Rockers Otherwise team up with business to livestream shows

On a shelf high above rests a mound of gear covered in turquoise wrapping, a fitting color for a blue kind of year.

“Those were all supposed to go out to the Imagine expo in March,” notes John Boyko, craning his neck to the rafters as he strolls through the North Las Vegas warehouse of Structure Exhibits, the trade show marketing company he founded in 2003. “Two weeks before, Adobe called us up and said, ‘We’re going to cancel the show.’ ”

It wasn’t the only disappointing call he received around then.

“Our main business is the trade show industry, which has been nonexistent since March,” he continues, noting how coronavirus concerns have hammered his bottom line. “We had to return deposits and all those kinds of things. It got to a point where it was like, ‘How can we get ourselves bringing in at least some income to try to counteract what’s going on?’ ”

The long-haired guitarist at his side has helped provide an answer to that question.

Ryan Patrick, of Vegas hard rockers Otherwise, teamed up with his longtime friend to turn a corner of the sprawling Structure grounds into an online concert hall and high-end livestreaming studio.

Boyko leads us to it on a recent afternoon, where a large, 4-foot-high stage complete with a professional lighting rig and a luminous LED backdrop dominates the room.

Since July, Otherwise, which is fronted by Patrick’s brother Adrian Patrick, has been using the facilities to reach fans and raise revenue in a time when touring is not an option.

“It’s like, ‘How do we get the music to the people who need to hear it?’ ” Patrick explains. “People are like, ‘Where are you guys? What are you doing? What’s going on?’ We’re right here.”

Thus far, it’s working.

The band’s first performance here attracted an online audience of over 50,000, with the numbers growing ever since. And even though Otherwise has been sidelined from roadwork, its online presence has actually managed to grow its audience: The band has added an impressive 100,000 monthly listeners on Spotify since the pandemic hit.

Musicians and business owners like Boyko have been forced to adapt their approach to earning a living in the era of the coronavirus.

But there just may be a silver lining to these cloudy times: Not only do some of these adaptations appear likely to stick around long after the COVID-19 situation becomes manageable, they might actually enhance those industries moving forward.

“I think that what this COVID thing is doing for me is creating that challenge again, making me rethink the business. Nobody has had to do that in this industry for a long time,” Boyko notes. “Everything’s changing.”

Taking a new kind of stage

The light bulb moment came amid the lights of Times Square.

A few years back, Boyko was on a business trip to New York City when he happened to be strolling through the aforementioned part of town.

“I went into Times Square, and everything was animated, it’s all moving,” Boyko recalls. “That kind of was what got my mind thinking about it. I’m like, ‘Wow, this could be really good in trade shows because trade show exhibits are really just billboards for your company. If we can animate that billboard, more power to you.’ ”

Boyko began investing in LED technology shortly thereafter, doubling down late last year, when he planned to turn the area that now houses his livestreaming stage into an LED-enhanced studio to showcase the technology.

But then came the pandemic and there went all the trade show clients.

So Boyko pivoted, building the livestreaming facilities instead.

He brought in Otherwise, which he has been a fan of and worked with for over a decade, helping the band navigate record contracts and once refurbishing a tour bus for it.

“These guys were basically the guinea pig of ‘Can this work at our facility and could we actually put something together that is workable for fans and for us, too?’ ” Boyko explains.

Patrick acknowledges that there was a learning curve in terms of getting adjusted to performing in this new context without the traditional concert crowd.

“At first, it was pretty strange,” he says. “In the moment, it feels right, because you’re onstage with your band and the stage is kick-ass. But when the song ends, it’s like, ‘Oh man, OK, let’s keep it rolling.’ ”

The shows have been a hit and a way for the band to generate income by selling tickets to the performances. Its next livestream concert takes place at 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 17.

In addition to Otherwise, Boyko has hosted a performance from Psychosexual, the new band from former Five Finger Death Punch drummer Jeremy Spencer, with talk of pursuing big names like The Killers and Panic! At the Disco.

“I’ve lost a lot of money in this business over the last six months or so, but it’s exciting to me to have to figure out something new,” he says. “I haven’t had to have that opportunity for many years now.”

No concerts, no problem

The shows stopped.

The bills didn’t.

Otherwise was supposed to have spent much of 2020 on the road, supporting its latest album, “Defy.”

Though the rockers have earned a good amount of airplay over the course of their previous three records, including becoming the first unsigned band to score a No. 1 hit on SiriusXM’s Octane channel in 2012 before landing a record deal, Otherwise largely relies on heavy touring to support its albums and generate income.

So when concerts were largely canceled for the year — the band did play Sturgis in August — it threatened to be a major financial hit for a working-class band whose rigorous roadwork makes ends meet.

“We have our business that we run; our LLC has expenses every single month,” Patrick explains of how his band operates. “Since we haven’t been touring, the van payment doesn’t stop, the equipment payment that we have doesn’t stop. Right now, it’s really a sink-or-swim scenario for a lot of bands, a lot of acts.”

Otherwise has stayed afloat by turning to the internet in a way that it hadn’t before, compelled by the coronavirus to adapt.

In other words, it swam.

Livestreaming has been one way of generating income.

But Otherwise has successfully explored other internet-abetted ventures as well, creating a Patreon account where it offers exclusive content to fans for a price. Perhaps most crucially, the band launched its own page on Twitch, the online streaming site that was once largely the province of the gaming community.

How it works: Fans subscribe for a monthly fee, beginning at $5, and gain access to the band’s profile, where they can chat and interact with the group members during various online appearances, which they hold at least once a week.

Not only are there immediate financial gains associated with both Twitch sets and livestreaming gigs, but ancillary ones as well: By focusing on developing their online presence, where fans can interact from around the world, the members of Otherwise have successfully broadened their audience during one of the most challenging times ever.

The numbers underscore as much: Otherwise’s monthly listeners on Spotify alone have grown from 500,000 to 600,000 since the pandemic began.

When the group returns to playing shows, it’ll do so with a bigger fan base. What’s more, the band can now afford to be more selective about when it hits the road.

“Everything is online, and we’re building this so that when it does come back to touring and things do go back to normalcy, our touring is not our only revenue stream,” Patrick says. “This pandemic really forced us into this new age of, ‘You want to succeed, do it all.’ This is the new music model.”

In the meantime, Otherwise will continue performing livestream shows, Boyko joining the band in testing these new waters.

As times change, he’s doing the same.

“It may or may not work,” Boyko says. “I may be out of business eight months from now. Maybe. But the exciting thing is that it’s almost like starting over again.”

Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @JasonBracelin on Twitter.