Musicians get creative to get fans dipping into pockets

Some of the biggest names in the music industry are coming up with new ways to generate revenues in response to the slump in album sales.

According to the latest figures from the BPI, the number of albums sold in the UK fell by 3.5 per cent to 128.9 million last year.

Acts such as Kiss are among those to look for ways of offsetting the slump in revenues by offering fans official merchandise such as instant gig recordings.

Gerrit Schumann of Music Networx, the company behind the live albums, told BBC News: "We do a multi-track recording of each night and make the recording available on a USB drive right at the end of the show."

Status Quo are another of the acts to have experimented with instant live albums, using Live Here Now to produce CDs of their shows, which are available at the venue within minutes of the gig coming to an end.

Live Here Now has produced similar albums for Blur, Marillion and The Damned.

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