hi all!
i run an interdisciplinary art community through patreon, discord, and youtube called The Aftershow (patreon.com/theaftershow). i’ve been doing that for a year, and have found some successes with shifting focus and incentivizing support for community funds (we now hold a monthly Resident Artist series, and the majority of that patreon’s funds go to supporting the artist friends that we are spotlighting and bringing in for conversations). that patreon now only has one tier, at $5, to really drive home that support is support is support - i’ll keep ya in the loop to see how that goes hah!
the question/setup for discourse: i just opened up a second patreon, which i am looking to make a main source of income, based around my experience as a musician and storyteller, and i’ve set tiers at varying price points with varying incentives and aspects of patron-ness. one thing i’ve never had much success with, which seems a bit mind-boggling to me, is getting supporters in at the lowest tier. i have a 1, 5, 10, and 20. i know patreon poo-poos a $1 tier, but i’ve created a set of goals to meet that are “private live shows every 20 new patrons.” i figured that’s interactive and experimental enough that a bunch of people who follow my art would jump on that, to be part of the in-crowd, but not much luck yet.
i’m wondering if any of y’all have any experience promoting/incentivizing lowest-tier support?