Posted on 12/07/2004 6:07:57 PM PST by weegee
Taking stock after one of the worst summer-concert seasons in memory, the music business is coming to a near-unanimous conclusion: Ticket prices are unrealistically high and must be brought under control before next year.
Summer 2004 was a nightmare for more than one superstar. Norah Jones’ ticket sales were so poor in some markets that the singer had to move five concerts out of arenas and amphitheaters, which typically hold 15,000 to 20,000 people, and into venues holding about 4,000. The Lollapalooza tour was canceled amid lackluster sales. Gloria Estefan’s representatives canceled a handful of shows to help concert promoters cut their losses; a person close to the singer conceded that the tour had been a disaster.
Trade publications that track concerts won’t tally summer grosses until January, when they add up full-year results, but anecdotal evidence points to one of the slowest summers ever. The June-to-September period is crucial for the touring business, providing as much as 70 percent of annual revenue for companies with a lot of open-air venues. Despite bright spots – several country-music tours and alternative rock’s Vans Warped Tour – many concert promoters say revenue was off as much as 40 percent compared with 2003.
Agents and promoters are trying to diagnose the problem, even as they cast about for cures.
“We’re all talking ticket prices in this industry now,” says Embassy Centre executive director Lori Lobsiger. “What is the magic price? How does the consumer perceive the value of a ticket?”
Tickets for Madonna and Simon & Garfunkel costing $350 got a lot of attention this year. But more dangerous, industry people say, is the $70-to-$80 ticket for a mediocre seat at a concert by Van Halen, Cher or some other sub-megastar.
“There is a definite scrutiny,” says agent Jonny Podell, whose clients include Van Halen, the Allman Brothers and Cyndi Lauper. “If I had to guess, everybody’s going to point the finger at the other guy.”
Bret Sanders, marketing director for Piere’s Entertainment Center, says the economics of the crisis aren’t too hard to figure out.
“Let’s say you are looking at a $56 ticket. A young guy who makes $6 to $8 an hour has to pay $112 before he has even bought his girlfriend nachos. That becomes very expensive.”
Concert promoters say they have had no choice but to jack up ticket prices because artists and their representatives demand so much money upfront for appearances. Agents, meanwhile, say they can hardly be blamed for accepting the ever-higher bids promoters make for their services.
“We don’t overpay intentionally,” says Alex Hodges, executive vice president of House of Blues Concerts, a major promoter that owns a chain of clubs and other venues. “But you talk yourself into believing you can sell 13,000 to 14,000 tickets at $70, and the public comes back and says you can sell 9,000.”
Musicians, too, are partly at fault, and some agents admit it.
“At the end of the day it is greed” driving up artists’ asking prices, says Mark Geiger, an agent at the William Morris Agency. Like other agents, Geiger says he is only doing his job when he drives a hard bargain on his clients’ behalf.
An adjustment in economics will be hard for some groups to swallow, Geiger adds. Artists typically are paid “guarantees,” which are minimum fees from promoters no matter how poor ticket sales are. Among artists, Geiger says, there is a “lack of reality, because the artists don’t take financial risk, really.”
Sanders says many factors have contributed to the predicament, but he believes “artist guarantees” deserve the most blame.
“We’ve seen it rise at our level,” he says. “Artist guarantees need to come down.”
Plummeting CD sales are a significant factor, too. Groups who have seen their royalty checks evaporate are much more dependent on concert income – and, not surprisingly, much more willing to tour.
“The public is pushing back,” says Hodges. “(They’re) saying, ‘If I’ve seen the band already in the past 12 to 18 months, I might not go back to see them again, even if they’re my favorites.’ ”
Fleetwood Mac, Simon & Garfunkel and Kiss are among the veteran acts that have done solid business on earlier tours only to experience disappointing ticket sales this year. At an Aug. 4 appearance at the Hi Fi Buys Amphitheatre in Atlanta, a venue that seats 18,389, Kiss managed to sell just 4,345 tickets, according to Pollstar, which tracks concert-ticket sales.
“They’ve played everywhere in the world,” says Andy Hewitt, a promoter in Los Angeles, referring to the aging heavy-metal quartet. “They don’t need another market. They need a whole fresh planet.”
“They did good business,” says Kiss’ manager, Doc McGhee. “Maybe not good enough for what people paid them.” Responding to the notion that the band has suffered from overexposure, McGhee adds, “We haven’t played Europe in seven years.”
Lobsiger says the grand old acts of rock and pop rarely reunite because of some artistic imperative, and that might be part of the perception problem.
“I’d like to see a trend of more reunion tours going into smaller venues. But you can understand why they don’t,” she says. “These bands can work big venues for 10 nights and make a million dollars. It’s a quick hit.
“You sort of imagine that these tours start with the same sort of phone call: ‘My old lady is suing me. We’re finally getting a divorce. Let’s get the band back together.’ ”
Not all the disappointing tours had such eye-poppingly bad ticket sales. On the Simon & Garfunkel tour, for example, few of the dates filled less than three-quarters of their seats. Indeed, looking only at attendance, some of these tours “did pretty well,” says Rob Light, managing partner at Creative Artists Agency and head of its music division. The problem, he says, is that “the ticket prices and the guarantees were out of whack.” Because of high artists’ fees, anything less than a near-sellout resulted in a loss for the promoter.
Pricey tickets for prime seats at top-tier shows aren’t really the issue: They usually sell out quickly. People in the concert industry want to contain price creep at shows featuring middling artists and in the back rows of high-profile acts. The problem is starkly evident at “shed” venues, where the cheap seats are often merely an unassigned space on a lawn, far from the stage.
“People don’t want to pay $40 or $50 for a small area of dirt,” says Hewitt, the Los Angeles promoter.
Sanders says venues the size of Piere’s not only keep ticket prices down but also offer a better concert-going experience than the sheds and amphitheaters.
“It’s a whole different experience,” he says. “One thing I get a charge out of at Piere’s is when a band goes into a well-known hit, you feel this sweep of emotion in the room.
“I don’t know if you get the same feeling in a large venue.”
Lobsiger agrees, citing a 2002 performance at the Embassy by the venerable art-rock outfit Yes as an instance where a band that still plays all kinds of venues was seen and heard to best effect in a more intimate one.
Clear Channel and House of Blues experimented with last-minute discounts at outdoor concerts this summer. Each cut the price of about 50,000 lawn seats by halffor the 24 hours before showtime. The companies say they are likely to discount again, but are leery of training audiences to wait for last-minute discounts.
Sanders says one of the keys to the success of future amphitheater shows can be seen in the Vans Warped Tour model.
“Vans threw extreme entertainment into the mix. They have bands and they have freestyle motocross. They did this long before extreme sports became popular on ESPN.
“Let’s face it: They nailed their target.”
Sanders says the summer “stacked” tours need to start offering more than a succession of acts performing short sets.
“There needs to be more creativity in this industry,” he says.
In the midst of all this uncertainty, Ticketmaster is looking at expanding its nascent ticket-auction program, which it conceived as a way to capture some of the revenue going to the secondary market of ticket resellers. So far, the auction program has focused on premium seats, but Ticketmaster is considering expanding it to cheap seats, letting market forces determine high and low price points.
“That’s going to be the mandate for 2005,” says David Goldberg, an executive vice president for Ticketmaster. “Fill the seats.”
Steve Penhollow of The Journal Gazette contributed to this story.
I've heard some cuts from Danny Barnes' new album but I still remember seeing the Bad Livers back when they only had one album out.
As they changed their sound over the years, Danny told disappointed audience (who didn't want them to change) that there were plenty of old albums of the band that they could still listen to.
The Bad Livers did actually get a quarter page write up in Rolling Stone in something like 1992 or 1993 (the last time that truly small indy bands and different types of music could get on commercial radio; there was a "throw it against the wall and see what sticks" method back then).
Barnes is a very talented and quite the showman. I credit him for turning a lot of punkers on to bluegrass.
The Bad Livers were the only band that I saw repeatedly instruct soundmen to "turn it down" when they were onstage.
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