OFF: Concert Attendance

[Jon Jarrett]

On Wed, 13 Jun 2001, ANDREW GARIBALDI wrote:

> There is a virus about - it's called 'poor concert attendance'.
> Over here in the UK we have always had the idea that the USA events such as
> this would pull in more of an audience, but this now seems to be so rampant
> a situatiion everywhere.
> On the electronic music front, an annual event in Holland previously called
> Klem, now 'E-live' has been canceleled this year due to poor ticket sales -
> 4 years ago they were getting over 1000 people. The partner event, Alpha
> Centauri, only got 600+ people this year by getting Rick Wakeman to
> headline. In the UK, you couldn't put on the annual electronic music
> festivals we used to do without reckoning on around 125 people where it used
> to be 300-400+.
> On the space-rock front, Alan Davey's gigs are getting better attended but
> the average audience is rarely into three figures, low even for some of the
> small venues played, while Spacehead and Dr Hasbeen havea similar situation.
> Yet Hawkwind still do it wherever they go, obviously the known name that
> people put themselves out for.
> The theory runs that those of a 'certain age' or income bracket are either
> jaundiced of all the small conceerts and only go to big ones - or if they
> have to travel distance to the gigs,then the expensive peripherals make it
> all too much  - and so on.
> So, are the up and coming bands, even the known ones, doomed to play to such
> small audiences and is there no way of redressing this situation?
> Just a thought for all...........

        I don't think this is the whole answer but I'm inclined to blame
the Internet for this. The things is that it's a marvellous tool for
reaching the people who care about such and such a band. You know where
all your fans are and so obviously you concentrate your effort there. But
it's no substitute for getting out there and putting posters up, getting
people onto venue mailing lists, handing out flyers, because those people
you reach with the net are *thousands* of miles apart and not many of them
will go to more than one gig. I think part of the problem is that the net
*seems* like such a useful publicity tool that people forget to use the
others. The net should be where people go to get information about an
event they've heard about, but there's so much of it that the people you
*need* to reach, the locals who'll just come to see or because it might be
a laugh and they can always go down the pub instead, the people you
*can't* rely on to find out by word of mouth, will never stumble across it
there. They need to walk past a poster by accident.

        Of course fewer people are going to concerts because travel costs
are going up, and home entertainment is so much better than it used to be
and so much cheaper than going out; but I'm not sure everyone does
everything they can to fight this. I've never had the time to do it
properly myself but I've not seen many other band posters round here
since... well, the Bedouin gig before the one I organised, which was
nearly three years ago now. That's my thoughts on the matter, anyway. They
may not be terribly coherent as I'm falling asleep at the keyboard but
there you go. Yours,
                     Jon

ObCD: Blue Oyster Cult - _Blue Oyster Cult_
--
           Jon Jarrett                     "Two men say they're Jesus,
          (01223 514989)                   One of 'em must be wrong..."
   jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk              (Mark Knopfler)