It's a brutal reality, but also a major opportunity. "Most people go to one concert a year," said Ian Hogarth, cofounder and CEO of Songkick during a SF MusicTech Summit panel on Monday. "And when they find that concert they want to go to, they want to go with two or three really close friends. And they get incredibly excited about it."
So, how can this industry get to 2,3, or 4 gigs a year? And,
theoretically double, triple, or even quadruple the size of the concert business? Of course it's not that simple, especially since price is now a serious consideration for most. Digging into Pollstar data, we found endless numbers of affordable shows, but the big-ticket, 'event' style performances from the likes of Bon Jovi, Lady Gaga, Prince, or Paul McCartney typically fetch more than $100 a ticket - on average.
Worth the splurge perhaps, but it probably crowds out that second gig - right off the bat. But others - including those from Eventbrite and Live Nation - pointed to a raft of online setup issues that may also be keeping fans away. And, that includes some simple missed opportunities. "You'd be surprised how many shows that I do, where the show goes on sale on a Friday, and there I am Friday morning looking at the artist website and the show's not listed," relayed Aaron Siuda, a marketing vice president at Live Nation.
Others pointed to similarly-painful misses, though artists are often getting overloaded with an unrealistic list of chores. That's another discussion entirely, though other problems are more technically complicated.
For example, there's a huge problem with fragmentation, which quickly spills online. "You can have five or six stakeholders in a typical event - promoter, ticketing company, two or three different bands, and the venue," described Gabe Benveniste, CEO of SonicLiving. "If I'm a fan of the venue, and another friend of mine is a friend of the artist, I'm not going to know about my friend going to that event."
And what about trailers? After all, people typically get excited about a movie after watching an extended preview. So why can't that be translated into concerts? "I want to know what the Lady Gaga stage looks like," Siuda said. "Something's going to be set on fire, and it's going to be cool."
Then again, direct word-of-mouth is still incredibly important, and far more powerful than any fancy promotional idea. "That's always been the case, and at some point you have to look at how good your show is," said Eventbrite cofounder Julia Hartz. "And for us the analogy is how good our product is."
Report by publisher Paul Resnikoff, publisher, from SF MusicTech Summit.
Comments Closed
J2X Tuesday, May 10, 2011
That explains why many of the music festivals are selling out. The Hangout Music Festival sold out today and if there were 10,000 more tickets for sale, they would go just as quickly. The festivals are the best bang for the buck in today's market.
@thomcrossmusic Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Thom Cross
Make it mine please :-)
@HugeAu Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Huge
Whoa Thunkit...
DMAvery Tuesday, May 10, 2011
this may be true, but are we really aiming for "most people" or a more targeted audience? "most people" go once a year to see their favorite super star in concert to hear them rattle off all their hits in person. those people are going to be the last fans that a band wins over so i don't see them as a high priority for building awareness about a new artist. if you're trolling for new fans, put your energy and resources into people who are interested in new music, not "most people."
@inxu Tuesday, May 10, 2011
ingrid stroom
Luckily there's me who attends tens of gigs a year
txa1265 Tuesday, May 10, 2011
There seems to be some thought that shows are either $100 a seat or $10 ... for me there is a large middle ground. When I lived near Boston until a few years ago I could easily find a bunch of $10-20 shows ... but now in western NY (but not far enough west to be part of the Rochester market) I am hard pressed for shows.
When I see a $40-50 ticket I assume ~$300 for my family of four. Bad math? No - fees! You get 8% NY tax, but that comes on top of the $15 fee *per ticket* ... and that is even for shows at a local university. We recently caught Pat Metheny at Binghamtom University ... $275 for 4.
@digisingle Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Digisingle
Wow, do average people really only go to one live music concert a year? We need to get this average up!
@michaelbrown89 Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Michael Brown
This is a pretty sad statistic.
Ritch Esra Tuesday, May 10, 2011
What's going to complicate this issue more is the fact that out of the Top 100 money makers in the Live Concert Business today -over 40% of them are at or over the Age of 60. That's a very significant percentage that will not be around performing in 10 years. What the future holds is a very large base of acts all in the 3,000- 6,000 range and very very few above that.
@lisamoh Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Lisa Mohar
Sad. Live music is such a good time.
@indabamusic Wednesday, May 11, 2011
indabamusic
Research says most people only go to 1 concert a year!!! How many have you been to in 2011?
@floopjack Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Darrell Long
REALLY?!?
@accujazzradio Wednesday, May 11, 2011
AccuJazz.com
Whaaaaa??
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