Posted on 06/27/2015 10:12:20 AM PDT by a fool in paradise
TO JUDGE by the crowds making their way to Glastonbury Festival on June 24th, it is a good time to be in the music industry. This week nearly 200,000 revellers set up camp across several fields in Somerset, where the festival has been held nearly every year since it first started as a small, hippyish event in 1970. Now hundreds of live bands and DJs will perform on 90 stages over five days. Each punter pays £225 ($353) for the experience, which, thanks to the damp British weather, tends to be a muddy one.
Glastonbury is perhaps the most striking example in Britain of how big music festivals are booming. But as the demand for festivals becomes ever greater, a potential supply-side problem has started to become apparent. It hints at how the music industry has changed rapidly over the past ten years, and how it may need to adapt.
Over the past decade sales of recorded music fell sharply. According to the BPI, an industry body, income from recorded music fell from £1.2 billion in 2004 to just under £700m in 2014. The fall has slowed in recent years, partly because of the increase in online streaming, which accounted for £115m in 2014. But other revenue streams have become far more important—particularly the live music industry. In 2011 it was worth £1.6 billion, according to PRS for Music, which collects royalties on behalf of writers and publishers.
A large chunk of this booming live market is in summer festivals. Whereas around 80 big festivals took place in 2004, there are now over 250 scattered across the country. The season stretches for nearly six months. As new festivals have sprung up, established ones have got far larger. Reading Festival used to have a capacity of around 40,000 people in the mid-1980s, recalls Steve Parker of Live UK, an industry magazine; and it would only pull a crowd of 20,000 or 30,000, he says. Now over 80,000 people go there each year. And despite ticket prices rising faster than inflation, many festivals sell out. All the tickets for Glastonbury were snapped up in 26 minutes in October last year.
Big artists and promoters both benefit from this boom, says Tim Chambers, a music consultant. Artists bag only 10% of the net profit from recorded music, but can command up to 90% of gross ticket receipts. And promoters can make money from large, captive audiences by charging eye-watering prices for food, merchandise and parking.
However, the popularity of festivals poses a problem. As they have grown in Britain so too have they blossomed in America, Asia and Europe. But the pool of artists who appeal to large, diverse crowds and have enough music to play for an hour or more has not increased at the same rate. This means that there are not enough big headliners to go around. Analysis by Will Page, the director of economics at Spotify, a streaming service, shows that the average age of headline acts at nine festivals in Britain has gradually risen (see chart). In the 1990s, bands in their mid-twenties, such as Radiohead, headlined at Glastonbury, points out Mr Page. Although exceptions exist—this year, the 28-year-old Florence Welch was drafted in at the last minute to headline the Friday slot—it appears to be getting rarer, he says.
Part of the reason for this may be that punters themselves are ageing: according to Festival Insights, an industry publication, in 2014 the average age of a festival-goer was 33. Promoters may be reacting to this by putting on older acts. But it also reflects a supply-side constraint in the market, says Chris Carey, a music consultant. Fewer small clubs and pubs exist for new young bands to start out, he says, and older bands are still keen to perform live in order to boost their coffers. This means that fledgling artists find it both harder to start a career and to muscle in to a headline slot once they have gained momentum.
Solving this problem will not be easy. Big record labels are less willing than in the past to take risks or nurture new talent. It is a “more cut-throat industry”, says Rob da Bank, the DJ behind Bestival, another big festival. If a second album is unsuccessful, artists are often dropped. And online music services have changed the way people listen to music: rather than consuming a whole album, people can pick and choose. New music “moves so much faster than ten years ago”, says Rob Challice, an agent and festival director. Bands become popular quickly but disappear just as swiftly.
If headliners cannot be found, then festivals will have to adapt. Many have already become nicer to attend, with showers, better food, yurts and the like. Some may have to specialise in a particular genre of music, or scale down to their original size. Rather than chase one big artist or band with a hefty fee, organisers may have to look for several middling ones to headline. Perhaps this is no bad thing. As live music booms, it is becoming increasingly competitive.
That’s a very interesting analysis.
They’re all trying to relive Woodstock, especially the ones who weren’t there.
Meanwhile people like Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton and Van Morrison turn 70, and continue to turn out original music, and are very wealthy.
They play on if they want, but they don’t need the money.
BB King played on almost to the end, Buddy Guy is 78 and making a new album.
American “Seasick Steve” (about 73) lives in Europe and plays the festivals, with his partners Dan Magnussen (drums, Norway) and John Paul Jones, (guitar, Led Zeppelin, England). Here they are at Glastonbury in 2013.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVh4e8GjheQ
No necessarily, there are a few outdoor festival s here in AZ. They cover multiple genres. The 2 biggest are the Country and Rock festivals. I’ve been to both of them and there is anything but a Woodstock vibe.
Excellent article, but what is a ‘Yurt’?
Used in the last sentence of the piece.
I would pay money to see Steely Dan. Even if the vocals are a few octaves lower or the tempo a bit slower, that group has always been great at blending pop and jazz together.
Unlike some jazz, it does not put me to sleep.
A seafood festival held in the Jersey Shore town of Belmar weekend before last drew an estimated 200,000 attendees. They had to literally close off access to the town Sunday afternoon as it was total gridlock; even all the remote parking at the marina was filled.
A portable round tent, generally skin-covered, Mongolian.
You mean no mud rolling and less public sex and drugs?
Thanks.
Bass and keyboards while in that band. Real name John Baldwin; he got his stage name as a suggestion from a friend who had seen a movie about the US naval hero in the War of Independence.
John Paul Jones (guitar, Led Zeppelin, England) …
I have no desire to go to big loud muddy or dusty hot festivals. But my kids do; they go to a few each summer. (Teen and early 20s). One son just got back from traveling a long distance to Canada for a festival.
I learned about Steve before JPJ joined. Saw Steve and Dan in a small club in Lost Angeles about 4-5 years ago, on one of his rare and short tours of the US. They were late, loud, and brought the house down.
Steve finally was “discovered” in his 60s in Europe and is very popular in Europe. He lives in Norway and England. His grown son is his media guy. They “self publish” and use all the up to date internet tools.
Steve started in the 1960s as a studio musician and technical electronic guy.
It is interesting that JPJ choses to play with him. Jones is wealthy, along with several from the earlier times.
It does seem to me that opportunities for new artists are shrinking. I can’t think of a major rock band that’s come along in the past ten years. It’s all rap and divas like Beyoncé.
I still listen to rock music, but the idea of sitting in the hot sun using porta potties does not in the least sound "fun".....so much easy just to crank your radio up...
Don’t eat the brown Ex-Lax!
Here’s one solution, have multiple stages, put the big acts on the big stage (while they are still around), and let smaller and local acts play the smaller stages and get some exposure. Maybe with that help, they will become the next big act that can headline in a few years.
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