Concerts out there are hurting. Sure no artist is ever going to tell you this, but it is the truth. I get the calls everyday from promoters and agents looking for help selling shows big, medium and small. It’s a real issue out there right now. You may even go to a show and think it’s full, but in reality it’s not. That’s called “papering the house”, meaning giving tickets away in mass amounts just to have people in the room to make it look good, sell a T shirt or a beer. Now many have said sales are rough because “rock is dead”. However I do not believe that to be the case. In my view two words sums up the live music industry right now; OVER SATURATION. Simply put, bands are over touring to make up for the fact that almost nobody is making money on album sales. Used to be you toured to sell the album, which is where the money was made. Now it’s reverse. The album is almost the giveaway to promote a tour. But WAY too many bands are out there WAY too long, some hitting major markets three times in a year. I get they need to make money and don’t fault them, but it makes it less special when you can see a favorite band twice a year VS once every two. People simply can’t afford to pay to see all these shows and see a band so many times. As a result everyone is being more selective, and you are seeing more and more bands downsize venues, but still staying on the road. I also think peoples attention is in way too many places to make all these shows a priority. You can see in a second set lists online, audio, video, the mystique is gone. Of course the mega bands will always do okay, but don’t be fooled, the business is not what you think it is or what they project even for them. The days of a 50 city non stop US tour are rare. Bands find special events or festivals or co-headline because they can’t draw enough as a headline in arenas on their own, and those that can are charging way too much. Not sure where the solution lies but it’s something I see and hear about often. I truly do not think rock is dead, but I do think the touring world and peoples attention are so overwhelmed right now with too many options its hard to know what’s going on? Hope it works itself out because the live stage is where this music is best served, but it is an issue I hear about all the time behind the scenes. Look forward to reading your thoughts.
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>>>Music isn’t as important to today’s youth – aka the future market of rock ‘n roll, as it was in our era. Kids don’t care. The no longer define themselves by who they listen to<<<
Its not that the kids don't care about music. They love it. They just don't understand the part about "paying" for it. They download everything and watch concerts uploaded to youtube.
It’s beginning to seem that the economics of the music business is continuing to compress the spectrum of opportunities to earn for musicians. While oh so many bands that have limited reach have forever been happy to earn some supplemental income, if any, now we’re seeing the “professionals” have to lower their expectations too.
Recording and selling albums generally isn’t making a lot of money. Touring isn’t paying off like it had been up until recently, and touring more to make up for it runs into the oversaturation Eddie mentions. So what happens next? Do we devolve from music as big business to something that’s smaller scale and more distributed – sort of like what happened to newspapers with the advent of the web?
Perhaps there’s a silver lining here. If the record companies lose clout due to the economics and the extremely easy and cheap access to music, and if long-term, far-ranging tours are more infrequent, maybe that means that the playing field levels a bit, and all the “smaller” bands out there achieve greater visibility due to the equalizers of Pandora, Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, and low-cost, local shows.
I firmly believe we’ll never have a lack of supply of music. It’s human nature to create music of all kinds, and there will always be plenty of perfectly good bands out there. I’m sure we all personally know some musicians like my buddy, who has his day job, works his butt off in his band, and could have not been more thrilled when they got a gig at a local bar and packed the place with 100 people. And made $75 each. However, Eddie and all the posters here have done a great job at pointing out that the demand structure for music continues to evolve. Things could get pretty interesting.
I agree with you 100% Eddie, and I almost never go to shows anymore for the exact reasons you mentioned. It used to be so different, fun, like a real occasion. Bands doing package tours and moving to smaller venues are sure signs of what you mentioned. Bands often don’t admit it, but it’s very unnerving when you roll into a town and honestly don’t know if anyone is going to show up for the show at even the smaller clubs, it’s scary. When you kick off the show and no ones there, having to finish the night (acting like everything is fine) can sometimes be torture. Having said that, when live music is good, it’s like the best thing on earth. Very inspiring.
The Reason attendance is down at concerts is simple. THE INTERNET!!! Thats it folks don’t over think this. My kids never had rock stars to idolize because they steal all the music off the inet. All young people these days can listen to anything online with out ever having that exitement of waiting for your favorite band’s release date,then running out to buy the record or cd. Band’s today have to tour and jack up prices to make up for this. You can still go out and see the heavy weights{Bonjovi,VanHalen,Kiss,Aerosmith,Rush, and many others) who still draw and get it done, But this is the way it will stay for good. Yesteryear is gone so keep a good job,fork up the doe, and have a good time and stop crying about it.
Led Zeppelin, Knebworth Park 1979 – Tickets: £7.50 Official Programme: 90p
If they were to do it today, tickets would be £300 and programmes £25, simply because of who it is. Sadly, people would probably pay it.