What exactly is the reason?
Well, let's talk about the less than superstar level, those playing rooms with a capacity less than 5,000.
The acts have toured too much. This is what I heard over and over in Aspen. There is fatigue on the part of the customer. The act keeps going back to the well, trying to make bucks, and the audience is now saying ENOUGH! Sometimes you have to let things lay fallow, i.e. stay off the road, or go where you haven't been before. To quote the cliché, how can we miss you when you never go away?
But before this downturn, we experienced the post-Covid boom. Not only did ticket prices go up, but so did costs. And not all the costs were fixed. You've got acts showing up with semis who never did before. Touring in buses when they used to travel in vans. All of this has contributed to the rising cost of tickets. Of course, certain fixed costs have gone up in price, it's more expensive to tour than ever before, but we are at a point where acts are going to have to go backward, reduce costs in order to lower ticket prices so people will come.
A club promoter told me it's hard to sell tickets when the big shows are launched months in advance. If someone just dropped a grand for two tickets to see a superstar... They might be tapped out. Or psychologically, they just can't spend another dollar. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. But let's never forget, it's the customer's money, the customer's choice. The business wants people to go out to small venues to see developing acts. That's how you build careers. But with so many options for their money and time, and with no insurance that this developing act is worth the price, many just don't go.
And at the club level... A promoter told me there are acts with agents that have never played a single live gig. But they do have an online following. The agents are scooping them up. And when they play live do people come? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. And, some of these new acts will show up with the aforementioned semi. Perspective can be way off.
So how do we fix the club business? Is it about taking money from the government or...maybe fans just don't want to go. Or maybe the paradigm must shift. Be reinvented. It's hard to get people to pay real dollars for that which is developing that they're not convinced is great. But it's even worse, the younger generations don't drink, so in order to make the economics work, the owner/promoter must charge a higher ticket price.
This is the new normal. No one likes to retreat. But it may be necessary.
Never mind the acts that successfully skip steps. Who open for a superstar and then can sell tickets themselves. Is this how we're going to develop and sell acts in the future or will there ultimately be fatigue? Open for Taylor Swift or Sabrina Carpenter and you're halfway there. You've been endorsed by the headliner and...
Does this work with men? Are women more passionate about music than men, does it speak to them in a different way?
I'm completely flummoxed by the success of Gracie Abrams. She's now booked an arena tour. She doesn't have the best voice and she doesn't have great lyrics but one thing is for sure, she's singing from the heart, and this is what the audience is reacting to. And, of course, she opened for Taylor Swift.
Meanwhile, the rockers purvey endless platitudes. Sure, the Active Rock acts have fans, but the word doesn't spread. Then again, does word of mouth work differently with men and women? Conversation is different, read Deborah Tannen's definitive work "You Just Don't Understand" for illumination. Women are about inclusion, men are about pecking order. Women want to bring you into the club, they treat you as equal, whereas men might want to put you down for not being as hip as they are. Men might feel proud they are fans of an act and might not want you to follow them, they might want the act for themselves.
Meanwhile, country is all about story, personal experience. Some done at the absolute lowest level, but that's the common denominator of country music. And this is what resonates with people today. Country music acts are just like you and me. But pop stars and rappers?
Used to be acts were built from the top down. Major labels invested and promoted. Primarily on radio, but also TV and print. Furthermore, indies couldn't play on this level.
Now it's the reverse. The public chooses which acts are successful. And are the public's choices different from those of the A&R people and labels of yore and today? The public is unpredictable. So many experts told us that Trump was a sideshow and Harris should have it in the bag. But what was going on on the street was something different.
The music business evolves. And when it repeats, it does so with a twist.
But if you have the chops, opening for a superstar hasn't meant this much since the heyday of Frank Barsalona.
Successful music has never been so unpredictable. And more stars are making more money than ever before. We've never had this many stadium and arena tours. But getting from nowhere to somewhere... That's complicated. Audience engagement is elusive, even the new music by stars flops instantly.
People wanted to go for the past few years.
But now they don't necessarily want to. Why?
This is the question of the day. You can wait for things to turn around, but they may never do so, and in the interim you'll miss opportunities.
Gaming the system can work, but less than ever before. No one has all the answers. We can only put our ear to the ground and gain information and pivot. Change isn't coming, it's already here! And those who recognize it and adjust will emerge victorious.
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