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Musicians are manufacturing sold-out shows
- fredley 6mo agohttps://archive.is/92Xsy https://archive.is/92Xsy
- Simulacra 6mo agoI don't think this is "sneaky" - to use the term from the article. Yes, on the one hand a band could maximize by playing in a larger venue, but maybe doing so diminishes the experience for more people. Smaller venues, greater precision, and budgeting, and a better experience for the audience seems like a win. Not quite sure this is an issue that needs an article in Bloomberg
- genghisjahn 6mo agoMaybe it’s the old man in me but I’d venture to say most things in Bloomberg don’t need to be in Bloomberg. I’d love it if a news site said occasionally, “there’s nothing really news worthy today. Yesterday’s important stuff will do.” Also I’m mad I can’t get tickets to see angine de poitrine in Philly.
- parodysbird 6mo agoI see you don't subscribe to weekend papers. Mild, minor culture articles are perfectly normal and welcome for media outlets to carry for the people who pay to subscribe for their journalism.
- grvdrm 6mo agoAnd from what I’ve experienced: bigger shows aren’t cheaper! Smaller for the win.
- dhosek 6mo agoI’ve avoided arena shows for decades because they’re usually super-expensive and a less satisfying experience. Back in the 90s when I made a comment in the Discipline Global Mobile website about deciding I didn’t want to see a show in a venue biger than 500 seats or spend more than $50 for it, Robert Fripp himself reposted it in his online diary approvingly. I think I’m willing to go a bit higher than that on both these days (I’ll see a show in a large theater which I’m guessing is around 1–2000 seats and inflation and higher income has raised my threshold on what I’ll spend on tickets), but generally I find smaller venues to be the most satisfying to see live music. Plus, this is going to be more obscure or early-career acts so you get to be hipper than thou when you see them.
- raddan 6mo agoWhen I was a teenager in the 90's I managed to score tickets to what was probably one of Pink Floyd's last tours. If I recall correctly, a ticket cost $40, which was pretty steep for a kid with only a paper route. Still, I was very excited--it was my first concert without my parents--but the experience was terrible. The show was in a stadium. The sound was terrible. Everyone around me was smoking pot. I was so far away that the musicians were barely visible. The only consolation was that Pink Floyd had a great lights show and a big movie screen behind them showing flying pigs and things like that. I went to one more stadium show after that--The Smashing Pumpkins and Garbage--and it was somehow worse. The sound was deafening but also unintelligible. There are many musicians I would love to see, but the big show experience is awful. Fortunately, I have since seen many, many shows in smaller venues. I fondly remember watching Low play in a candlelit (!!) venue with audience members sitting/laying (!!!) on the floor. Way, way better, and definitely hipper than thou.
- grvdrm 6mo agoFeel exactly the same way. I start going to shows in the late 90s - once in high school. All small venues. I started going to more shows in college (mostly jam) and then even more as an adult with just a smidge more money. Two shows stick out as particularly bad: 1. Dave Matthews Band - Fenway Park. There is no way to correct all of the oddities (and charm) of the place. The sound was terrible. I enjoyed the show anyways, but it was the worst sound quality I had seen for $90. 2. Phish - Fenway Park. Sound terrible too. From what I saw, the Phish show is folks listening to the music and folks doing whatever-else to the music. I enjoyed being with friends and people watching but nothing else. Luckily, scalped tickets were cheaper once the show started. In contrast, went to many shows at Cambridge House of Blues, Boston's Paradise Rock Club, and many other similarly sized venues. Best sound, best experiences. Lucky now to live near the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester NY - a true gem among all the other venues around.
- bombcar 6mo agoThere’s always risks with putting on a show - and the financial risks of underselling may be on the band.
- dhosek 6mo agoIt really depends. If there’s a promoter involved, they will give the band a guaranteed paycheck and collect the door for themselves. This is a big part of why merch sales are so important for touring groups. This is where they make most of their profits from the tour.
- altacc 6mo agoIn short, the author thinks it's the same reason that a half empty club will keep a line waiting outside: it inflates demand. Reality is probably that's one of the reasons only some of the time.
- throw_m239339 6mo ago> thinks it's the same reason that a half empty club will keep a line waiting outside Yeah, one of the most famous club in Berlin used to pull that trick, now it is about to close because the owners are not making enough money. People aren't fooled by these tactics anymore.
- gHA5 6mo agoWhich club?
- butlike 6mo agoI assume Berghain
- piva00 6mo agoBerghain has always been packed though, they don't have issues with getting audience.
- throwaway27448 6mo agoBerlin has hundreds of clubs, half of which are constantly about to close. But berghain has sufficient clout it will remain for decades even if it continues to be mediocre and hostile to its customers.
- mondomondo 6mo ago[dead]
- butlike 6mo agoIt may have been true in a bygone era when it was a crapshoot to "wing" plans and change mid-adventure, when the people standing in line couldn't just check the slab in their pocket to find alternative options such as venues without a line.
- reactordev 6mo agoffs, artists aren’t in control of these prices or venues. LiveNation is. Remember LiveNation? Yeah, those assholes.
- lotsofpulp 6mo agoLivenation provides a useful role as a punching bag to the most popular artists. They need to seem accessible to the commoners, but their demand is so high, they can earn more money catering only to those willing to pay them the most.
- kevinsync 6mo agoYes, Live Nation and Ticketmaster literally serve as "the bad guy" in the transaction. The truth is, due to market realities, ticket prices (MSRP, not reseller prices) need to be high so that everybody gets their cut. All those fees people lose their minds about? Those more or less pay out the promoters, because the artists are too chickenshit to roll the full costs into their bare ticket prices, and unrealistic ticket prices signal to fans that the artist "really has their best interests in mind". But it's all smoke and mirrors lol, if promoters don't get paid, no shows happen; if no shows happen, venues don't get paid. If there are no promoters or venues, shows are dead and artists don't get paid. Considering all of that, everybody in the chain prefers and benefits from sold-out shows for myriad reasons, and all live performance is theatre at its core anyways, so IMO what's a little extra theatre on top to make sure the shows go on in this year of our Lord 2026, where very little is cheap and affordable?
- CPLX 6mo agoThis is not a reasonable take on what's actually happening. It's never been a reasonable take, but posting this today after Live Nation has literally just been found liable by a jury shows deep confusion. The ticket prices are not high because of market realities. They're high because of illegal monopoly behavior that inflates costs and then steals the money and gives it to Michael Rapino and his friends. The behavior of Live Nation has been shown to be much closer to organized crime than what most people think of as standard business practice. There's extensive on-the-record testimony and an official federal court verdict backing up my side of this argument.
- throwanem 6mo agoBecause Brooklyn is finished.
- packersville 6mo agoGross
- throwanem 6mo ago[flagged]
- nebula8804 6mo agoIf I could do it all over again I would jump at the chance to live in that $5000 roach pit instead of wasting my life in the middle of bumfuckstan. It is one of my biggest regrets in life. Its insane how such a tiny fraction of land produces so much of the culture the world consumes.
- throwanem 6mo agoSucks to suck.
- Cthulhu_ 6mo agoMarketing 101. I don't go to concerts often, but there was one last year. Tickets for the thursday show were sold out within minutes, but oh look, they tried Really Hard and revealed they were going to do an EXTRA show on the Friday! (they already had it planned but wanted to make sure the first show on the less popular day was sold out first)
- dtech 6mo agoOr they didn't want to commit to the extra shows until demand was clear
- mrkstu 6mo agoWouldn’t you do Friday first in that scenario?
- afavour 6mo agoVenue might be cheaper on the Thursday.
- nslsm 6mo agoI thought venues paid artists.
- scarecrowbob 6mo agoGenerally not outside of the bar-band level, but it is highly variable.
- onlyrealcuzzo 6mo ago> Or they didn't want to commit to the extra shows until demand was clear I think the whole point is that only Superstar Divas used to be able to operate like this. Now, even "starving artists" are employing grey-area price-gouging techniques. My anecdata is that concert fatigue is real. I doubt this is going to bode well in the mid or long term. My crystal ball doesn't work any better than anyone else's though...
- dfxm12 6mo agoIn the era of venues, ticket sellers and resellers being one and the same, a show is never really sold out. It's a marketing tool, yes, but in the context of the "underplay", it's also a way to limit supply, thus increasing the price of the ticket in order to collect fees on that inflated ticket price as many times as possible.
- xchip 6mo agoI'm sure this article could be a tweet.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- bluegatty 6mo agoI don't think that this is a primary dynamic for music. Partly, but not really to fans. I don't think fans are extra hyped because something sold out. It helps, but I don't think that's a motivating factor. Within the industry - I can see that. Producers, managers, booking, PR, etc everyone loves the bandwagon. And a big artists not selling as they would is kind of negative news, but I don't think that has anything to do with people respond to the next album.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- etchalon 6mo ago"Money. The answer is always money."
- CPLX 6mo agoI've been in and around the music business since the 90s. This is not new. There's even a term for it, it's called an "underplay". Just a preference for the artist. If you go for bigger venues and stretch a little bit, you might end up filling it, and then you'd make more money. If you underplay, then you're guaranteed to have a good vibe at the show, which musicians care a lot about. That's really, I think, the dynamic that most people use. There is an aspect of it that is public perception-facing, but I've been around a lot of musicians ranging from just starting out to household names, I think it's mostly a trade-off between those two options. Just about every musician prefers smaller venues because they're more fun to play, and less financial risk. Like anything there are exceptions. For example, an artist who wants to headline Madison Square Garden for the first time might make a different choice. But I don't think the strategy is that much about cleverness. It's just about preference.
- scelerat 6mo agoThere is a psychological hype effect which affects both audience and performers in a capacity room of any size. Whether it's 50 or 5000, if the room is full, you feel it, and it adds to the excitement, tension and maybe magic of the event. There's nothing worse than playing an empty room, and some of the best times I've ever had have been with a band and thirty people crammed into a living room.
- spacechild1 6mo agoAs a musician myself, I can 100% confirm this. For me personally, small gigs are often the most fun because the audience is very close and you can actually see/hear the reaction of individual people. Noticing one or two excited audience members can already make a difference. Conversely, a Jazz musician once told me that seeing me in the front row, visibly enjoying his performance, fired him up. Also, in a small venue it is much easier to hang out with the audience after the concert. One of the most fun gigs I had was a garage concert at a friend's place in Luxembourg we did on our way to a festival. The fact that weed had just been legalized in Luxembourg certainly contributed to a very receptive and enthusiastic audience. We ended up repeating our whole set :-D
- shaftway 6mo agoThe best concert experience I ever had was in the mid-90's. I went to a medium level band (frequent radio play at the time, but you probably wouldn't recognize the name now) at a smaller venue. But I guess nobody really promoted the show at all. Only 8 people showed up for the audience. The band didn't seem to care and rocked it anyway. During their most popular song the singer got down off the stage and passed the mic around, we all sang karaoke style.
- colechristensen 6mo agoI don't know, at several of my favorite places, capacity is 10% too much.
- scottcorgan 6mo agoit's the same concept as sales at Kohls
- mikey_p 6mo agoThis is pretty normal on some level. I used to work in audio production and one of the jokes is that the end of an artists career usually resembles the beginning. I.e. older musicians 'classic rock' etc being relegated to largely county fairs and casinos once they have reached the peak of their fame and are on the backside. Also production costs do tend to balloon dramatically each time you jump from clubs -> theaters, theaters -> arenas, arenas -> stadiums, etc.
- zoogeny 6mo agoAs an aside, I've noticed an uptick in the amount of YouTube ads for music artists and their live shows. The amount of faux-organic hype being generated feels like it has increased recently, with those same artists who I have never heard of showing up on podcasts. It feels like a new era of payola.
- FatherOfCurses 6mo agoAs an antidote to this I would like to offer my experience in the industry in the mid-90's specifically around Garth Brooks. I've never been a fan of his music, but at that time he really seemed to be focused on ensuring that as many regular fans got to see his shows as possible. He limited the price of his tickets to I believe $25. This was when he was at the peak of his fame so he easily could have gotten away with charging much more. Secondly he would often book a massive amount of dates in each city but only announce one of them. The next show in the block of dates would go on sale after the previous one sold out. It didn't fully stop scalpers but the unpredictable nature of how many shows in total there would be and when they would be on sale cut down on a lot of the scalping. Again, not a huge fan of his music, but he seemed genuinely interested in helping his fans get to his shows.
- SoleilAbsolu 6mo agoDid he ever book shows as Chris Gaines (his alt-rock alter ego) in that timeframe?
- wodenokoto 6mo agoThere has been a huge shift in why musicians do live shows and with it a shift in how they price them. 25 years ago, I did an odd job taking calls for Livenation for a U2 Show. While not cheap, ticket prices were well below market value and strict purchase limits in attempts to curb scalpers. Today the same venue starts auctioning tickets when nearing sold out and ticket master runs a scalping service. My explanation is back when records was big business, tours were seen as more of a promotional tool. Today very few artist makes sustainable money off of record sales or streaming so music sales is more of a promotion for other services, the main one being live shows.
- fullshark 6mo agoBack then live shows were advertisements for the album, these days albums are advertisements for the live shows.
- phaedryx 6mo agoI helped run a website selling tickets for a venue that had a Garth Brooks concert. I can confirm that they did the same thing in the 2010's.
- vivzkestrel 6mo ago- related article it seems (everything is a psy op https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/16/everything-we-like-is-a-psyop/ https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/16/everything-we-like-is-a-ps...)
- ravenstine 6mo agoHow am I supposed to know if I want to sign up for Bloomberg if I can't read any of the article, then accept cookies, and then get two nag screens? Dumbass website.