Reports: live music

Today’s live music audience skews 45+, with rock concerts and theatres / concert halls dominating sales. Fandom is by far the strongest factor in purchasing tickets, eclipsing price, and location. So, despite challenges like inflation and scalping, most concertgoers plan to attend more or the same number of concerts going forward.

The loss of touring income during the global pandemic spurred fast growth in a previously niche concert live streaming ecosystem. However, as the world begins to re-open and physical touring resumes, the live streaming industry is encountering a new set of challenges – as well as potential opportunities.

This report looks at live stream audience data and audience behaviour trends with regards to live streamed events. Methodological notes: The Brazil self-reported, live streamed penetration rate from MIDiA’s survey came in at 22% for Q2 2021 – a sharp increase on previous quarters.

Virtual concerts went from zero to a hundred at an unprecedented rate during the pandemic-shaped 2020, and the momentum carried through to 2021. But if lockdown years are like dog years, then so too the evolution of the current virtual event marketplace has been concertinaed.

As part of MIDiA’s research stream focused on how COVID-19 is impacting the entertainment industries, this report explores how the combination of lockdown measures and the coming recession will impact music industry revenues in 2020.

In April 2020 Travis Scott’s Fortnite event pulled in 27 million players. While this was happening, the global artist community was scrambling to plug the income and engagement gap caused by COVID-19’s cessation of live music, by turning to live streaming.

The live music industry has always had a slightly incongruous relationship with its recorded music industry cousin. Often having to tolerate the record labels’ business being called ‘the music industry’ and equally often, finding itself at the focus of consumer discontent over ticketing practices.

The prolonged decline of the recorded music business is a mirror opposite of the dynamic growth in the live music sector, which itself is just one part of a booming live event marketplace. In the age of content abundance, consumers increasingly value the scarcity of live experiences.

Since the advent of piracy artists have been told that they need not worry about declining music sales because their core business is making money from live and merchandise. At a headline level, macro music industry revenues appear to support the argument, but those numbers give little indication of the income that actually flows back to the artist nor of the impact of the hyper-concentration of revenue among the top 1% of artists.