I Want Concerts to Return…But

Today I want to talk about 2020 and the future. I might not have much influence, but I have played around enough music spaces to have opinions and insight on what is happening with live music and what needs to happen. I hope this doesn’t take up too much of your time.

Traditionally speaking concert venues have relied on the influences of bands to generate income and to pay the bills. Ticket sales have been marketed by the bands and rarely by the venues. While there have been venues that market and use email campaign marketing/street teams to spread awareness of shows, much of the time bands influence the sales for venues. The venues would take a cut from inflows to pay the staff ( bar, sound, bouncer, etc.) and then a remainder of funds would go to musicians. This is not always the model for concerts, however this model is what most independent artists are used to. Sometimes the model is based on pay to play, sometimes it’s a percentage deal, other times its a ticket deal, no matter the deal that the venue makes, it always relies on the outcome of how the band performs. It is not my intent to present the various income models for live music, however it is my intent to challenge whether or not the model will change in 2021 and beyond.

This is not to say that venues have not worked to generate concert attendance. However, I do want to point out that much of the time the success of a venue is one sided and relies on bands and the people who come to attend these shows ( the consumer). Venues need to build more buy-in and community support more than ever to get concerts running again. Unfortunately our gov’t and many corporate organizations do not support music as they should. 2020 has shown us that the absence of the bands and shows has left venues dry and bankrupt. Some bands have broken up, but many bands have set up ecommerce shops, online concerts, and fundraising campaigns to continue writing, recording, and connecting with their communities. Venues have not done the same, is this because of the reliance of bands or the lack of inflows to sustain the building? The answer to this question varies venue to venue, but the lack of concerts is a common denominator.

Time has shown that there is a correlation between a lack of concerts and venue sustainability. While this may be obvious, why won’t venue stakeholders diversify the purpose and utility of their spaces? Venues are viewed as community spaces, but are often only used for music, what about workshops? What about training spaces for music education? What about practice spaces? What about subscription/community/membership services?

I think in 2021 and beyond venues are going to have establish buy-in from their communities to survive, thrive, and sustain. Venues can’t just rely on bands and bands can’t just rely on venues to turn a dollar over or promote their music. Bands and venues need to work together more than they ever had before to get people in a flyer and Instagram post is not enough anymore. We have to talk to the people who support us. This was true before, this is more true than ever today.

As a musician and a professional with change management experience I think there are a lot of things that can and need to be researched for venues in their respective locations. Market research and analysis is necessary to change how live concerts will operate . Adding a convenience fee with no explanation of the convenience or where the money is going to is not helping the industry. Pay to play models should cease to exist. It saddens me to see so many venues leave, it saddens me to see that other sources of entertainment were able to run business as usual while we were put on halt, and it saddens me to know the US govt won’t bail us out. While all of this may be true, I think the industry needs to look at ourselves as artists and as venue owners and start to brainstorm the following .

1) How can my space be used as a place for supporting and upholding the communities we serve beyond concerts?

2) How can this support be used as mutual aid to give to communities and allow communities to continue to maintain our space?

3) How can we use a shared approach to keep live music going instead of relying on only bands?

4) What stakeholders can venues partner with without relying on corporate third parties to takeover the authenticity of grassroots music communities and the people they serve?

I hope my words provide some level of brainstorming for you as someone involved in the arts. I might note that a lot of house venues have done this already.

Thank You,

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