Last night on KLSX a caller in Orange County, an early TWENTYSOMETHING, reported that he had paid $4,000 for front row tickets to see Paul McCartney.<\/p>\n
Yes, that was the topic.\u00c2\u00a0 Ticket prices.\u00c2\u00a0 What was a fair price.<\/p>\n
Stunningly, the only people complaining that prices were too high were those who never go.\u00c2\u00a0 As for the regular concertgoers, the biggest bitch was not the price, but the fact that they couldn’t GET tickets.\u00c2\u00a0 Thinking about all this I realized the problem facing the concert industry was not outrageous ticket prices, but few acts people wanted to see.<\/p>\n
There are the momentary superstars, like the Spice Girls, or the Backstreet Boys, who can work arenas briefly and then essentially can’t work again.\u00c2\u00a0 But as for acts doing solid arena business year after year…the only acts that can do this are those that have been around seemingly FOREVER!<\/p>\n
Oh, there’s the rare exception, i.e. Radiohead, but nobody seems to want to see today’s stars at almost any price.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, not nobody.\u00c2\u00a0 But certainly not numbers that fill LiveNation’s amphitheatres.\u00c2\u00a0 It appears that we’ve got club business and geriatric arena business.\u00c2\u00a0 And nobody seems poised to permanently graduate from the small venues to the bigs.<\/p>\n
Those yearly concert gross totals.\u00c2\u00a0 They hide the real issue.\u00c2\u00a0 When the baby boomer acts die off, who in the hell is anybody going to want to SEE?<\/p>\n
Blame MTV.\u00c2\u00a0 For the channel created INSTANT superstars.\u00c2\u00a0 Who fell back to earth almost as quickly.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean what kind of business could Gerardo do today?\u00c2\u00a0 Never mind Haircut 100.\u00c2\u00a0 MTV’s out of the music business, but that’s not an option for concert promoters.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, they can fill their buildings with ice shows and circuses, but if they want to book musical acts…they’re up against a wall.<\/p>\n
But it gets worse.\u00c2\u00a0 LiveNation and HOB have stockholders.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve got to put up revenue.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve got to book shows.\u00c2\u00a0 They can’t afford to sit on the sidelines, bringing the value of non-sellout acts down.\u00c2\u00a0 Used to be if there was nothing to book, promoters didn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 Before they all owned amphitheatres, before Robert Sillerman rolled up the fiefdoms and built the Clear Channel\/LiveNation colossus.<\/p>\n
It’s kind of like baseball.\u00c2\u00a0 The promoters have to lock the acts out.\u00c2\u00a0 To get the agents to take less money.\u00c2\u00a0 Some kind of revenue sharing deal maybe.\u00c2\u00a0 But baseball has got an antitrust exemption.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s a club no one can compete with\/penetrate.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas collusion is right around the corner if concert promoters all refuse to pay exorbitant fees.\u00c2\u00a0 AND, indies could come in and penetrate the business anyway.<\/p>\n
And while the agents and promoters feud, the talent pool continues to dry up.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s fucked.<\/p>\n
Now that MTV is essentially done with music and terrestrial radio has capitulated to the major labels’ interest, what we’re left with is the aging superstars who don’t need either, the overhyped newbies who can’t sell a ticket, and the plethora of indies marketing on the Net.\u00c2\u00a0 Who can’t fill buildings that will put a Mercedes in the driveway of ANY of the traditional players, whether it be promoter, agent or manager.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, a good manager can make a lot.\u00c2\u00a0 If he builds his act.\u00c2\u00a0 But getting to the point where he’s got a cash cow, throwing off dough to all the ancillary players…one has to ask, where he’s going to get the exposure?\u00c2\u00a0 How’s he going to amass all the eyeballs?<\/p>\n
So we’re back to the sixties.\u00c2\u00a0 BEFORE Woodstock.\u00c2\u00a0 When you had multi-act bills and cheap tickets for an alternative universe.\u00c2\u00a0 Will a new Woodstock come?\u00c2\u00a0 Probably not before the aged acts are too lame to walk the boards.<\/p>\n
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Last night on KLSX a caller in Orange County, an early TWENTYSOMETHING, reported that he had paid $4,000 for front row tickets to see Paul McCartney. Yes, that was the topic.\u00c2\u00a0 Ticket prices.\u00c2\u00a0 What was a fair price. Stunningly, the only people complaining that prices were too high were those who never go.\u00c2\u00a0 As for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-shows","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-77","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}