The final couple of years have been nice for the stay music business. After being locked up with the pandemic for a few years, followers splurged on concert events and festivals in an orgy of “funflation,” that sense that life’s too brief and also you would possibly as effectively get pleasure from it whilst you can, it doesn’t matter what it prices.
There have been a few glorious years as revenues exploded, rapidly returning to pre-pandemic ranges. It’s now a $40 billion a 12 months enterprise with the highest 100 excursions grossing US$9.2 billion in 2023, which is sort of twice as a lot the US$5.5 billion grossed in 2019.
Nonetheless, issues are getting a bit cloudy. We would have reached some type of breaking level.
I first wrote about this downside again in April when it appeared there was an absence of enthusiasm for this 12 months’s crop of music festivals. For the primary time in years, Coachella struggled to promote out. A worrying variety of Australian music festivals have been cancelled. Phrase within the U.Ok. was that festival-happy Brits have been sitting on their wallets, endangering many festivals. Since then, issues have solely change into worse.
Ultimately depend, a minimum of 40 British festivals have been known as off with many others on each side of the Atlantic both teetering or asserting that they’re completed after 2024. Jennifer Lopez cancelled her complete tour. The Black Keys’ enviornment tour was postponed so it might be scaled all the way down to extra intimate (learn: smaller) venues. Busta Rhymes known as off his Blockbusta tour. After scoping out a European tour, 311 has determined to name off every little thing, citing “rising prices of touring abroad.” Pink and Justin Timberlake have cancelled a few exhibits every. The Jonas Brothers have been going to Europe, however not anymore. Guitarist Robin Trower introduced he’s staying house. I’ve heard from different mid-range acts — artists you’d suppose might reliably draw good crowds — say that the economics of touring simply don’t make any sense.
Whereas it’s nonetheless early in the summertime touring season, promoters proceed to fret if punters will present up for gigs they’ve bought scheduled down the road. What’s occurring?
The brief model is that individuals have run out of cash. They’re having to make exhausting selections about which exhibits they’ll attend and which of them they’ll must miss.
Acts like Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, and Madonna have drained financial institution accounts as individuals not solely attended native exhibits however travelled to out-of-market gigs. U2’s 40-night stand at The Sphere in Las Vegas — which was well worth the value of a ticket, by the best way — grossed US$240 million.
With tickets for famous person acts so costly, it’s simple to blow the annual allocation for concert events with only one or two exhibits, which means there’s nothing left over to spend on midrange or rising acts. With so many individuals scuffling with the price of residing, live performance ticket sticker shock comes into play. A present {that a} fan would possibly attend on a whim is the primary to go. Informal music followers are staying house to look at Netflix. Even hardcore followers are balking at spending $100 for nosebleed seats.
Ancillary bills have additionally gone up. It’s not unusual to see parking tons close to a venue cost $40 and above for an area. Inside, foods and drinks prices extra. And when you journey away from house to see a present, there’s the matter of transportation and lodging, each of that are hardly low cost. Toronto lodge rooms for Taylor Swift’s go to in November are insane. Anybody wanting someplace to put their head for these couple of weeks in November shall be shocked to study that $2,000 an evening is the going price at many institutions.
The costs for top-tier exhibits usually are not coming down, both. I’ve heard business insiders lament that tickets for the largest stars are nonetheless too low cost and under no circumstances replicate their true market worth. On the identical time, although, they’ll admit that tickets for everybody under that degree are too costly. In the meantime, the secondary market of ticket resellers continues to make it tough for normal individuals to afford concert events. (Enjoyable truth: Common resale ticket costs appear to be dropping, a sign of … one thing.)
In the meantime, there are simply so many acts on tour — too many, in truth. The market is saturated. However on condition that some artists derive as much as 70 per cent of their income on the street, they should tour to make ends meet. Staging a street journey has additionally change into costlier. Normal inflationary pressures are unhealthy sufficient, however add in shortages of every little thing from gear to vehicles to buses to roadies, up-front prices have skyrocketed. The U.S. has additionally boosted the value of visas for international acts, which is a matter unto itself. But when the general public has run out of cash — effectively, you possibly can see how the crises begin to pile up.
There additionally must be a lot consternation behind the scenes, too. One concern is the dwindling variety of smaller venues, a necessary a part of the stay music system. In the event you’re an artist of a sure measurement, it doesn’t make monetary sense to play something larger. What number of artists have quietly determined to forgo a tour as an alternative of risking enjoying earlier than a sea of empty seats and shedding cash?
Whereas many are bullish on the way forward for stay music — Goldman Sachs included — there are others who say that the present trajectory is unsustainable. And what occurs when the largest acts, many who’re of their 60s and 70s, disappear from the scene?
Perhaps when Taylor Swift lastly takes a break, everybody will be capable of take a breath, replenish their live performance ticket funds, and issues will flip round. Or perhaps not. What if the economics of stay music dictate that the business wants extra venues like The Sphere? It’s definitely simpler for acts to play residencies and have followers journey to them. How a lot might that situation drain away from the center and decrease finish of the market?
The stay music business has all the time been dangerous. We would quickly discover ourselves in a state of affairs the place issues are even riskier.
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