Low turn outs at metal shows

[Symphony]

Just picking up on this thread from the PPUSA forum which makes for an interesting read.

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/progpower-usa/721443-low-crowds-recent-metal-tours.html

Although mainly discussing the US market, I think there are similarities over here in the UK and mainland Europe as well.

Clearly if you are an Iron Maiden, Metallica, Slayer etc there almost certainly isn't an issue but for bands like Firewind, PQ etc it is a different story without doubt.

Admittedly we are facing tough economic times all round and I understand as much as anybody the need to pay your rent/mortgage, put food on the table etc

The issues from a band perspective are

1. Album Sales hampered by illegal downloads (or theft as I like to call it).

2. A drop in the number of people prepared or able to get out and support the underground scene

3. As a result of #2, this has an impact on merchandise sales at shows....which then has an impact on #4

4. Promoters, with some honourable exceptions, not even offering deals that will cover costs which means that bands are losing money not only on album sales but also on touring revenue as well.

Inevitably this leads to some further questions, not least.....

A. Is this the beginning of the end for albums as we know them? Clearly the younger generation, in the main, has no interest in the physical product, liner notes etc. I listen to people talking about the "new song from band x" rather than "the new album" these days.

B. I'm sure the advent of shows being streamed "online" will further affect the touring...unless there will be a "pay per view" element to this.

The business wheel needs re-inventing before many bands "go under". There is also the argument that the market is "over saturated", partly due to musicians needing to be in 2 or 3 bands to make ends meet these days.


What are your opinions guys?

 

[1928]

It saddens me to hear so many people no longer interested in a full album. I can't see myself doing that... I still drool over a single being released, and then actually getting the album in my hands and hearing the work as a whole. I've talked many times about how I started off getting into this music as a filthy thief, downloading gross amounts of music - and now I pre-order an album and simply wait for it to arrive. I'm proud of that. Didn't hear a slice of the recent Edguy, Dream Theater, Opeth, or upcoming Iced Earth albums aside from the singles, and the experience when I got the album was wonderful. Far cry from where I began, certainly. Did that with many other albums this year too, Blood Alliance included, I'm proud to say.

As a US fan, I drive about 2.5 hours just to get anywhere near a band. I'm one of the dedicated few. It saddens me to see such small turnouts over here - even though I feel like power metal's popularity is growing in general, I can see that artists as a whole are drawing smaller crowds. Can't say I go and see anybody but bands I enjoy, but I remember back in 2009, over here, Stratovarius played the smallest show I had ever been to, there had to have only been a hundred people in the audience. Edguy only played a slightly larger crowd, about 150, definitely no more than 200. Most other bands I've seen have only had a few hundred people max - the venues have rarely been a max capacity.

However the financial aspect for a fan/customer makes it hard to support these bands. I really want to go to see Firewind, who is playing a week from now, a couple hours away, and tickets are only 16 USD - unbelievably cheap - but I just can't afford the gas and wear on my car to make it worthwhile. Same with Opeth - 70 USD at the end of the month, plus gas 3 hours away, I just can't do it. When I go to a show, I spend a lot of money supporting the bands by buying the ticket and usually at least one or two pieces of merchandise for my own greed and to show support for the band.

I do everything I possibly can to help out artists these days - I just wish more people would follow suit. Even people who consider themselves diehard fans of a band won't buy an album, they'll steal it, and then they'll say you have to support them by buying their stuff at a show, trying to justify why they steal... At least just come out and say, "I'm lazy and don't want to spend money on it," because we know that's everybody's reasoning.

It very much saddens me to see music in the state that it is... I for one love the physical product, in fact just last night I was cataloging my CDs in Microsoft Access in true nerd fashion, and I loved seeing this gigantic pile of cases full of different artwork and music. I just can't believe the extents to which people will try to justify not buying things a band puts out and expecting them to still continue making a living from it. And then if a band complains about not having money to do something, there will always be people who say something like, "Do it for the music, not the money," herp derp etc.

Basically, I'm at a loss. I try to convince people to buy music and support who they like and I get laughed at. It doesn't make sense, it's like I'm living in bizarro world. I'm afraid Stratovarius and Edguy won't even come back to the US because of the low show numbers - Stratovarius didn't even come back to support Elysium and now that Jorg Michael is gone they probably won't. Now I'm feeling even worse about missing Firewind, because I thought with such cheap tickets they'd be able to pull a decent-sized crowd...

 

[MetalCodd]

We wonder why bands that few people have even heard of get low turnouts for their gigs? Hmmm....

 

[Symphony]

I think it's probably only going to get worse as well for bands of a certain stature, ourselves included.

When you consider things from a business perspective......if making and producing a product is actually a loss making affair then ultimately it is not sustainable in the long term, no matter how much we would wish this to be otherwise.

 

[Power_Metal_Dom]

A. Is this the beginning of the end for albums as we know them? Clearly the younger generation, in the main, has no interest in the physical product, liner notes etc. I listen to people talking about the "new song from band x" rather than "the new album" these days.

This is something that I can't relate to, maybe because of my own tastes or the company I keep but I'd say I have a broad number of music fans as friends and it's rarely anything but album talk. I personally don't even like singles. I can understand their purpose from a marketing perspective but I'll never listen to a single when it comes out before the album because so often with the type of music I'm into the track is integral to the overall flow or feel of the album. I like to hear it all in one big go so I can take each track in context.

But I can certainly see in this day and age, with people much more like to link a youtube vid of a single track than recommend an album, why there's a more singular approach over the whole physical album. I'm not sure there's much bands can do about that, they're obviously not going to put their whole album up online for free but perhaps more bands are giving a one day listen through (streaming the whole album for a limited time) to get people on board with the whole product. Or releasing more special editions of the album with preorder bonuses to ensure the CD is being bought, I've always said something as simple as a few scribbled signatures included is worth a lot to fans and costs the band a pen and a bit of wrist ache!

As far as low turnouts at gigs go. Well, I can see why as a recent financially/geographically challenged individual. Seeing Edguy recently cost nearly €40 after shipping and then getting to the gig itself another €15, throw in a tshirt as a memento and we're talking €75. This is why I simply don't understand who the feck would complain over paying 7-10 quid for an underground band, I'd pay twice that much! It's a sad state of affairs when bands have to pull gimmicks to get fans off their arse and out to gigs like that 70,000 tonnes of metal tropical cruise

It's as Steve always says, a catch 22 situation. You need to tour a lot to get the crowd numbers and get the merch out to earn the income but you burn through money driving the guys and the equipment around and even more buying onto the stage for your slot. When I look at the extent of tours like Blind Guardian or Sabaton or Alestorm I can scarcely believe they've been on the road that long, the numbers must roll well into 5 figures. Simply impossible for many bands of modest stature.

 

[1928]

What's crazy about that is when they go to other countries, they don't even (usually) play massive venues. Blind Guardian played to a crowd of no more than a couple hundred people in Chicago. Blind Guardian! Same with Gamma Ray. The fact they can even have the financial backing to come over here and play across the whole country mystifies me, but then again with bands like them I'm sure the label is confident in who they are, so they're more likely to help fund them.

On a related note, I'm afraid Stratovarius will never come back here due to this.

 

[MetalCodd]

While I believe those who cite financial difficulties as reasons not to see gigs, I don't think that this is the main cause of low turnouts. Financial difficulties aren't stopping people from seeing the big shows with £50-£100 prices. This leads me to believe that those who are too poor to see shows are in a minority, and if you actually count the number of people who complain about lack of money on a discussion forum it wouldn't come to that many (probably less than 15 per forum).

I know I probably sounded a bit arse-holey with my previous post about how famous the aforementioned bands were, but that thread on the PPUSA forum has gone through 6 pages and only one person, at the very beginning has actually touched on how many people have heard of the bands that they are talking about. These bands are virtually unknown in the UK and USA. They aren't even talked about in the hard rock/metal press in either country. The record companies in these countries have decided that certain styles of rock and metal are dead and don't want anything to do with them. They're generally written off as a lot of cheesy bollocks, so they don't get pushed. There is only one way they get media coverage, and that is by selling them as gimmicks. Step forward The Darkness, Dragonforce, Lordi, Alestorm, Steel Panther, Reckless Love and even Sabaton. I like all of these bands a lot, but the record companies will only push them because they have gimmicks to sell, or they're marketed as a bit of light-hearted silliness to go with the "serious" stuff. Personally, I think that all of the bands listed have real talent to go with the fluff, but the mainstream rock crowd won't see that, and will get bored of the gimmick and move on.

One ray of hope in this area is that Joe Bonamassa, Chickenfoot and Black Country Communion have been going places recently thanks to promotion from Classic Rock and Planet Rock. I am not big fans of these bands but seeing them headline the medium-big venues is better than the amount of shit that gets big these days.

And now for another rant I have had brewing for a while about bands from my local area, which is leafy, suburban Surrey. Threshold come from Virginia Water, which can also boast Thin Ice studios, where Power Quest, Dragonforce and Intense have recorded material. Shadowkeep come from Guildford. To-Mera come from Surbiton. The Turk siblings from Sorcerer's Spell come from Godalming. The best that all of these bands have managed is support slots with bands that can fill up a small-medium sized club. Meanwhile, You Me At Six, a horseshit joke pop-punk band from Weybridge are headlining the Brixton Academy. They have the baggy trousers, the emo haircuts, as well as the shitty guitar playing, dumb vocals and sub-Blink 182 (another shit band) songwriting. The record companies eat that shit right up, which means that the Kerrang reading (and watching) kids have to eat it up as well.

So you can talk about illegal downloading, the death of the album, the economic situation and "supporting the scene" until you're blue in the face. But none of these things are killing the small artists. If nobody is buying their music or seeing their gigs it is because nobody has heard of them.

 

[Andiferum]

I promise you Sorcerer's Spell will be back bigger and better than ever, Mr. Nick! Looking forward to playing some shows once things are ready to go. Other than that, I pretty much agree with every point you made, which is pretty rare for me on a forum!