We Want The Funds: A Crowdfunding Update

In order for crowdfunding companies to continue to operate, they, like everyone, need money. In order to raise that money there is often a nominal fee or percentage of your takings that the website takes for itself to channel into its own business in return for you using their platform.

But what if you don't want to?

Name: Pugsley Buzzard
Project: New album
Current Status: Unconfirmed at time of deadline. $25,000 required.

Pugsley Buzzard is a (very good) Australian musician who performs in a style that's most often associated with the music of New Orleans. So what better place to record his new LP than The Big Easy itself? That's precisely what he intends to do and he intends to do it with a bunch of local New Orleans musicians as well, but in order to make this a reality he needs a cool 25 grand.

He has turned to fans to help him, offering private shows for $1500 plus travel, wedding gigs for $3500 plus travel, $500 for a logo to go in the CD liner notes and $50 for a signed CD. What's more is he's not using a traditional crowdfunding platform, he's doing it all himself. So rather than head to his Kickstarter or Pozible or Pledge Music page, he's asking for direct bank transfers, bank cheques or PayPal payments.

Pugsley's management had not responded to our request for comment in time for deadline.

Name: Metro Station
Project: New EP
Current Status: $2,887 (5.7%) of $50,000 goal, 29 days remaining.

Metro Station. Does that name ring a bell? Allow us to jog your memory…

Sorry about that. Whether you loved or hated that song, you can't deny that it was an all-pervading smash hit upon its release back in 2008; it even went double platinum in Australia. That was when the band were on Columbia/Sony, but these days they aren't – actually, there have been some issues within the band's ranks which means that the band is essentially just frontman Mason Musso these days.

He wants to make an EP and is looking to his fans to get him 50 grand to do it. The single costs a dollar and the EP costs five ($15 if you want a signed hard copy), but on the upper end of the scale fans can pay $500 for VIP access to Metro Station shows for life, $2,500 for an acoustic performance at your house and $10,000 for flights to LA, accommodation, transport, a producer credit and the chance to hang with the band.

It's a huge goal, but the rewards seem kinda affordable if you're a big enough fan. How many of them are still out there though?

Name: Susan Wilson
Project: Sending her daughter to RPG Design Camp
Current Status: $22,951 (2768.5%) of $829 goal

Sometimes crowdfunding goes really wrong. People don't always believe projects that become funded should have received such a great amount of support and, this being the internet and all, they get pretty fucking unhappy about it and like to voice their opinion on the matter.

Unfortunately this was the case when Susan Wilson, the mother of nine-year-old Mackenzie Wilson, helped her daughter start a page to fund her trip to a camp where she would learn how to design RPG games. The campaign was fully funded in no time and is currently at almost $23,000, even though they only needed to raise $829.

The internet turned on the project just as quickly as it supported it, though. People dug through Wilson's history and came up with any number of reasons why her Kickstarter project was against the site's rules and why she was apparently a bad person. This image sums up their arguments somewhat.

In an interview with gaming site Kotaku, she said “Sure, I could have paid for the camp myself. God, I wish I had now.”

If you're crowdfunding, please send us an email so we can show people what you're up to.