obama 2008 that was broadcasted in February. How did you guys get involved with that?

I’ve been a fan of the Grateful Dead for as long as I can remember. One of our senior team member’s is Jay Blakesberg who has been around the GD camp for many years. We talked about the idea to broadcast this event. We only had 2 days to prepare for the concert. It was incredible, and was so big that it basically shut down our servers for almost half an hour.

iClips has been around for a little over a year now. You have had tremendous growth and are becoming one of the most popular destinations on the internet in a short amount of time. How have you handled this success?

My partners and I are very excited about the progress and can’t believe how fast it’s taken off. We started building the site a little over 2 years ago. In December 2006 we went live and slowly produced a few different events, then moved into festivals. We did some shows at various venues including incredible places like Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado, we started working with Nelson Mandela’s 46664 foundation, and The Voodoo Music Festival in New Orleans and word spread quickly. None of us expected this to grow so quickly, it was a little overwhelming actually. One of the biggest hurdles of any new business is managing growth.

You guys are doing an incredible job, how did you get involved with the video streaming and social networking? Give me a little bit of your background?

I’ve been a music fan for a long time. I have 2 other partners and we focused on this particular project and made it happen. We are looking to be the leader in live music streaming as it’s a relatively new market.

Where do you see iClips heading in the next couple of years?

Well the Music industry is changing so much on a daily basis, and the technology behind video streaming had not really cought up until last year. We re going to have a lot more original programming, and we will be streaming live events many times per week. We are constantly keeping our eye open for new and unique content. People love to see content in real time, when they might be, for example, in a snowstorm, say in North Dakota while watching their favorite artists at a concert in Florida. When you add the real time factor, people love to participate. Being a fan and catching one of your favorite events on the internet is a wonderful experience.

Everyone is doing their own festivals or events; do you see iclips doing something like that in 2008?

Events that we are doing are going to be more specialized or charity based. I don’t see us doing any of our own festivals, we are here as a destination site for the fans and we want to expose those events and create a very high level of excitement about the artists, the festivals and the venues.

Out of curiosity what music have you downloaded or purchased recently?

Great question, I actually still purchase CD’s and vinyl at local record stores, we have some great ones here St. Louis, places like Euclid Records and Vintage Vinyl. I’m a supporter of music and I do collect a lot of vinyl still. I would say that lately I’ve been into Thievery Corporation, The Disco Biscuits, and STS9, and the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, Gram Parsons, Steve Earle, Jane’s Addiction, and John Hartford are just a few that are almost always in rotation, I’m a big bluegrass fan, I love the classics, jazz, heavier stuff, and classical. I really love music and I’m definitely not limited to any specific genre.

Iclips is free to join, how do you guys stay in business and take it to the next level?

Yes it’s free to join and we have support from some awesome sponsors who help keep us going. We have an incredible staff of 30 people who are committed and passionate about what they do. I usually work 7 days a week and long hours, but I still make a little time to get out on the mountain bike and ride.