Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
Is the live music business reaching its peak — or still climbing?
In the post-pandemic landscape, in-person music has bounced back with a vengeance. From artists and major corporations shifting their marketing tactics in a TikTok-engrossed world to ticket prices increasing 35% since 2019, it’s clear the domain has shifted.
To support the VIP+ and UTA IQ special report “State of the Live Music Business,” VIP+ chief media analyst Andrew Wallenstein hosted industry experts Robbie Brown, music agent and co-head of festivals at UTA; Eric Frankenberg, senior charts/data analyst, Billboard; Jem Aswad, executive music editor at Variety, and Catherine Yi, talent strategy executive at UTA, to dig deep on what’s impacting the surge and if it can continue:
Ticketing trends: From inarguably skyrocketing prices to the rising prevalence of the resale market, modern ticketing has hard, with average ticket prices for the top 100 tours worldwide jumping 20% over 2022. But that isn’t dissuading concertgoers, Frankenberg said, as there’s just a “new cultural acceptance that big tickets will be much more expensive than they used to be.”
Yi echoed this point, noting, “We are seeing that when people reallycare about a show, they will do whatever it takes to attend … people prioritize live music events in their disposable spending.” As for how attendees get their tickets, Aswad said sometimes “there’s no other option” than to purchase from a resale platform — which fans are clearly doing. “It’s a situation nobody seems to know how to resolve, because people will pay thousands of dollars for Taylor Swift tickets,” he added.
Barriers to attendance: Still, some 62% of live music attendees said high ticket prices are the biggest barrier to their live music event attendance. “What people are really buying is the moment,” Aswad said. “The most fascinating thing about [the Eras Tour] wasn’t the show, it was seeing the moments fans were having. You can’t really put a price on that — though they most certainly did.”
Frankenberg agreed, saying, “For the people who are buying these tickets, it is more than just the performance by the artist, it’s this kind of social-cultural experience they experience it not just in the moment, [they] blast it on their social media accounts.”
Brown highlighted that “at the root of it is the cost of touring itself is going up … smart artists scale [their ticket prices] so each fan has the experience they want. Scaling has naturally made that curve go up, and I think we’ll continue to see that.”
One impediment to live music turnouts has become safety. From the recent increase of the audience throwing objects at artists onstage to the terrorist attack that killed hundreds of festivalgoers at Israel’s Supernova Music Festival on Oct. 7, fans are nervous — and not just for themselves: 27% of music lovers surveyed don’t attend live events out of safety concerns, while 35% worry about the artists’ safety at shows.
Future of live events: As Swift and Beyoncé redefined the state of the business this summer, can the upswing in the live music business sustain itself? Frankenberg cited Swift, Madonna, Bad Bunny, Blink 182 and Morgan Wallen among the artists set to hit the road in 2024. “There’s no shortage of big names,” Aswad said. “If the grosses stack up, we’ll see — even if they don’t, I can’t imagine there’s going to be a significant dropoff.”
Now dig into the data-fueled VIP+ special report …
