At a glance, it may seem as though there’s plenty of money flowing through the live music industry as it surges back to life amid easing pandemic restrictions. Artists have hit the road once more, and concert venues have reopened their doors to crowds of fans.
For some in the business, the last year has brought sizable success. With listeners eager to enjoy live shows after two years of isolation, major acts such as Harry Styles and the Red Hot Chili Peppers have packed stadiums across the United States.
TICKETMASTER RESPONDS TO ‘UNPRECEDENTED’ TICKET SALES FOR TAYLOR SWIFT TOUR
In early November, music behemoth Live Nation Entertainment, which owns venues and promotes and runs events, reported a record-breaking third quarter, with concert revenue topping $5 billion. That’s up nearly 70% compared to the same time in 2019, with attendance hitting 44 million. Ticketmaster, meanwhile, reported an all-time high fee-generated gross transacted value of $7.3 billion.
But it’s a different story for smaller players in the industry, who struggled the most during COVID-19 lockdowns and are now fighting to get back on their feet amid a host of hurdles.
“It has been a challenging time for independent music and comedy venues, promoters, and festivals for a host of reasons,” Audrey Fix Schaefer, vice president of the board of directors and communications director at the National Independent Venue Association, said in a statement to the Washington Examiner magazine.
“This includes the large volume of touring acts competing for patrons’ time and money, the cost of touring, and fans’ purchasing patterns are different coming out of the pandemic,” said Schaefer, who also serves as communications director for I.M.P., owner and operator of several venues in Washington, D.C., including the legendary 9:30 Club. “Venues are still dealing with canceled shows, though not at the same rate as earlier in the year.”
For smaller venues and artists, even those with large fan bases and impressive accolades, the live music business has always been demanding and, sometimes, merciless. But now, with the pandemic economy worsening the problems in the touring business, some say it could have devastating effects on the music industry across the globe.
“Everyone is vying for a handful of venues in order to make a small amount of money to tide them over until the next show, most sailing without a dollar of insurance,” alternative rock band Garbage wrote on Instagram in October.
“Corporations are making billions of dollars off of their work and sharing none of the profits,” the band, known for 90s hits such as “Only Happy When It Rains,” continued. “This can not stand. We will lose a whole generation of young artists if it does.”
The obstacles underscore the myriad ways the pandemic has disrupted a range of businesses, with fractured supply chains, workplace lockdowns, and labor shortages helping to fuel economic turbulence. At the same time, those disruptions have helped shine a brighter light on bad practices and broken systems.
Though smaller operations have struggled throughout the pandemic, the recent Ticketmaster fiasco that left hordes of Taylor Swift fans without tickets to her long-awaited tour has sparked fresh scrutiny of the live music industry’s broader makeup.
“It’s no secret that Live Nation-Ticketmaster is an unchecked monopoly,” Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) said on Twitter in the fallout of the Swift ticketing debacle.
As lawmakers and angry fans call on authorities to split up Live Nation Entertainment, the federal government is reportedly investigating the company for possible antitrust violations. Investigators at the Department of Justice have spoken with others in the market about industry dynamics, according to the New York Times.
The Swift ticketing meltdown has also sparked bipartisan inquiries on Capitol Hill, with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee planning to hold a hearing “to examine the lack of competition in the ticketing industry” and other lawmakers urging the Justice Department “to hold Ticketmaster-Live Nation Entertainment Inc. accountable for anticompetitive behavior.”
“If the investigation reveals that Live Nation has continued to abuse its dominant market position notwithstanding two prior consent decrees, we urge the Department to consider unwinding the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger and breaking up the company,” Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal (CT), Amy Klobuchar (MN), and Ed Markey (MA) wrote in a letter to the attorney general on Nov. 21. “This may be the only way to truly protect consumers, artists, and venue operators and to restore competition in the ticketing market.”
A coalition of music industry unions and progressive groups has launched a letter-writing campaign to urge the Department of Justice to break up Live Nation Entertainment, saying it “owns more than 70 percent of the primary ticketing and live event venues market” and has “routinely abused this market power to screw over concert-goers, sports fans, artists, venues, and other ticket companies.”
The groups, which include the Music Workers Alliance, Union of Musicians and Allied Workers, and More Perfect Union, said the merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster has led to pricier tickets, high “junk fees,” and “[a]nticompetitive behavior that bullies independent venues and artists.”
Live Nation has strongly denied engaging in anticompetitive business practices. “Ticketmaster has a significant share of the primary ticketing services market because of the large gap that exists between the quality of the Ticketmaster system and the next best primary ticketing system,” the company said in a statement on Nov. 19. “The market is increasingly competitive nonetheless, with rivals making aggressive offers to venues. That Ticketmaster continues to be the leader in such an environment is a testament to the platform and those who operate it, not to any anticompetitive business practices.”
The company also said that it “strongly advocates for all-in pricing so that fans are not surprised by what tickets really cost” weeks after President Joe Biden said he had ordered his administration “to crack down” on “hidden junk fees — like processing fees on concert tickets.”
Though Ticketmaster has faced criticism for its market practices and fees in the past — Pearl Jam famously took on the company in the mid-90s — some say today’s overall live music landscape threatens to gut the industry.
“Live music is under enormous strain,” Garbage said in its Instagram post. “The average musician can no longer survive let alone thrive under the current conditions. We are seeing so many precious talents buckle under the economic injustice of a system that does not pay the creative for their artistic output.”
The band added, “Let me put it to you another way: So many of the artists that we revere and hold dear throughout history would have been utterly destroyed by this system entirely.”
One of the other current challenges for artists is finding the necessary stage equipment and instruments, Axios reported, because of supply chain problems and shipping delays. In a reflection of the current landscape, Jack White dubbed his 2022 tour the “Supply Chain Issues Tour.”
Those same supply chain problems have increased demand and, therefore, costs, and other related supplies, such as gas for buses, have gone up in price, too.
“As a touring musician, I don’t think anyone anticipated the new reality that awaited us,” artist Santigold said when she announced the cancellation of her tour in September. “After sitting idle (not being able to do shows) for the past couple of years, many of us like everyone else, earning no or little income during that time, every musician that could, rushed back out immediately when it was deemed safe to do shows.”
“We were met with the height of inflation — gas, tour buses, hotels, and flight costs skyrocketed — many of our tried-and-true venues unavailable due to a flooded market of artists trying to book shows in the same cities, and positive test results constantly halting schedules with devastating financial consequences,” she wrote on Instagram.
“All of that on top of the already-tapped mental, spiritual, physical, and emotional resources of just having made it through the past few years,” she added. “Some of us are finding ourselves simply unable to make it work.”
For independent venues, some relief came last summer, when the federal government released billions in grants approved by Congress after lobbying from the National Independent Venue Association, which formed early on in the pandemic. But technical problems at the Small Business Administration delayed the funding by several months, forcing some struggling venues further into debt, Rolling Stone reported.
Still, the funding’s passage showed how smaller voices in the industry could band together to be heard. More recently, independent venues and promoters from several states have formed D Tour, a network aimed at “offering national artists locally owned, unique venue experiences across multiple markets.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“Our indie venues have always been the breeding ground for the next generation of professional artists,” D Tour member Tobi Parks, owner of xBk Live in Des Moines, Iowa, told Rolling Stone. “By working together, we have the ability to break artists through our network of indie rooms and help artists in our own communities build a nationwide platform and launch careers as touring artists. We are able to break down the traditional power structures and build a network of support to nurture rising talent.”
Schaefer is also optimistic. “Predicting the future is a tougher task than ever,” she told the Washington Examiner. “But when you see a room filled with fans that are sharing that electric moment, you realize that this is why we do it and will do all we can to keep the live concert and comedy experience alive for generations to come.”
