Tour Grosses
Is the music business going the way of the movie business?
Huh? I thought everybody was FOLLOWING the music business, that the labels were the first to get raped by the Internet and now it’s movies, newspapers and TV’s turn.
That’s all true. But what’s left of the music business is based on touring, and touring is shite.
Huh?
Oh, this is a money culture. Everybody just wants to see the top line. What did the business do OVERALL?
Turns out the concert business did quite well in the first half of 2008. About the same as it did in the first half of 2007. Approximately $1.05 billion. But the devil is in the details. Dollar revenue may be holding steady, but number of tickets sold? That’s down significantly.
Bottom line, ticket sales are off 5.6%, but the shortfall was made up by a concomitant 5.9% rise in ticket prices.
In other words, we’re charging more for what people want to see. And that’s all people want to see. We’ve got a string of headliners, many ancient like Bon Jovi, Bruce and Van Halen, and a ton of nobodies/wannabes.
There used to be a formula. You get radio airplay, you tour incessantly, you build a career. Actually, they don’t call it a career anymore, they call it a brand. Because the weasels selling no longer care about the music, but only the money. They want to maximize the BRAND! Ain’t that a turnoff. But, the point is the old formula has not only fallen on hard times, it’s just about failed.
We’re all not tuned into our transistors. We’re not staying at home on Saturday night to listen to the concert simulcast on stereo on our local FM station. A bunch of people are listening to new music, but many are only listening to the oldies and still others notice the evanescent hits and then go back to their regular lives.
I.e., the marketers have taken over the asylum, and this combined with the Internet revolution has ruined our business.
Artist development… In the nineties the label paid lip service to this. We spent a year developing this one act, via three singles! This was not the artist development of Mo Ostin’s Warner Brothers, where an act was five albums deep before it broke through. But that nineties paradigm of overexposure until success? Done. Because you just can’t garner enough eyeballs.
We’re not building superstars.
Hell, we’re not even building stars.
And those executives with any power at all want high concept product, not something new and different, but pretty and bland and easily sold.
Things are fucked up.
Looked at the movie business recently? It’s based on remaking TV shows to get an incredible one weekend gross. But, as heinous as that is, what’s more interesting is film is now a business of winners and losers. Those that do well and those that most people never even hear about.
But at least films have eight digit marketing budgets. To the degree the word can be spread, they’re doing it. And, there are a lot fewer films, that get theatrical release anyway. So, at least THEY’VE GOT winners. In the music business? I’m trying to think of the new superstars… Can you help me out here, new acts that can do arenas three albums in or brand new acts that will be able to do this? I’m thinking of John Mayer. The rest can maybe tour clubs. Or theatres. Today.
Most concert tickets for the summer were sold in the spring, when gas was cheap and the economy was perceived to be better. Now what?
Nobody making the big bucks wants to invest in the future. They’re either too old or too beholden to Wall Street. They don’t want the shaky margins, the losses. Used to be the label made the investment and the whole business followed in lockstep. There’s almost nobody working at the label anymore! And their product is being stolen. You can chastise them all you want for their missteps, but the end result is a void. Of leadership in this business. Promoters can book acts, pay them too, but they haven’t been doing a good job of building them. And now ticket prices are so high that going to the gig is like going on vacation, something you do at most twice a year. This works for destination resorts, but if you’re a local attraction, the people have to come MORE!
What can bring the public to the venue six nights a week?
Something they want to see.
But the public has been conditioned by the media to only want to see winners.
But the new media on the Net is about niche artists.
But the oldsters can’t make enough money on the niche artists, if any money at all.
So, we’ve got the movie business. Winners and losers. And a skeptical public. But at least movie tickets are cheap. Going to the show is like buying a house. Except the house is built of cards and evaporates after three hours. You’re left with nothing but memories. But now even those aren’t so good. Because the acts are not playing to the audience, but some theoretical customer who’s satiated by production and music on hard drive.
As for the number of concerts with papered houses… I heard about a stadium gig that did 21,000 papered and reported these as sold to "Pollstar".
As for Madonna, Live Nation’s press releases don’t include the fact that they had three dates on hold in Boston and could barely sell out one.
This business is in trouble. Not only the record business, but the touring business. When the economics hit, when new tickets are put on sale, it won’t be pretty.
And only one thing can save it. New acts. Which will grow slowly because you can’t get the word out. Which will only last if they’re unique and different.
We’re living in the nineties in the music business, and last time I checked it was 2008.
