What would entice people to pre-order Ghost Children 2?
So I have you been trying to think of what would entice more people to pre-order Ghost Children 2. We just recently set a new tentative release date of October 5th, 2006 (18th anniversary of SP's first metro show). Anyways, do you think that offering a limited time (2-week period) a deal where people would get both the cd and live Act IV 2002 DVD set for a combined $20 would work? Normally, it's $10 to pre-order the cd, and $17 to order the Act IV 2002 DVD (to cover costs and give enough money to the charity we are supporting-Make-A-Wish foundation), but we are willing to absorb some of the costs for a short period of time, if will entice people to pre-order the cd. What do you think? You can find out more info about Ghost Children 2 (http://www.act4.net/ghostchildren2.htm) and the Act IV 2002 DVD (http://www.act4.net/act42002dvd.htm) at the respective links I just provided. We have been also trying to help promote the pre-order by putting up feature articles or podcasts up of artists who will be on the cd. This has helped I think but not too much. I realize that not everyone is into the whole idea of Act IV. But I also know there are people who would be interested that simply don't/didn't know we exist anymore, or that we ever existed at all. It's hard to find dedicated people who will help promote these things. This is to be one final official project before SP comes back. Any other ideas? Please no attitude, I already got that from a guy on Blamo.

Well not everyone on Blamo is like that, but generally the people that are 'on your side' don't post responses. The webmaster over there is also a good friend of mine. -No need for paypal/credit card: although paying by paypal is the easiest way, if you had the extra cash, you could always send us a money order or concealed cash in a letter to our address (we would give it to you or whoever planned to buy it this way, it would just take a little longer) -Shipping: The Smashing Pumpkins Internet Fan Club provides subsidizes shipping for us, so we haven't charged shipping for our various releases for a while -We have tried con-*test*-('")s in the past, with no success, perhaps if we got more hits per day it work. -Exclusive material: -there isn't a lot that didn't make the DVD, and stuff that didn't make isn't all the interesting, like dead air during technical difficulties, or someone acting like a jerk to the camera person when they were trying to interview them. As for the cd, there are just the demos that didn't make the cd We had thought of doing an unofficial 5-track EP of songs that didn't make it and/or alternate tracks by artists that did make it. But is there anyway we could restrict which users have access to downloads like that? I mean, people could conceivably just tell their friends what the links are.

Ok, a little out-of-there idea... What if you took the extra demos (from both cd's) you have and let the buyer 'build' an ep of songs? They would choose whatever songs they want on it and you would burn and distribute them. Or maybe you could let those who have purchased the cd to download (high quality) all the demos you didn't use. I can tell you, some of the tracks that I really liked didn't make it on the CD. Just an idea, feel free to dismiss it :D

Interesting ideas, but to have the choice of downloading good copies of each of the demos that were submitted, would be quite the undertaking and would take up ALOT of space. Keep in mind that alot of the people submitted mp3s to me (ranging from 128 kbps to 256 kbps usually), some people occassionally sent me cd quality ones. When we put out the shortlist of bands (it was initally down to 20 before cutting further to the tracklisting you see now), I had asked people to send me lossless copies, just in case, but most did not. I guess they figured it wasn't worth it unless they knew they were getting on the cd. Can you name a few that you personally think would be good for some sort of pre-sale unofficial EP that didn't make the final cut?

I am still curious what demos you would like to see that didn't make the cut, so we can try to see if we can make this happen.

Can you give me a list of the tracks thats didn't make the cut? I was looking for the list and I couldn't find anything... I just remember that there were some tracks I liked and I thought that if I had higher-quality versions it would be cool to burn my own cd... But also, if you only have lossy mp3's, its not so good of an idea.

http://www.act4.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=13 This posts lists all of the demos that we have put up. We have more from some artists, but it became redundant to put up multiple demos by artists. We do have wav files for some, but not many. But if there was enough demand, we can always lean on particular artists to send the wav files in. But we could never really do it on a massive scale with having people downloading wav files of every single song. It's hard to get in touch with every single band again. I am open to more suggestions, even if it is simply ways you think we increase site traffic in general. Or do you think its simply a matter of the Pumpkins not having released demos for the new album, thereby having interest in SP at a low? On a separate note, you can now amuse yourself with more Act IV goodness at our new Youtube page: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=act4 Some of the stuff is music videos my brother made.

Oh, and Chris. I responded to your PM finally. I didn't notice it before, sorry. David

Well, we now have something in the works, which will be exclusive to people who by the Act IV 2002 and/or by the Ghost Children 2 cd. I can't go into too many details, because the infrastructure is still not finished for it. The adminstrator for the server that hosts most of the Act IV audio + video is making preparations to arrange the appropriate security precautions on the server. However, it won't be available for probably another 10 days (as he has to build everything up from scratch)/ so I will have to be vague. All I can say is that is lossless, and I don't think its something we have directly discussed here. In other news, I have put up good quality mp3 clips of each track from Ghost Children 2, as well as a sample of the cover artwork for the cd. Go to http://www.act4.net/ghostchildren2.htm to check it out.

Now that the infrastructure on the download server has been established, I can now tell you what the new bonus is. For the first time ever, we are giving the general public the opportunity to download the entire, uncut Act IV 2002 concert in lossless, SHN format. It includes banter and other miscellaneous things that had to be excluded from the DVD set for time. These are converted from the original master cd-rs that Chicago Recording Company gave us after they recorded the show. Among other things, one of the performers at the show was UnderWeb Effect, a Vancouver band that would later evolve into Frequency Fall, who cover \\"Saturnine\\" on Ghost Children 2. This is over 3 hours of audio. In order to get exclusive access to this download, you have to pre-order Ghost Children 2 or buy the Act IV 2002 DVD from September onwards. People who pre-ordered Ghost Children 2 in the past, will also be given the opportunity to get it on this, if they make a special request to get access.

Sounds cool!

Did anyone pre-order Ghost Children 2 cd from here in the past few days? There someone that just did the other day, yet their email address appears to be invalid, so I can't send them a confirmation email. If you did, let me know, and what your name is. I am looking for one specific person. David