Gretchen Peters announced a few months ago that next year will be her final tour. This Billboard article puts more meat on the bone.
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
Gretchen Peters announced a few months ago that next year will be her final tour. This Billboard article puts more meat on the bone.
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Jaygee says
Probanly won’t be her final tour.
Give it a couple of years and most of the will be back because “the fans demanded it”
or “my/our new album is so important it demands to be heard” or “I/We needed the money”*
* Not the last one, obvs
dai says
I think less US acts are coming to Canada, whether that will now change now all entry restrictions have been lifted (for a month), we will see
SteveT says
@dai the way Canadian Customs are I am not surprised. Complete Neanderthals and not very friendly either.
dai says
Not in my experience. It probably depends on the border crossing, they are very nice at Prescott (ON)/Ogdensburg (NY). Have had an occasional problem, but probably less so since becoming a Canadian citizen
davebigpicture says
Bands have recently complaining about venues taking a large cut of merch sales which can’t help. £30/£35 for a t shirt is crazy but obviously forced on the artist by the punitive venue charges. I do wonder how foreign acts manage to do small tours here at all. I saw Gaby Moreno at Bush Hall a couple of weeks ago, her plus drums, keyboards and bass. House engineer, venue laid out for maybe 20 cabaret tables of 8 or so with tickets at £30. There was no merch on sale so how that even broke even, I can’t imaging, even allowing that it was the only UK date although she was doing three in Ireland IIRC.
Vincent says
There’s a few I wish would stop touring, their imperial periods now a half century past, more or less.
Junior Wells says
Funny how Gretchen stopping touring at 65 is noteworthy. I have been retired for 4 years and we are the same age.
Moose the Mooche says
It’s a shit business – largely because you are expected to carry on working until you are literally dead.
fentonsteve says
Why stop earning when you’re dead? {Insert name of deceased performer} didn’t.
Native says
I thought bands were touring more, as it’s the only way they can make a living these days!
Mike_H says
But they aren’t even making a living doing that anymore.
Costs are skyrocketing and attendances are dropping.
Minor and middle-ranking artists and venues daren’t increase ticket prices to cover increased costs because then even less punters will buy.
By no means all venues are taking a cut from merch sales, but punters are buying less merch, from what I’ve seen. Like me, they don’t have as much spare cash to spend.
Bureauocracy for non-UK artists is also confusing and more time-consuming to navigate.
Basically there are now just too many artists for the size of the shrinking market they’re trying to make a living in.
davebigpicture says
I think some lesser artists book too many dates. If they’ve got a dedicated following, they will travel a bit to see them.
dai says
Playing several nights in one city with variable setlists can get people to go more than once. I am reminded of Brian Wilson who was typically playing Royal Festival Hall in London, what’s that about 3,000? He could sell out 6 or 7 nights. His people did the math(s) and booked him on an arena tour in the UK. What they didn’t realise was that the same 3,000 (from all over the UK) go every night to the RFH more or less! The tour was cancelled (this was pre-Covid)
NigelT says
It is getting very marginal, and touring this country is becoming particularly problematic apparently. Increased costs are the main issue, along with fewer technicians following Covid, Brexit, some punters unwilling to come back to venues, and people are simply feeling the pinch financially.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/oct/18/risks-rising-costs-and-relentless-demands-why-so-many-musicians-are-cancelling-their-tours?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
davebigpicture says
I don’t work music but on the corporate side, there is a huge shortage of techs. Not sure why, possibly not that people are retiring, more that there aren’t the youngsters coming up as they don’t want to work the hours that are required. Can’t say I blame them really.
fentonsteve says
I am definitely turning down live engineering work, not that I ever regarded it as a viable income in the years Before Covid – more of a paid hobby, pocket money to buy LPs after I’d paid my expenses.
I have two dates coming up, 10 days apart. One is the back room of a pub, where I’ll be lucky to cover my transportation costs and even luckier to come out without catching Covid. The other is a medium-sized venue where I will work all afternoon and evening for a rate equal to half of national minimum wage.
I’m going to decline the first because I don’t want to miss the second. In the years BC, I’d have done both.
davebigpicture says
I think that’s because venues often pay by the hour. Corporate is usually a flat day rate, day and a half for really long ones. It’s not the money: a mate has a lighting company and “can’t get a lampie for less than £350 a day”, it’s the fact that a “short” day is often 12 hours on site and people don’t want to do that any more.
SteveT says
There are fewer workers in all trades mostly because we shipped them back to where they came from. 3.6 percent unemployment is effectively zero unemployment if you work on the 3.6 percent being chronically sick or incapacitated or official carers. I am not sure the headline story isn’t a little sensationalist- I think there are more gigs to choose from than ever and from the last dozen gigs I have been to the only one with a disappointing attendance was Loudon Wainwright. All the others were full and some ie. Andrea Bocelli with eye watering ticket prices.
TrypF says
The 30% levy on merch tables by the larger venue chains is an absolute scandal. Another modern development (puffs pipe in rocking chair) thought up by a marketing arsehole with their eye on squeezing money out of a situation long after the pips came out. Three cheers for the bands who sell their wares off the edge of the stage or from the back of a van outside to make a point that this is very much Not On.
davebigpicture says
Another scam: “souvenir tickets” from Ticketmaster I think. WTF?
Rigid Digit says
I really fail to understand this levy. Why? Do the venues need a special license for retail sales. Does a merch. stand take up that much space that the capacity is reduced.
Effin despicable
eddie g says
Most of the artists I like gave up touring years ago. In fact, most of them are dead. And records/CDs are far more amenable these days to a gentleman who despises crowds, jostling and forced sing-alongs with beery-breathed folk.
Jaygee says
Thank the Lord this hasn’t happened to Gerry Rafferty
eddie g says
Indeed. Never a big fan. But I wish him well with his career.
moseleymoles says
From the independent venue perspective, it is not the case that there are too many artists touring @SteveT – but that tour bookers and agents are becoming much more cautious (see all the above reasons) and in particular concentrating on routing ‘first cities’ only – ie your Manchester, Brum, Leeds, Liverpool etc. to reduce the risk. Many fewer artists of quality being pushed by tour bookers to smaller venues outside the very big cities.
retropath2 says
The “winners” may turn out to be the summer festivals, with bands going from one to the next without bothering much in between. This too favours the increasing numbers of players who are in more than one band at a time. However, there are more festivals than ever, so they need to fight for the market leaders. So, hello Glasto, up go the prices. (Steve Knightley commented last summer how competitive the festival marketplace has become, in search of the golden bill.) Plus, with all the other issues, where else can you get the audiences of a size that the captive crowd can provide.