Side A · Track 1
The Dates Are Already On The Wall
Look at your calendar. Every one of those nights is a night you get paid exactly once, at the door, split however the room decides.
You are already doing the hard part. The booking, the load-in, the drive, the two hours of playing. All of it is done whether eleven people show up or two hundred do.
A listening pass is a second line on a night you were playing anyway. No new bookings to chase, no extra miles in the van, no gear to buy. The same set. One audience in the room, another everywhere else.
Side A · Track 2
Who Actually Buys One
Mostly not the people standing in front of you — they already paid. A pass is for everyone who wanted to and couldn't.
The other cities
People who follow you from three states away and will not see you this year. They have no way to give you money on a Friday night. This is one.
Sold out
The night sells out and the demand does not stop at the fire code. Everyone turned away at the door is a pass you did not offer.
Couldn't get out
Works nights. Couldn't get a sitter. Not drinking this year. Can't do crowds. Still wants to hear the set.
None of them are competing with a ticket. A pass does not cost you a body in the room — the fan willing to drive ninety minutes to see you is not choosing a stream instead. The pass is for the audience that was not going to be at the door.
Side A · between tracks
They Couldn’t Make The Show
They can still be there.
Not a polished studio stream. Not tomorrow’s clip, cut to thirty seconds with the wrong song under it. Tonight’s show, while it is happening.
The room. The noise between songs. The thing that goes wrong in the second verse and the way you get out of it. The encore you decide on at the side of the stage.
Five bucks. Earbuds in. They’re at the show.
Side A · Track 3
Do The Math
Put your own numbers in. This is arithmetic on what you tell it — not a projection, and not a promise.
a year, after fees · $89 a night
On a $5 pass the band keeps $3.55. BYOPA takes $1.00 at the 20% rate for that price band, card processing takes $0.45 (2.9% + 30¢, charged on every single pass). Before fees it would read $5,000.
The number that decides everything here is passes per show, and it is the one nobody can hand you — not us, not anybody. It depends on your draw, your pricing, how hard you push it from the stage and the merch table, and whether the audio is actually good. The 25 sitting there is a placeholder to move, not a benchmark we have data for. Price one show low, count what happens, then put the real number in. Fees come off the published BYOPA rate sheet current at the time of writing, plus Stripe’s standard card processing; both can change, and your own Stripe rate may differ.
Side B · Track 1
And You Keep It
You set the price. What lands in your account is the ticket price, minus BYOPA’s and Stripe’s processing fee. The calculator on Side A does the math for you. Payouts go straight through Stripe to the band’s account.
The door split is the door split — you are not winning that argument tonight. But the stream is not in the venue's contract. It’s your performance, your audience and your price—turning listeners beyond the room into revenue you otherwise wouldn’t have earned that night.
Per show, or the whole tour
Free for the hometown show. Five bucks for the benefit. One price for a fall-tour pass covering every date you stream. A tour pass stops being a transaction and starts being something a fan owns.
Come and go
The pass stays with them. Step outside, cross the room, or head home early — they keep listening for as long as the show is live.
The ones who leave early
The exception to “not the people in front of you”. The sitter, the last train, work at six — they scan on the way out and hear the rest of the set from the car.
Side B · Track 2
How It Works
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Plug in
Board feed into your Scarlett or a Zoom type interface with killer room mics, and a device with internet access. That’s it. Nothing new in the rack, nothing new in the van.
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Put a price on it
Set what a pass costs for that night. One link, one QR code — on the flyer, on the merch table, in the story you post at 9:15.
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Play
You play the show you already have booked. Everyone who buys a pass listens, wherever they are.
Your side
Board → interface → laptop → B-SideCast. Gear you already own and already understand.
Their side
QR code → phone → earbuds. No app, no account, nothing to install in a queue outside a club.
Side B · Track 3
What Else It Does
The revenue is the reason. These come with it.
The patio and the pavement
Everyone the room couldn't hold, and the ones smoking out front, hear the same mix as the front row.
The 10 PM problem
Noise ordinance, curfew, the neighbour who always calls. A stream has no volume at the property line, so when the PA has to come down the audio does not necessarily have to — where the venue’s own rules, permit and contract allow it.
A direct line
A follower clicked once, years ago, and may never have heard a note. Someone who paid five bucks at 9:15 on a Tuesday to hear this set chose you on a specific night at a specific hour.
That’s not a follower. That’s a fan.
One is attention you might have. The other is intent you can prove — and unlike a platform’s follower count, it comes with a way to reach them again.
Liner notes
B-Side Cast runs on BYOPA, which is the thing that actually does the streaming, the passes, and the payouts. This site is the version written for bands. The BYOPA platform has an extraordinary range of uses and the pitch for a band is not the pitch for a conference centre — so we’re not going to pretend otherwise.
If you want the plain-English explanation of the underlying idea — audio delivered to people instead of blasted across a space — that lives at instantaudio.live.
no hardware · no app · no kidding
Put It On One Show
Pick a date you already have booked. Price a pass low. Count what happens.
Takes about five minutes.
You need a board feed or a great room mic and a phone.
Starting is free and a trial can stream a free show. Selling passes needs a paid plan — a trial can build the show but cannot take money for it, and once the trial is up you need a plan to play out at all.