The LowBros Livestream

My little brother, Anthony, and I have been playing music together since we were little kids. As we got older, we both got hooked on producing and DJing. We played house parties, fraternity gigs, and even the occasional wedding. I even had a side hustle as the resident DJ at a gym. But with 2020 came COVID-19, which meant no more parties or playing at the gym. Anthony and I thought it would be fun to use our DJ skills to help raise money for Phoenix families who were impacted by COVID by performing live for a few hours.

The idea was pretty simple: the more money we raise, the longer we play. People could send me money via Venmo, with their song request in the comments. The higher the donation, the sooner we’d play their song.

We raised $750 in a little over three hours that we split up between a Native American COVID Relief fund, a local food bank, and our favorite music & arts venues.

Take a look!

 

I threw together a simple flyer (thank you Canva) that we distributed through our personal social channels, with post copy directing people to my Facebook page, where the livestream was set to take place.

And obviously I used a photo of us as little kids because a) we look adorable and b) look at those outfits!

 

In addition to the flyer, I also created graphics for the entire stream, including a "starting soon," "technical difficulties" and lower third.

Again, thank you Canva.

 

Throughout the stream, I used live editing software to switch back and forth between the video of us DJing to a scrolling list of the requests we were getting. This was a great way to encourage people to donate and send in requests. The higher the donation, the sooner that song would get played.

 

And for the lazy viewers, I made donating even easier by including my Venmo QR tag on the screen throughout the event.

Feel free to send me some dollars!

Success! Kinda…

Comments, texts, and donations poured in throughout the night.

Unfortunately, Facebook shut us down (quite a few times) for playing mainstream music, but our followers were dedicated enough to join every reboot of the stream.

STATS:

ENGAGEMENT

Over the course of four videos (doing this on Twitch next time, that's for sure), we received:

  • 876 views

  • 218 comments

  • 87 reactions

Not too shabby for only a week of promoting and zero dollars spent. Plus, it was all about the donations, anyway.

DONATIONS

  • $250 to Native American Connections (emergency COVID-19 fund). Did you know that, in some instances, cases in Native American communities aren't reflected in the overall state numbers? And that most Native communities suffer the worst because of their lack of access to medical professionals and supplies?

  • $250 to the Crescent Ballroom // Valley Bar Employee Fund. We chose Crescent/Valley Bar because I had performed there quite frequently, and Anthony was a former employee.

  • $250 to St. Mary’s Food Bank’s Child Nutrition Program to help kids who rely on school lunches for food get the meals they need.

 

credits:

Creative Director: Sam Lowy

DJs: Sam Lowy + Anthony Lowy

Technical Director: Sam Lowy

Art Director: Sam Lowy