Re-jigged Gig: virtual music venue shifts to archive format and links with Indie 103.1.

The Gig is, as they say in sound studios, taking it from the top again.

The Melrose Avenue nightspot hit some off notes in the first ran-through of its virtual venue venture, and is fine tuning it with a new Web site, required registration, expanded download archives and a promotional partnership with radio station Indie 103.1 FM.

Videos of club performances remain the core of the Gig's offerings, but gone is the live online streaming of club performances. The bandwidth required for the streaming videos made it extremely expensive to produce.

"It was killing us," said Peter O'Fallon, who owns the Gig with Angelo Paparella. Now the performances are recorded, then stored on a server, which makes them available for downloads.

"We just shifted the cost burden onto our human capital, in the form of engineers and programming."

The Gig is ahead of the curve in terms of offering musical performances online. Centerstaging Corp. features the practice sessions of performers that rent rehearsal space at the Burbank facility on the Web, and Beverly Hills-based Live Nation Inc. is planning to wire more than 100 of its venues, too.

"Centerstaging uses major name acts, and the idea is to get rehearsals behind the scenes," O'Fallon said. "This is small bands, and it's a real live performance. It's one shot, one take only, so ours is a little more raw."

O'Fallon is banking on the partnership with the Entravision Communications Corp. station to provide a boost. It broadcasts at 103.1 in both Santa Monica (KDLD-FM) and Newport Beach (KDLE-FM). The station and the Gig will cross-promote a concert series in conjunction with the station's "Passport Approved" show, which showcases unsigned international bands on the air each Saturday. In return for providing the venue, the Gig gets the right to Webcast the shows, a cut of each $10 ticket and all the radio promotion. The first Passport Approved Live show was Nov. 15, the second will be on Dec. 6.

"The challenge is to make sure we pick acts with the potential to break through in America, that will have some traction," said Sat Bisla, the host of the Passport Approved show. "We have to be very selective or we'll miss the opportunity."

O'Fallon, a TV writer and director, and Paparella, a Santa Monica political consultant, bought the club two years ago. The duo owns the Beachwood bar in Marina del Rey, as well as part of a hotel in Oakland.

With its 210-person capacity, the club was theoretically easy to fill. But Fallon and Paparella found that booking unsigned independent bands meant less name-recognition and a smaller fan base. That's when the Internet light bulb came on.

"The idea was always that needed to make money through the Web site, it just wasn't clear how," said Richard Oberreiter, the duo's business advisor, who was brought on as a director. To cash in on their links to the indie music scene, and do something for the bands in the process, they devised a plan calling for the acts to receive 25 cents of the 89 cents charged for each download.

O'Fallon and Paparella wired the club with four remote controlled cameras, a switching system and staff to run it. That's a pricey undertaking. O'Fallon said the two have put several million dollars of their own into the venue since they bought it, and are now looking for an investor to put in $750,000.

The Gig's Web site, LivefromTheGig.com, was launched in May. It didn't have an archive of past shows--only free live video of the previous night's performances, which were replaced regularly.

The owners launched the redesigned site earlier this month. Available now are music downloads, archived material and artist uploads, so that independent or unsigned bands can post their music content on the site. The site started offering free user registration about a month ago and has about 150,000 people signed up.

Because participating acts are required to give the Gig exclusive rights to the performance and recording, and share the rights in perpetuity, bands that are unsigned by record labels are the key.

O'Fallon is planning to start a contest to reward the most-downloaded group with a trip to Los Angeles and a show at the Gig-which will, of course, be posted online.

"I can envision this as a farm team for record companies," O'Fallon said. "They can put bands out worldwide with very little expense; it's a way to test market."

Ben Madd, director of A&R for Artist Publishing Group, a subsidary of Warner/Chappell Music Publishing, thinks record label A&R executives will like the idea.

"You can see 10 shows in the time it usually takes to see one," said Madd. "Although it won't ever replace the experience of a live show, it's definitely helpful in gauging the crowd's reaction."

He likes the business plan, at least in the short-term, but saw a potential conflict looming. "It's a creative way for venues for compensate for loss in ticket sales over past few years, Madd said, "but giving the club exclusive rights could cause problems for the artists that they are recording down the line, if they become successful."