Music sets the tone for any business, including restaurants. It creates a mood that encourages your guests to stay, enjoy themselves, and order lots of food and drinks. Or it kills the mood and sends your guests away with no plans to return. So, you want music playing in your restaurant, but you may wonder, “Why should I pay for a streaming music service?”
Here at RSS, we believe you have two compelling reasons to pay for a streaming music service.
- You eliminate the risk of being sued by music rights holders.
- You gain control over the type of music played in your restaurant.
Don’t Play Unlicensed Music!
With only a few exceptions, businesses that play music in their stores must have a license to do so. There are a few different performing rights organizations (PROs), and you have to have a license from each one that manages the rights to the music you play.
A streaming music service takes care of the licensing for you. With our streaming music service, you pay a low monthly service fee. This fee gets you access to over 70 custom music channels and the player needed to bring it all into your restaurant.
One alternative is to figure out what PROs you need a license for and pay for each one yourself. This course requires that you diligently manage a playlist to ensure your licenses cover every song you play. That sounds like a nightmare to me.
The other alternative is to ignore the license requirement, play what you want to play, and take your chances. Be aware that one small restaurant in Georgia took this approach. They were fined $30,450 and paid $10,700 in legal fees for playing less than twenty songs without a license.
Play the Right Music for Your Brand
Also, you should pay for a streaming music service because you want the right music playing. You want to play the music that fits the mood of your restaurant and makes your customer feel like they belong there.
To create the desired mood all the time, you need control, but you need it to be easy to manage. A streaming music service that knows the restaurant world and your brand can make that happen.
Even paid services like Spotify and Pandora struggle at this. They don’t know your brand. So you have to work hard to dial in their services. Even then, you’ll be surprised from time to time. You’ll hear a song and wonder, “How did that one get into my playlist.”
Additionally, the best streaming music service can ensure that the music playing at all your locations is the same. It can even insert branded advertising to help you promote an event or special deal. That’s well worth the price.