A fair few of us here are in some way ‘involved’ with the grassroots live music scene – whether folk or jazz clubs, grassroots venues or a bit of promoting that artist we know and love in our hometown. In the dynamic tickets thread there was a comment about ticketmaster pricing for yer big gigs impacting on sales lower down the food chain. From the things I’m involved in….
1. Artists and agents are still cautious. There’s both a lot of acts wanting to tour, and not enough of the acts that you’d jump to put in the programme.
2. For events with a pre-COVID comparator we are on average 25-33% down on pre-COVID levels. This is not uniform, and gigs with an appeal to the under-thirties are doing fine…
3. Conversely, gigs where the core audience was over fifty are really suffering. With several very high-calibre artists we’ve said we’ve been slightly disappointed at the audience we’ve got, only to hear it’s the best attendance of the tour.
So this is a bit of rant/therapy session thread. I’d love to hear from others what it’s like out there – good, bad or ugly No need for names, musings on why this might be so in the comments.
Some of our ongoing discussion about why this might be so, so please do give me your thoughts on…
1. For the over-50s COVID is still very much a thing. My gut feeling is that 10-20% of the over-50s live music audience have abandoned going to gigs for the long-term, due to feeling unsafe and having just lost the habit. See also the change to last-minute booking.
2. While a pub gig at a fiver is still small change, to present a nationally-known artist at the small scale means a ticket price of £15-25 depending on the deal, capacity etc. For some this is with drinks and travel edging up to £60/70 for two – a price point at which the cost of living is starting to bite.
3. Everyone is trying to make two years worth of live events happen in a year, most obviously in the festival scene where everyone thought there’d be an enormous number of ticket buyers. Turns out there aren’t.
4. What people are spending their time and money on… foreign holidays which they’ve not been able to have for two years. There are literally less people around in July and August to go to gigs.
Should be clear that comments from ticket buyers just as valuable as those involved, if not more so.
@moseleymoles You have an interesting post.
Purely from my own point of view I completely disregard point one because I never regarded Covid as a threat but recognise I am in a very small minority on that.
Point two I can somewhat dismiss as still working and have a decent amount of disposable income.
Point three is highly relevant – there is a lot of choice out there and I don’t have enough time to go to all of the gigs I would like to.
For example I am going to see Steve Wickham at Kitchen Garden Cafe next week and would like to see Iain Matthews the following but have already seen Iain Matthews there twice before I have opted for Wickham on this occasion.
My next gigs lined up are Bill Kirchen tomorrow night at a small pub in Nottingham. Wickham next week (small gig), Budapest cafe Orchestra (small gig in Lichfield), Andreas Bocelli (O2 London) and Proclaimers Symphony Hal – I really try to support the small venues and hope the current challenges are overcome as live music is vital to me.
Covid isn’t unduly concerning me, but I only go to shows where I can be guaranteed a bit of space – no mosh pits for this old geezer.
I’m very fortunate that, for the last couple of years, money isn’t too much of an issue – that said, I hate the enormodome experience and it’d have to be something bloody special to coax me to those places.
As a performer, I’ve been getting the ‘going abroad for the first time in ages’ reply from a significant number of my mailing list (support act in a 200 capacity venue at the end of August).
Having been to a few medium sized gigs recently, I’m only going to small gigs to see friends for the foreseeable.
Your point 1. Very much so. Over 50, immunosuppressed and not comfortable with being amongst crowds indoors. I had hoped to do some outdoor festivals this, year but weather/dates have nixed it so far. Plus rise of Covid variants (again).
Mrs F working means I’m lucky enough not to have to worry about Cost of Living, but in-built VFM, plus unreliable health means I’m reluctant to commit to £50 in advance on a night out. Sod’s Law says that’ll be the night I get random guts ache and can’t leave the house.
The promoter with whom I do live sound, usually in a Baptist chapel on the Fens, is in even worse health than me – post-chemo – and living in his garden office (shed) so that his kids can go to school. We have no plans to put on any gigs any time soon.
I agree. I may have hung up my gig going boots. If you knew people would be wearing masks and there was good ventilation at the venue then it might be different. If another pandemic comes along, the same thing will happen. No lessons have been learned.
As a punter here in Stockholm, it feels as though suddenly there is a ridiculous tidal wave of gigs by top-notch artists..
All those musicians who’ve been twiddling their thumbs during the pandemic are very keen to get out there and play. And sometimes the ticket price is an immediate killer of any intention I might have had to go to the gig.
I would be fascinated to see the figures for some gigs. The Stones are playing Stockholm this week with Swedish local Thåström as support. Prices are ridiculous. Mick just turned 79. The idea of paying 120 quid to hear an old codger singing about not getting any satisfaction or being a street fighting man is too ludicrous for words.
Back to your questions. If an artist appeals to the under 30s, you can perhaps hope for a decent audience,
My two pence worth – Belfast punk and blues gigs are down in punter numbers, albeit the blues gigs had good initial turnout after lockdown (so seemingly over-exposure of local NI blues/rock-ish acts in the past 12 months); ‘arts centre’ type singer-songwriter gigs (local artists and touring artists) are not back at pre-Covid turnout – I’d say the older age group is the key here, and I would agree that for some, the habit of attending gigs seems to have gone.
Conversely, indeed perhaps strangely, the weekly jazz club in East Belfast in which I’m a small cog – it being mainly down to pianist/music policy supremo Scott Flanigan and sound & lighting wizard Cormac O’Kane – is positively thriving! We charge £15 a ticket and enforce a ‘listening audience’ goal, it’s on the 2nd floor of a working men’s club in a cabaret lounge that no one knew about before, in a part of town not known for even pub gigs, and we opened it between lockdowns in 2020 – managing two weeks sold-out before the rules changed – then reopening in September 2021… Its success is astonishing – the audience is a wide demographic, from hipsters to OAPs, jazz diehards to simply people who live locally and tourists who see it on ‘Visit Belfast’ listings. Visiting musicians have said its the best place for jazz in the UK outside of Ronnie’s. Still, an exception to the way things are generally…
My local music club puts on a monthly jazz night which has been doing fine. Maybe not quite as busy as pre-lockdown but still viable. Life TrypF it would have to be someone pretty spesh to get me into the O2 again – offhand I can’t think of anyone to be honest. But 2-400 seat rootsy gigs and I’m there. Ideally not in London…
Yup, I’d agree, and that’s a good summary of the reasons from @moseleymoles. That said, I think there’s a difference between the 2-400 seat circuit, and the 1500 upwards. I’ve seen plenty of sold out gigs at that scale, and we all know that the likes of Elton John have been filling stadiums, and Glastonbury and other major festivals have done well. So if it is an artist people really want to see, my experience is that audiences are still turning out. It’s the middle ground – the ‘I quite fancy that gig or boutique festival’/ ‘I’m curious to see this artist’ that is struggling.
And this is where economic factors play in to this. Costs of touring have risen enormously, so ticket prices for major artists are increasingly eye-watering. Once you’ve decided to shell out a couple of hundred quid for a pair of tickets for, say, Elvis Costello, and considerably more for the likes of Bruce Springsteen, you’re going to think twice about parting with another £30- 40 for a well regarded but relatively little known Americana or folk act, who maybe you’ve seen before, and you’ll probably get another chance to see next year.
And that issue, is clearly going to get worse before it gets better.
Not to mention the elephant in the room that is Br*x*t. The UK is now a cul-de-sac on the touring map, one with a toll barrier across the entrance.
And, yes, I know of a couple of boutique festivals round here which have been cancelled. There are only so many weekends in a summer, and at my gig-going peak I’d only manage Glasto, Reading/Womad and perhaps one other.
Dunno about gigs but I’m involved in three shows at the Edinburgh Fringe next month and it’s…oof.
Audiences are expected to be down because air and rail travel is expensive, on the days it works at all, and the hotels and B&B tariffs are through the roof. Then you’ve got to get your cast and crew there, pay them, house them and feed them. The venues are charging performers an arm and a leg for the space (because they can, there’s 4,000 shows that were written and developed over lockdown and are now all trying to launch at once). So you have to pass all this cost on, and what might be an £8 ticket for an hour-long show becomes a tenner or more – and that’s where cash-strapped punters draw the line.
Our three shows have a cast of three professional actors between them – one solo and two two-handers, with the spare body doing the tech when not on stage. Everything fits into one estate car. No wages, it’s all share of profits. Staying with friends, one week here, one week there. I can see music touring going that way too.
Bloody Corbyn!
Share of profits? Enjoy that bag of crisps between you….
After the world’s longest lockdown I was quick out of the blocks seeing gigs. Smaller and larger venues. However having recently had bronchitis 3 times and contracting COVID I am reassessing. Given I’m an asthmatic aged 65 I might have to be more judicious.
So my thinking is that bigger sit down shows ie concert halls, stadiums I can sit there with a serious mask on but a pub venue is going to be more problematic : beer > mask.
This is a policy in development.
Drinking beer + masking up is definitely a problem. Apart from the actual drinking of the nectar, a mask can be worn for every other part of the action. You need to find somewhere in the premises where nobody else is in transmitting range to do the supping. If such spaces exist indoors for every punter, then they almost certainly aren’t making any profit.
Been to a few small gigs in London, the Midlands and Brighton since last summer.
I’m happy to pay up to around £30 although Madness at Brighton was nearer £70.
Not hugely concerned about covid as work means sitting in a room with 100 + people usually anyway.
I often delay buying tickets until I’m almost certain I can go.
Judging by what I’ve seen, if an artist has a committed following, they’ll do ok with audience numbers, even if it’s not sold out. I’m late 50s and fairly typical age wise. I wonder if some acts are trying to play too many venues, too close together. We’re off to Leeds tomorrow for a gig and a long weekend. The band are playing The Hare and Hounds tonight then Leeds tomorrow, Wickham in August before another mini excursion November/December. They never go further south than Bristol but do a couple of gigs in Scotland every year. They seem to know their audience as the gigs are always well attended.
‘I often delay buying tickets until I’m almost certain I can go’ – this is definitely a thing at present, fueled by the fact that because most shows are not selling out in advance people feel more relaxed about leaving their decision whether or not to go til very late in the day. All of which adds to venues and promoters’ nervousness of course.
It’s more work related for me. If I had a Mon – Fri 9 – 5 job it would be different.
I expect what hasn’t changed though, is the percentage of gigs people go to where they didn’t get a ticket in advance. I could count the number of gigs I’ve missed where either me or a gig buddy wasn’t up to it on the day on one hand. The number where I intended to go but on the evening, decided against it, is much much higher and I’d be surprised if I was alone.
Will you be, @davebigpicture , at any of those gigs, other than Leeds which you mention?. I’ll be at Wickham trying to catch all 3 of the shows the band and/or various members are playing at. And, yes, of course I know which band!!
I’ll be at Wickham on the Sunday @retropath2 I would have gone to The Hare and Hounds tonight but senior management vetoed it.
I was going too, but am grandbaby sitting. Deffo try and meet at Wickham. I’ll dm you.
I find myself wondering how classical musicians and events manage it. Maybe there’s a financial crisis under the surface in the classical world and I’m just not aware of it? (I’m relatively new to this, the last few years only, I don’t have a history of going to classical concerts).
Every classical concert I’ve been at since lockdown ended has been quite sparse attendence (not surprising due to the older demographic and covid considerations, I assume), but tickets are comparatively cheap as chips (£15 – £25) for fantastic venues with amazing acoustics and sound systems, a seat with great vision of the whole stage, extensive supporting notes (colour brochures and online essays, etc, bespoke for each event), and a stage full of 30 or more achingly good musicians.
How do they afford this? Is it just that the venues are subsidised and the musicians and organisers get paid next to nothing? Do they do it for the love of doing it?
The orchestras are usually subsidised as well – lottery grants and the like. If orchestras had to survive on purely commercial income there’d only be André Rieu left. So think on.
(shudder)
Orchestras and Classical ensembles survive on Grants (Arts Council and Lottery. Surprisingly, still some from the EU) and corporate sponsorship. They have done so for many decades. Some tightening-up is evident since Brexit & COVID.
The European Social Fund is still bankrolling a lot of things. I have no idea how or why.
I suppose that if an event has been contracted a few years in advance, as some events are, the funding can’t be withdrawn later without legal repercussions.
Presumably, if the UK Government paid into the fund before Brexit, a proportion of the funded events must be of benefit to the UK, again for legal reasons.
My aunt was a viola player with the Vienna Phil. in the early 80s.
“Travel the world as a performing artist.” Sounds glamorous, doesn’t it? How about “see the world from cattle-class, bunk down on the floor of every location’s cheapest B&B, exist on a diet of curly ham sandwiches.”
She packed it in by 1985, and doubled her wages by becoming a receptionist in an high-street optician.
I know two players in Cambridge’s major orchestras. Both are secondary school music teachers.
Interesting. I always wondered whether all those musicians on stage have day jobs as well. I should really spark up a conversation with them the next time (after the concert, not during….) but I’m a shy retiring type.
I’m kind of in two minds about subsidies and lottery grants for classical music, I’ll be honest. For someone who goes to these things, like me, it’s obviously brilliant. But I can totally see why people might question why a minority interest, however “worthy”, gets public money awarded to it when the vast majority of the public probably don’t care about it. (I’m totally aware I’m wading into an argument I don’t know much about, to be fair, but it’s the internet so that’s okay).
Subsidies and lottery grants for classical music? Well withdraw them if you’re happy for those things not to exist. If you aren’t interested in them why are they bothering anyway? All those people wasting their lives in orchestras would be much happier working in call centres
There are only two venues in Cambridge big enough for an orchestra.
One is West Road Concert Hall, which is part of the university music department. It is excellent, you can hear the proverbial pin drop, with not many more seats in the audience than there are on stage. Ticket prices around a tenner.
The other is the Corn Exchange, a 1,600-seater dreadful-sounding echoey cave. Ticket prices upwards of 30 quid. I don’t think they’ve put on any classical gigs since early 2020.
If you’re seeing a professional ensemble or orchestra the musicans will all be doing this as their job, but may well also be teaching music on the side, or doing other freelance gigs as well. The demands on them to maintain the standard they need to be at, mean that working in an office or MacDonalds alongside playing simply wouldnt be tenable. Noen of them are getting rich mind you, unless they are a superstar soloist or conductor.
As for subsidy, the reality is that if we want our towns and cities to have symphony orchestras, opera companies, dance companies, and theatres that are doing work other than large scale touring musicals, then the pittance that the government distributes in arts funding is a neccessity. The market simply can’t sustain the costs alone. For most recipients the subsidy is a minority element of their overall earnings – but a crucial one.
Jobs on the side and teaching music. Sounds like yer average folkie as well. Arts council support a lot of overseas tours. Or did. Creative Scotland invest a ton in folk and jazz.
A rare case of someone suddenly seeing clearly and *then* going to the optician.
Vienna Phil? Didn’t he work down Camden Market with Maltese Tony and Paddy The Greek
You can get a much bigger gun in a viola case than in a violin case. Imagine how dangerous the double bassist would be.
You could conceal a bouncing bomb in a timpani case.
I think this thread may have been sparked by a comment of mine – just to be clear, I didn’t argue that big gigs have ‘impacted’ smaller venues, although I guess there may be some of that, rather that there seemed to be a yawning gap between pricing for the really big artists and those only slightly further down the food chain, and that these weren’ selling. Presenting a Gig Guide as I do on local radio, I have become acutely aware of the impact of the pandemic on artists, promoters, venues and all the people that keep the shows going, and we have all agreed the reasons are very much as outlined above. There is certainly a reluctance by some to go out, there are too many gigs, it has got more expensive, and some have simply got out of the habit.
A little bit like the foreign holiday is a non-negotiable for many, regardless of whether it is the most sensible use of several thousand pounds, for many spending upwards of £200 for Springsteen is not thought of in the same way as say, going to a gig at the Hare and Hounds for £25 a ticket plus drinks and transport. There are people say for whom We Are Scientists or A Certain Ration(hi Steve!) are the band they CANNOT NOT SEE – but these aren’t enough to fill the H&H, where I saw both a couple of years ago. The ‘interested punter’ is the one who is using the arguments you set out – worried about COVID, too many gigs, bit too much for the tickets and so on. I saw LTJ Bukem – surely a legend – at the H and H a week ago for all of £16 and it was two-thirds full.
Even when ACR played the Cambridge Junction recently, I didn’t go – not my fave venue (although not the worst) and – crucially to me – indoors.
Brooce’s boss says his ticket prices are reasonable. So that’s alright, then.
Brooooce has a boss?
Is that not…. God?
Surely you mean the Boss has a Boss, M?
That’s a bit like saying Duke Ellington knocked Count Basie out for the count while they were duking it out over Sarah Vaughn
It wasn’t me who said Bruce’s boss though… I am confuse, like that time I was on the same airline as Don Van Vliet…. And then Walt Whitman started burbling on about Abraham Lincoln. I asks yer!!
Age cohort effect: youngsters may go to a festival, but many don’t go to small gigs like they did. Many don’t go to the pub, either. Many don’t buy records. Many don’t go to the pictures. Many don’t read magazines or books. its all moved online. The sea has gone out again. Hopefully it will come back in, or there will be a new popular culture explosion.
There already is one. It’s called TikTok.
They can’t go to the pub ‘cos they can’t come home pissed, and they don’t go to small gigs for the same reason; they don’t buy records ‘cos their room is already full, and the reason their room is already full is because they are still living with their parents.
Or if not livingnwoth their parents, many are living in a small bedroom in an HMO with no communal living space other than the kitchen This will cost them £500 plus per month even in somewhere like Yeovil.
Luxury!
I reckon my music gig going is recovering to pre-pandemic levels. I live further from London now so I’m a bit more reluctant to travel that far for some artists and I’ve held off buying tickets to a couple of gigs that would previously have been a 60 mile round trip which are now 100 mile trips. I normally go to music gigs alone though. I’ve been to zero comedy gigs because I never go to them alone. My wife isn’t keen on being crammed into a small room with very little space to move which has been the main deciding factor in not going to the Edinburgh Fringe this year.
@johnw
Feel your pain, j
My wife isn’t keen on being crammed into a small room with very little space to move either which has been the main deciding factor in my being told to sleep on the living room sofa.
My gig going is also pre-Covid levels and would have been higher but have had 6 gigs cancelled by the artists this year.
In the previous nigh on 50 years of gig going I only ever had one gig cancelled so this is a new experience.
I’m 59 & have been reluctant to attend any gigs. Passed on Curtis Harding as he was playing a standing venue that I haven’t been to before (SWG3) & the Covid infection rate was 1 in 11 at the time.
1st & only so far was ABC at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall (nice & safe). Now I’ve got the bug again (not THAT bug), so upcoming gigs Aug – Sept are:
Priscilla Block – King Tut’s
Brandy Clark – Old Fruitmarket
Durand Jones & the Indications – St.Luke’s
Brian Cox (the scientist) The Hydro (rescheduled)
Marc Almond – Royal Concert Hall (rescheduled)
Squeeze – Royal Concert Hall
I’m excited to be getting out again.
Promoters “Folkroom” sent this out to the mailing list today. It seems apposite:
“I honestly never thought I would have to do this, but there’s less than six weeks to go until Brighton and Hove Folk Festival. Unless we sell more tickets, the festival won’t be able to go ahead at all! So I’m taking a big step, and asking directly for your support now.
We hear a lot in the press at the moment about how music is struggling, but it can be hard to understand exactly what that means. Here is what it means for Folkroom: people aren’t buying tickets as much as they used to, and when they do, they’re often leaving it until the last minute. If people don’t buy tickets, the gigs can’t go ahead, artists can’t play, and you’ll not be able to hear the amazing music that Folkroom works so hard to find and bring together. I’ve been running gigs for nearly twelve years. It’s heartbreaking that it’s so hard at the moment. It’s never been tougher than this.
By this time last year, tickets for Brighton and Hove Folk Festival had sold out. But things are different this year. You probably already know that Folkroom isn’t a big company running events for profit. We’re just a few folk music fans managing all of this in our spare time. I’m currently set to lose thousands of pounds whether the festival goes ahead or not
I really, really want to run this great event, and share all the brilliant artists with you. So I’m asking for your support, and pretty desperately. I’ve done the maths, and if the festival can sell just 80 more tickets by August 10th, it can just about go ahead.
I know that Folkroom has an amazing festival to share with you all. Our line-up is filled with fantastic acts, from folk legends like Martin & Eliza Carthy to thrilling live artists like Gwenifer Raymond and Rachael Dadd. There will be live illustrations throughout the day by the Observer political cartoonist Chris Riddell! There are fifteen fantastic acts playing, and I’ve scheduled it so you can see them all. It’ll be an amazing day, I promise.
Please help me get this back on track – we have 10 days to sell 80 tickets! It doesn’t sound like many but it’s make or break for the festival. So, if you were thinking about coming to join us, but have been putting off buying your tickets until the last minute, now is the time to do it. If you already have your ticket – spread the word! We’ll be sharing our plea on social media, and your support in getting it out to as wide an audience as possible can make all the difference. Together we can save Brighton and Hove Folk Festival.”
I wonder if they got off to a good start last year because it was the first opportunity to do something after lockdown. I don’t follow the folk scene that much but the only name I recognised was Eliza Carthy so not much for the casual punter to latch on to.
There are also a whole load more festivals happening this year, particularly in this genre it seems…Cropredy is back, Sidmouth, Cambridge, As You Like It, and all within days of each other.
Cambridge FF didn’t sell out, either. I might have gone, except we were in Norfolk.
Scary.
@colin-h
Take that back! Nothing wrong with Norfolk.
The »Rolling« Stones play Berlin today – ticket price is 270 Euros for the cheap ones (standing).
There’s an additional concert »due to demand«.
There were two (!) additional dates added to the Dylan gig in October.
The Stones play at the big open air Waldbühne, the venue the audience completely destroyed during the first Stones gig there in 1966 when the boys left the stage after 30 minutes after Brian Jones had an argument with some policeman in front of the stage.
We paid fairly eye watering figures for The Stones at the Friends Arena in Stockholm. A price of *coughs’ kronor. The majority of attendees were 60 upwards and male from Scandinavia and Finland as it was the only gig on this tour in that region. There were over 50,000 there to watch the show that night. Pretty much sold out. It was great though. Jagger is a phenomenon at 79. Still manages to hurtle around the stage and runway like a demon. No walking frame in sight. It’s great when they are all straight yeah! I suspect they play better than they have for many years because of sobriety. There was one bum chord by Keith I heard. I saw him laugh it off on the video screen. Otherwise the playing was of a good standard. Darry Jones was even better, an actual enjoyable bass solo on Miss You. Sasha Allen blows the roof off the stadium with Gimme Shelter. The roof was closed to keep the light from destroying the vampires within. Saxes, piano and french horn add key colour to the mix. The songs are mostly stunners it has to be said. I found myself really captivated by the whole thing. Nothing was too fast either. Maybe the necessity of taking it a bit slower due to age, or even down to the new drummer? It seems this is a review. Oh well.
I’ve just gone bog-eyed trying to imagine how much it would cost to buy….a beer… at a Stones gig….in Sweden.
These equity-release plans are good, aren’t they?