Post by tokiohoteluk on Mar 14, 2008 19:21:10 GMT 1
As a group, myself (Claire), Susi, Mika, Nash and Razzle have decided that we should make a statement for you guys on the forum about what we know about the past, present and future of Tokio Hotel in the UK, and how that affects us on the street team.
History
The UK Street Team is almost a year old. In the beginning of its inception, things were really excting. We were made lots of promises by their record label and they said that breaking the UK market was a huge priority for Tokio Hotel. I was asked to run the street team by their marketing manager and I very willingly took that task on.
Here is what I was promised would be the function of the street team:
Okay, so what I would like to suggest is that you set up the Official UK Street Team which we can run through Myspace - if you are happy to? we could provide you with some assets to make it look and sound amazing!
Currently the URL www.myspace.com/tokiohoteluk is free so I suggest you use that? What I would also suggest is that you make it private so that people have to sign up to become a member and in return, we will make sure you guys get exclusives, messages directly from the band, downloadable flyers, all the news and gossip first so you can spread the word and be their offical voice in the UK.
How does that sound?
No matter how long you have been a member of the street team, you will know that we rarely got exclusives, messages from the band, downloadable flyers or all the news and gossip first. We were never considered their official voice in the UK. All the times we were first with the news was because we are good at information gathering just like any other fansite.
I would say that for the months May, June, July and August, the street team was a real street team. I was frustrated by people not replying to my emails, but I also realised that not only are people busy, we were just a fan run entity with no real priority.
I got frustrated now and again with the lack of support, resources, guidance, etc. We had NONE. The only guidance we ever received was to ask us to stop requesting Tokio Hotel on Radio 1. I also got frustrated by what seemed to me to be complete incompetance. Things were always wrong or changing, every time they tried to give me an 'exclusive' it was something I'd posted about 2 days before. I mean, it was silly. I knew more about TH than they did. It was when they asked *me* for TH concert dates for the UK website that I realised I was never going to get on with them. I could do their jobs standing on my head!
From August until November we had bare minimum record label contact. The only way I got t-shirts for the fan meet from them is by going through TH's management. In August I had met with the record label when I went to interview the boys and I was told all sorts of things about them doing concerts in November, releasing Monsoon in November, etc. When you are told these things, you expect to hear something, but I didn't. All I heard was about them moving forward with plans to crack the USA.
In September, when I was told - ooh, we have some exciting news for you to announce in a couple of days, I thought it was going to be a new release date, etc, but it was all about the new USA website. And that's how it continued.
By November I'd had enough. I loved the first fan meet-up, but it was so much work. The record label had stopped communicating with me and all the management had for me was stuff about the USA/Canada. I just wanted for either them to give me information, or for me to get out. I wasn't happy.
I sent an email with a fan-meet report to the record label and in the email I expressed my discontent that TH fans in the UK had been left without anything, had been ignored and that I didn't want to run the street team without a band to support. I wanted to know what was going on and if the street team was wanted.
The record label said: 'kthx bye.'
I was upset to say the least. I felt offended that the record label was willing to let it go so easily. That it was far too much for them to make an effort with us and they'd rather see it die out than send us an email every now and again saying: 'we haven't forgotten you, thanks for sticking around'. And to do that when I had just sent them a report about our lovely fan meet was depressing.
The management on the other hand were not willing to let us go. They begged me not to leave the street team, promised me that things would change and all sorts of other things. They praised the work of the street team and said that they valued it very much.
In the meantime, some UK fans (previous street teamers) decided to take advantage of this momentary weak point with the record label (who were angry with me because of an email I sent in response to their 'bye' email). They contacted them and instituted themselves as a new street team.
Have you seen this second UK street team? No. Because there was no way I was going to allow virtual strangers come in and institute themselves as your leaders when you didn't know them. As far as I'm concerned, if I go, this street team belongs to you and your leaders are your mods, who you know and love.
To try and distance themselves from the mess that they had created, the record label decided to employ a professional street team company called Wild to try and take control of street team activities. Essentially, they were expected to be the go between because the record label no longer wanted to deal with the problems they had created within the street team directly.
A battle ensued between me (trying to keep the street team from falling apart), the record label (who then realised that they had two groups of fans to consider), Wild (who were being paid to do very little as far as I could tell) and the second group of fans (who clung on because they thought they could get something out of it). If you are wondering, I apologised 100 times over to the record label against my personal feelings (I don't think I had anything to apologise for - they brought it on themselves) and asked them not to take it out on the fans. They did not accept that and continued to try and make changes. Furthermore, despite being told to go through Wild, they never once responded to me.
The last contact I had with the record label was about a meeting that we (me, the record label, Wild and the second group of fans) were going to have to sort the mess out. The email was beginning of Feb, I think.
Present
Now you know what the street team has been through and you know what we know about the UK record label. I haven't exaggerated this for effect and I have every email saved and archived. And I wouldn't be embarrassed about any of them being made public. I did what was right for Tokio Hotel and for the UK fans.
This week has been somewhat up and down. Amiee messaged me to say that someone from Universal Germany told her that Tokio Hotel would be working on the UK in 2009. I got a little troubled. Through the last 4 or 5 months, I have been told that 2008 would be the year of TH in the UK. You guys have all seen that too.
This is the reality of the situation since I have investigated this:
* There are some problems in the UK that are preventing TH from doing anything here at the moment.
* The management want TH to do things in the UK in 2008, but the reality is they may not be able to.
On top of all this, the last email from management was less than supportive of the street team. I realise that the UK fanbase (me included) is sounding like a drag when it comes to always nagging for TH. But, we have been left in the dark. Whatever problems they are having, we don't know about them and it doesn't help us feel like we're not being ignored. They need to realise that they can't expect a 'street team' to be there when the band and the record label is not.
Where does that leave us? The Future.
Every other week, my poor team have to suffer through me having a tantrum and wanting to quit. I stick around because I still love the guys and I love you too. I can't leave you all when TH is abandoning you. The meet-up is an important social event as well and although I briefly considered cancelling it (there's a lot of work involved), I can't bring myself to do that. You guys appreciate it and that's all that matters.
So the guys may not make it here this year. It's so disappointing, but at least we KNOW. The not knowing is way worse that the knowing. Because we can prepare ourselves, we can come to terms with it and we can stop obsessing over it.
The street team is no longer updating with TH news that's not related to the UK. There is a good reason for this - we don't want to do it, and UK fans don't want to see it constantly. It's far nicer to make the decision to go chase the info on a US centric site, than to be constantly updated about it by us.
This forum will stay open.
The street team is going to act a little more like a fansite. We will not be relentlessly promoting TH. There's no point. If there is no planned releases, gigs, PR, etc, our efforts will be wasted. We support official marketing, not do it alone.
We will be continuing fan actions on an ongoing basis until we either get news, or we get a response. This will be fun coming up with creative ideas, we will be showing the presence of the fanbase, which we hope will encourage them to sort out their problems quicker.
Theories?
Okay, I have some speculative theories that you can think about for yourselves. THIS IS SPECULATION. I do not know anything else in terms of details, so I have filled in the blanks myself:
* Tokio Hotel are no longer listed as an artist of Fascination Records if you look at their website.
* I believe that TH have been pulled from that record label because they failed to actually do anything for TH.
* I believe that this has caused legal problems because they had to break a contract.
* I HOPE that this will be resolved and TH will be represented by a fabby new Universal sub-label and finally crack the UK market.
* But this could all take time.
* It is, however, the BEST thing that could happen to them, even if it means that we lose out and have to wait even longer.
* If TH had stayed on Fascination, the chances are they would never break the UK market from what I have seen of how they work.
This is a very long story. And if you made it to the end, you get a cookie. We hope that you appreciate our honesty and understand why things are so difficult for us as the admins. We have tried to keep people happy and blissfully unaware of these things, but I personally think that the fanbase can be happier if they have this kind of information. It helps you understand what the situation is, even if you don't like it. Without that understanding, people are going to just keep getting upset.
That was the bare minimum details, but I think it gives out plenty of information.
Please stick with us! We are trying to make the most of a really bad situation.
Claire, Nash, Susi, Mika and Razzle xxx
History
The UK Street Team is almost a year old. In the beginning of its inception, things were really excting. We were made lots of promises by their record label and they said that breaking the UK market was a huge priority for Tokio Hotel. I was asked to run the street team by their marketing manager and I very willingly took that task on.
Here is what I was promised would be the function of the street team:
Okay, so what I would like to suggest is that you set up the Official UK Street Team which we can run through Myspace - if you are happy to? we could provide you with some assets to make it look and sound amazing!
Currently the URL www.myspace.com/tokiohoteluk is free so I suggest you use that? What I would also suggest is that you make it private so that people have to sign up to become a member and in return, we will make sure you guys get exclusives, messages directly from the band, downloadable flyers, all the news and gossip first so you can spread the word and be their offical voice in the UK.
How does that sound?
No matter how long you have been a member of the street team, you will know that we rarely got exclusives, messages from the band, downloadable flyers or all the news and gossip first. We were never considered their official voice in the UK. All the times we were first with the news was because we are good at information gathering just like any other fansite.
I would say that for the months May, June, July and August, the street team was a real street team. I was frustrated by people not replying to my emails, but I also realised that not only are people busy, we were just a fan run entity with no real priority.
I got frustrated now and again with the lack of support, resources, guidance, etc. We had NONE. The only guidance we ever received was to ask us to stop requesting Tokio Hotel on Radio 1. I also got frustrated by what seemed to me to be complete incompetance. Things were always wrong or changing, every time they tried to give me an 'exclusive' it was something I'd posted about 2 days before. I mean, it was silly. I knew more about TH than they did. It was when they asked *me* for TH concert dates for the UK website that I realised I was never going to get on with them. I could do their jobs standing on my head!
From August until November we had bare minimum record label contact. The only way I got t-shirts for the fan meet from them is by going through TH's management. In August I had met with the record label when I went to interview the boys and I was told all sorts of things about them doing concerts in November, releasing Monsoon in November, etc. When you are told these things, you expect to hear something, but I didn't. All I heard was about them moving forward with plans to crack the USA.
In September, when I was told - ooh, we have some exciting news for you to announce in a couple of days, I thought it was going to be a new release date, etc, but it was all about the new USA website. And that's how it continued.
By November I'd had enough. I loved the first fan meet-up, but it was so much work. The record label had stopped communicating with me and all the management had for me was stuff about the USA/Canada. I just wanted for either them to give me information, or for me to get out. I wasn't happy.
I sent an email with a fan-meet report to the record label and in the email I expressed my discontent that TH fans in the UK had been left without anything, had been ignored and that I didn't want to run the street team without a band to support. I wanted to know what was going on and if the street team was wanted.
The record label said: 'kthx bye.'
I was upset to say the least. I felt offended that the record label was willing to let it go so easily. That it was far too much for them to make an effort with us and they'd rather see it die out than send us an email every now and again saying: 'we haven't forgotten you, thanks for sticking around'. And to do that when I had just sent them a report about our lovely fan meet was depressing.
The management on the other hand were not willing to let us go. They begged me not to leave the street team, promised me that things would change and all sorts of other things. They praised the work of the street team and said that they valued it very much.
In the meantime, some UK fans (previous street teamers) decided to take advantage of this momentary weak point with the record label (who were angry with me because of an email I sent in response to their 'bye' email). They contacted them and instituted themselves as a new street team.
Have you seen this second UK street team? No. Because there was no way I was going to allow virtual strangers come in and institute themselves as your leaders when you didn't know them. As far as I'm concerned, if I go, this street team belongs to you and your leaders are your mods, who you know and love.
To try and distance themselves from the mess that they had created, the record label decided to employ a professional street team company called Wild to try and take control of street team activities. Essentially, they were expected to be the go between because the record label no longer wanted to deal with the problems they had created within the street team directly.
A battle ensued between me (trying to keep the street team from falling apart), the record label (who then realised that they had two groups of fans to consider), Wild (who were being paid to do very little as far as I could tell) and the second group of fans (who clung on because they thought they could get something out of it). If you are wondering, I apologised 100 times over to the record label against my personal feelings (I don't think I had anything to apologise for - they brought it on themselves) and asked them not to take it out on the fans. They did not accept that and continued to try and make changes. Furthermore, despite being told to go through Wild, they never once responded to me.
The last contact I had with the record label was about a meeting that we (me, the record label, Wild and the second group of fans) were going to have to sort the mess out. The email was beginning of Feb, I think.
Present
Now you know what the street team has been through and you know what we know about the UK record label. I haven't exaggerated this for effect and I have every email saved and archived. And I wouldn't be embarrassed about any of them being made public. I did what was right for Tokio Hotel and for the UK fans.
This week has been somewhat up and down. Amiee messaged me to say that someone from Universal Germany told her that Tokio Hotel would be working on the UK in 2009. I got a little troubled. Through the last 4 or 5 months, I have been told that 2008 would be the year of TH in the UK. You guys have all seen that too.
This is the reality of the situation since I have investigated this:
* There are some problems in the UK that are preventing TH from doing anything here at the moment.
* The management want TH to do things in the UK in 2008, but the reality is they may not be able to.
On top of all this, the last email from management was less than supportive of the street team. I realise that the UK fanbase (me included) is sounding like a drag when it comes to always nagging for TH. But, we have been left in the dark. Whatever problems they are having, we don't know about them and it doesn't help us feel like we're not being ignored. They need to realise that they can't expect a 'street team' to be there when the band and the record label is not.
Where does that leave us? The Future.
Every other week, my poor team have to suffer through me having a tantrum and wanting to quit. I stick around because I still love the guys and I love you too. I can't leave you all when TH is abandoning you. The meet-up is an important social event as well and although I briefly considered cancelling it (there's a lot of work involved), I can't bring myself to do that. You guys appreciate it and that's all that matters.
So the guys may not make it here this year. It's so disappointing, but at least we KNOW. The not knowing is way worse that the knowing. Because we can prepare ourselves, we can come to terms with it and we can stop obsessing over it.
The street team is no longer updating with TH news that's not related to the UK. There is a good reason for this - we don't want to do it, and UK fans don't want to see it constantly. It's far nicer to make the decision to go chase the info on a US centric site, than to be constantly updated about it by us.
This forum will stay open.
The street team is going to act a little more like a fansite. We will not be relentlessly promoting TH. There's no point. If there is no planned releases, gigs, PR, etc, our efforts will be wasted. We support official marketing, not do it alone.
We will be continuing fan actions on an ongoing basis until we either get news, or we get a response. This will be fun coming up with creative ideas, we will be showing the presence of the fanbase, which we hope will encourage them to sort out their problems quicker.
Theories?
Okay, I have some speculative theories that you can think about for yourselves. THIS IS SPECULATION. I do not know anything else in terms of details, so I have filled in the blanks myself:
* Tokio Hotel are no longer listed as an artist of Fascination Records if you look at their website.
* I believe that TH have been pulled from that record label because they failed to actually do anything for TH.
* I believe that this has caused legal problems because they had to break a contract.
* I HOPE that this will be resolved and TH will be represented by a fabby new Universal sub-label and finally crack the UK market.
* But this could all take time.
* It is, however, the BEST thing that could happen to them, even if it means that we lose out and have to wait even longer.
* If TH had stayed on Fascination, the chances are they would never break the UK market from what I have seen of how they work.
This is a very long story. And if you made it to the end, you get a cookie. We hope that you appreciate our honesty and understand why things are so difficult for us as the admins. We have tried to keep people happy and blissfully unaware of these things, but I personally think that the fanbase can be happier if they have this kind of information. It helps you understand what the situation is, even if you don't like it. Without that understanding, people are going to just keep getting upset.
That was the bare minimum details, but I think it gives out plenty of information.
Please stick with us! We are trying to make the most of a really bad situation.
Claire, Nash, Susi, Mika and Razzle xxx