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apocketfullofseeds

http://christt.com/songwriting/an-under-priced-industry/

Someone sent this article my way. There's loads of stick going around about promoters, venues etc. and there's no denying that it is getting harder and harder to make ends meet.

But does passing the financial burden on to punters and gig-goers solve the problem? Certainly wouldn't work if you were trying to make more money from selling records...

M

squashed

It's definitely unaffordable to average teens here. $50-60 for low end?

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What I was trying to do in the Revue story was to bitch about the price of concert tickets, which have exceeded inflation for health care since the late 90s. I didn't want to come off too crabby, but I mean, who do these promoters and bands think they are, College. Inc.?
A study published in 2005 and conducted by a Princeton academic, Alan B. Krueger, broke down the ugly side of entertainment, i.e. the part where parties conspire to take your money.
The study, which is called Rockonomics, is dense and pretty unwieldy. But at the heart of it is the proof of overpriced entertainment.
And what I left out in the Revue piece is how unbearable it is that anyone in their right mind and wallet would plunk down $400 to see the Black Keys. Or to see anyone, for that matter.
Live Nation is as evil as any corporation, and it has ruined the concert business. In July 2010, I found myself at St. Andrews Hall in Detroit for a book event/concert and was astounded to see Live Nation showing ads for upcoming shows on a screen over the stage between bands. It’s part of the Advertising Nation that most people have become immune to. In earlier days, the artists would have flipped out and the more conscientious ones would have refused to play until such sickening commercialism was removed.
And while the Web is filled with tirades about the price of concert tickets, bands still charge and people still pay. It’s the American way.

http://www.avalanche50.com/2012/01/concert-tickets-are-killing-concert.html

squashed

http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/41981/concert-tickets-set-to-come-down-to-a-reasonable-level-in-2011/

Tim

Yeah it's hard and high inflation over the last couple of years doesn't help - whilst people still think that £5/6 is the right price for a gig as it was three years ago, in reality £7/8 probably is more of a reality.

The problem is - the low price of gigs means that more people will go on the spear of the moment as it is a cheap evening of entertainment. Cinema is shooting itself in the foot by pushing prices up so steeply and fewer people are going, but that is the closest competitor. The problem with gigs, is that whilst you might stump £5 to hear a band you've never seen before - it is unlikely you'd stump up £10 like that. New bands are trying to get the word out about their music - that stage of their careers is not really the money making part. Yes they should have all costs covered, a few beers and maybe some food - and a little money if available, but you were never meant to get rich as an unsigned band doing tiny gigs.

Comparing a cheap gig to a night at the theatre is pretty ridiculous - a band just needs a few amps and a drum kit (which they may well bring themselves) and a soundcheck. Theatre needs people learning lines, set design, costumes - ie. much more time.

If prices went up to £8-10 per gig then I suppose people might not just turn up and talk though which would be a bonus.

SongbyToad

Funnily enough I wrote something about this myself last year:
http://songbytoad.com/2011/07/a-few-reasons-promoters-and-bands-dont-get-along/

It's a bit less dogmatic than Chris's post, but I still kind of agree with a lot of what he says. I often think of pushing the price of our gigs up to £7, if just so we can offer pre-purchase discounts which are in some way meaningful and encourage people to buy tickets in advance. If you're only charging a fiver a ticket and you want an advance discount, after booking fee, you have to knock tickets down to £3, which is just a hiding to nothing if you want to pay bands anything at all.

Mind you, I've had conversations with people in the street which went along the lines of 'Oh great, you've got a gig on, I'd love to come along' to 'What, a fiver? No I don't think I can afford that, that's a bit too much'. I have no idea if this is a ludicrous case of entitlement on the part of gig-goers, or if it's simply a fact of life that at anything over a fiver absolutely no-one here will take a chance on anything.

It's a dilemma, but scraping together enough to pay the bands anything at all is a real fucking challenge, in Edinburgh at least. I estimate it cost me £1000 over the course of the year, putting on a couple of gigs per month.

In some ways bands can be entitled fuckers too - if it's an empty gig it's because the promoter is shit and why should the band lose any money, but if it's busy it's just because they are awesome and therefore they clearly deserve all the profits for themselves.

On the flipside, as a band told me recently in an interview: "As a band, promoters fuck you over more than anyone else" so I do have a lot of sympathy for them. Hearing horror stories about promoters from the bands on our label is one of the chief reasons we go out of our way to meet every guarantee no matter how much we personally lose out, and to make sure bands we put on get plenty of home-cooked food and decent beer.

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