I came to America in 1991 from my home country of Cyprus to attend Berklee College of Music. I didn't think I could cut it as a guitarist so I ended up studying Music Business, which led to an internship at a Boston talent agency. Within a year or so, in 1995, I found myself booking all the European tours for some of my idols, people like Pat Metheny and Chick Corea and Sonny Rollins – a jazzhead's dream.

I got the inspiration to start Sonicbids as a direct result of my experiences as an agent. Every week I was getting buried with press kits from many, many talented artists who wanted to get booked by us, but we just could not afford to take on. So I thought — and this was 1999 or so — "if you can trade stocks and buy books online, why can't you get a gig or book a band using the web?"

I quit my job, maxed out my credit cards, and launched Sonicbids on February 25, 2001.

Panos
Founder

Our Mission

Our mission is to help create and empower an Artistic Middle Class through the use of innovative technology.

We see our website as a first step towards this mission. We want Sonicbids to be a place where any band from any genre anywhere in the world, can come to find and connect with any type of music promoter, licensor or broadcaster — easily, effectively, and quickly.

The Artistic Middle Class

The Internet has forever changed the landscape of the music business – for the better. It has helped create a new class of artists we at Sonicbids call the Artistic Middle Class.

Free or inexpensive technologies like Apple’s Garageband (recording), and websites like CDBaby (distribution), iTunes (music retail), MySpace (promotion), and Sonicbids (professional connections) have helped give access and reach to artists that was once available only to a very small group of insiders.

Along with the explosion of blogs and podcasts and music discovery sites like Pandora and Last.fm, it’s now possible for just about any entrepreneurial artist (talent of course being a prerequisite) to meaningfully connect with an audience and build a music career without the traditional backing of a major recording label.

We see the future of our industry as being one where music is everywhere, but where the mass market of the broadcast era is replaced with a mass of profitable little ones.

We see the future as one where artists of all types, by leveraging the power of the Internet, can build careers from the ground up, on their own terms.