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Harry E. Pistore 2021
The peak of the music industry was witnessed in 1999 averaging around £15bn in domestic revenue, mainly because of CDs responsible for the 89% of that statistic, although as technology advanced, mobile phones got better and the internet became faster and more reliable, that peak started to fall more specifically with the advent of streaming (Pallotta, 2020). In 2019, 20 years on, recorded music revenues went up by 11.4% to around $21.5bn with streaming being the key growth (Mulligan, 2020).
(IFPI Global Music Report, 2019)
Music streaming is definitely going strong and it’s having quite of a impact on the live industry, as streaming data can provide details about the listeners and may turn subscriptions to music streaming platforms into ticket sales (Ward, 2020), it can generate new revenue by gathering millions of fans to watch a concert online and every artist, even unsigned, have the ability to organise a gig by themselves at home and stream it to all of their fans all over the world, which may increase the demand for more online gigs from the consumers. Some of the most important roles in the music industry may be affected as a consequence, such as promoters, booking agents, venues and sponsorships, which are somewhat trying to adapt their role and work routine to this relatively new technology.
Streaming is in fact gathering huge popularity in recent years and consequently the once most important asset of the music industry, the physical, is declining. This shows how music seems to be destined to be listened to predominantly via the internet for many years ahead.
Live streaming isn’t a totally new thing though, in fact the very first concert made available live on the internet, was back in the early 90s via an internet provider called M-Bone (Strauss, 1994, p. 15), back then the service was very limited in terms of audio and video quality and not easy to stream either but it gives us a glimpse of how record labels and artists work in the digital live scene today.
Since then, technological advancement has been huge and phone applications have been developed to satisfy today’s music market. Online music platforms such as Spotify, are getting very successful in recent years, as they show an increasing number
of listeners around the world and one of the reasons is because of their ease-of-use user interface applications, which give the ability to discover hundreds of new upcoming artists just by tapping on a mobile. Their active users counted more than 200 millions in Spotify’s official Q1 2019 report, which has been growing steadily since 2016 with some sign of stagnation (Iqbal, 2020).
As the popular platform gradually gains popularity among millions of listeners globally, its intention to move into the live music scene is becoming more evident every year. It is to be expected from a company that generated $40 millions in ticket sales in 2017 thanks to the introduction of their “Fan First” scheme. This clever program gives to the most engaging fans a chance to win exclusive ticket offers to their favourite events as a reward from Spotify. The idea is mainly driven by their “data mining” work which gives access to technical information about their fans’ listening habits. (Ingham, 2018).
With such information, it is easy to imagine how reliable and efficient can be, to predict a certain revenue outcome for live music concerts around the globe. By just collecting data from their fans, online music platforms can now identify in great detail the hottest artists and locations that are most engaging at the moment and generate more revenue from securing more or better live performances.
In the old days, signed and unsigned musicians had to rely on physical sales and live concerts to create exposure to help sell their music, nowadays, with the presence of streaming platforms, they can have access to a massive audience worldwide, in seconds, without geographical limitations and be able to obtain real-time data reports.
These clusters of data, have now literally become gold mines for publishers or artists who publish themselves, that need to drive more business and create more revenue. They basically get help from detailed analytics such as age of the listeners, the region they streamed from and even the device they are using to stream music. Statistics such as these, are widely available also for unsigned artists, on many popular social media platforms life Facebook Live, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and more (Smith, 2019). Streaming data is giving all sorts of direct power to artists, publishers and labels, to basically be more in control of their own consumers’ demand and to optimise and achieve a better monetisation. For example in terms of merch sales, fans can easily be driven to tailored memorabilia and various brand products of their favourite artists, while watching a live gig online. Some artists have been seen dropping links to their products in the comment section of the stream platform, with the intention of driving more sales of merchandise and keeping the viewer more informed about new products and updates. (Smith, 2019).
It’s fascinating to see how streaming can potentially scale a live concert to the size of recorded music numbers and have greater power in reaching millions of people worldwide, compared to the few thousands of a normal gig at a physical venue. A very good example is the live stream of Coachella’s festival in 2019 which counted 82 million views during its first weekend (Hu, 2020).
The ability for music fans to follow their favourite live concerts online, puts the artists directly in touch with them in real time, creating new and inexpensive opportunities for musicians to reach to a bigger audience around the world, with direct access to live
data, which facilitates the targeting of new potential fans and merchandise sales. Although there may be a higher potential of copyright infringement, as more and more artists will be planning to perform covers during their own live stream concerts, as a consequence, in doing so, the recording of the live performance may be asked to be taken down, by the online platform itself or the label, if found to be in breach of any copyright laws. (Smith, 2019)
A very popular live music streaming platform is LiveXLive, with almost one million subscribers, they recently acquired festival promoter React Presents for 2 million dollars, which takes care of a big chunk of the EDM live music scene in the USA and they are also developing an application which will include audio, video, live concerts and socials, all in one “app”. The idea of an all-in-one application for live streaming sounds like a game changer for both the artist and the fan but also for labels and managers who will be able to gain more revenues essentially by having the ability to turn ticket sales into subscribers. (Houghton, 2020)
“The coolest place you can be in an era where everyone can stream all the same music and movies for the same price is in the room up close with someone you look up to.” (Jenkins, 2020)
The quote suggests that the experience of attending a real physical live concert may be way too important for music fans, to even think about replacing with online ones, so people would rather go to a real gig then watch a streaming version of it at home. In the conservative world of classical music for example, there is a sense of alertness among some musicians, worried about such a new technology although, Kristy Farkas, concert
manager at the School Of Music, sees no threats in sharing classical music concerts in real-time online and states that it instead broadens their reach with the community (Bazzana, 2014). Although, at this very moment, any fear of streaming taking over the music market has vanished, because it seems the only viable solution to the pandemic outbreak caused by the Coronavirus (CoVid-19). Governments have been trying to isolate the danger of getting infected by shutting down major public gatherings; As a consequence the Metropolitan Opera which has cancelled all its events around the state, is now sharing some of their orchestral presentations on an HD live channel found on their website. (Levere, 2020). Music streaming is therefore having a major boost right now as more people are forced Indoors.
It looks as if the increased popularity of live music streaming events could put some jobs associated with live shows at risk, more precisely key role jobs such as booking agents, promoters, venue operators and managers, as are all interconnected. Promoters, in fact work closely with booking agents and artist managers to agree on a price ticket or recommend a certain venue for the act to perform and booking agents are mainly intermediate roles between promoters and venues and also between artists and managers; They are used to secure a suitable venue for an act by working closely with promoters, who will know how to contact a particular venue or in some cases the promoters can be the venue themselves.
The sponsorship then follows, which usually relies on the good quality of a show to be associated with and in return, the sponsor, may count on the fact that it will be remembered by the fans and be a viable reason to attend future events sponsored by
the very same brand. Finally in regards to venues, it is interesting to note that venue operators alongside small venues such as pubs and clubs rely heavily on drink sales rather than ticket sales but also earn a percentage out of tickets and merchandise (Anderton, Dubber, James, 2013).
As the Covid19 new data analysis is beginning to unfold, it’s clear that people, forced to stay indoors due to the government pandemic measures, are watching and streaming more than previously, which results in a 60% increase (Nielsen, 2020). Booking agents and promoters, consequently, are adopting new strategies to get their artists to play their performance on live streaming platforms, some live streaming services are in fact witnessing an overwhelming demand from musicians to book live shows, in a quick response to the recent cancellations of concerts worldwide.
The good news is that Stageit, an online venue that streams live music shows, due to a massive increase of show counts booked because of the pandemic, has increased the payout to artists performing on their platform, from the previously 63% up to a generous 80%, as an incentive for the acts to keep booking shows on their online venue; It is unclear whether this higher pay will stay after the emergency measures are lifted but it is certainly important to see how more streaming engagements can have interesting and somewhat positive impacts to key roles in the live music industry such as acts and booking agents, who are increasingly reaching out to drive more business on Stageit and other similar live platforms. The online venue has also shared that it has been able to make around $100.000 in a day when the best month ever was recorded back in 2014 which made $274,000 (Millman, 2020). Booking agents therefore in case of a
potential decrease in real live shows demand, can still make money by looking for extended relationships with more live streaming services worldwide.
The obvious downside of this is that artists, even if some live streaming platforms may decide to pay more money to the performers, won’t make a lot anyway, as streaming royalties don’t pay as much as real shows or physical album sales, also with a decrease of live gigs, everyone involved in the preparation of a concert, such as promoters, agents, artist managers, tour and event managers, lighting teams, sound engineers and merch workers may all end up making definitely less money consequently. (Jenkins, 2020). It’s not yet clear how much money professional and semi-professional can make by solely advertising and performing online, although Youtube revealed that for every 1000 streams rights holders can make around £1.70 for a 10 minute clip (Ward, 2020)
It has to be mentioned that a life with less live performances, could result in a positive outcome for most people working in this sector, but this is in regards to wellbeing, in fact real gigs require planning, moving from one country to another, sleeping in hotels or in tour buses, which result in a frenetic and unhealthy lifestyle that could be greatly reduced if live streaming becomes more engaging than a real live gigs (Hu, 2020) or if it is to become essentially more lucrative for the artist. This can also affect the political side of the live industry as less bureaucracy will be needed, such as a decrease in the demand for visas to travel in different countries for example.
“There’s nothing quite like the tribal experience of going out to a venue and singing your
favorite song alongside thousands of strangers.” (Hu, 2020)
The way streaming is reshaping the live music industry is not only political, economic, or technological but has also socio-cultural implications, as being at a real gig is in fact a lifetime experience, one of those memories that would be hard to forget, experiences that people, as social animals, need and seek for. What is in fact missing from a good live streaming concert, watchable in the comforts of home is the emotional factor.
If live music streaming is to thrive and to obtain more stature in the music industry, it will have to find a way to turn an emotionless empty room into a place worth staying while watching your favourite artist’s live performance. Bas Grasmayer, a music-marketing strategist, founder of Musicxtechxfuture.com, stresses about the importance for the artists to not replicate what they do in a normal live show but to find a different way of engagement with the audience watching the show at home. How can a live concert streamed online, refrain people from switching to a youtube video only a tap away from it or to a video game? Bas is saying that the artist must find more engaging ways to interact with the audience in real time and keep looking for new audiences (Grasmayer, 2020). If it’s emotions that live streaming needs to catch up on, then virtual reality could be the answer. As discussed above, the one thing that is missing from a live streaming performance is the emotional factor, which is provided by the presence of huge gatherings of people, most extravagant light works and big sounds, all happening around the listener. A company called NextVR is striving to achieve exactly that. Danny
Keens, vice president of content, states that the company is already offering to the big audience, the best possible level of presence and immersion, which won’t simply be possible to get on a TV. NextVR has struck some impressive partnerships with entertainment giants such as NBA and Live Nation, to provide a revolutionary way of engagement for the user, which, for the first time will feel like being teleported into an actual event (GamerHubTv, 2018).
As it stands now, it seems that we will have to expect more and more performances accessible through live streaming, thanks to technological advancements such as reliable broadband and VR, as a way for unsigned artists to promote themselves but also for record labels to promote their own artists, rather than just by solely relying on real physical concerts which are incredibly expensive to organise, in comparison. The extent to which streaming and data analysis are changing the live music industry has become striking and impossible to ignore, given the good results so far that both are having on the music market. Real live concerts may not cease to exist altogether overnight but the potential of reshaping the live music industry online is here and very much alive.
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