“Many years ago,” a perspicacious successor of ours will say in 50 years’ time, when all of us will be dead or as good as dead, “it was a most peculiar business. The promoters were entrepreneurs, who took 100% of the risk of each concert, in return for between 1% and 15% of the net profit.” Loud guffaws will be heard from the assembled listeners. “Of course, this business model collapses as soon as a concert loses a lot of money, which, unfortunately, plenty of them did. But the promoters tried to compensate for this by what was euphemistically called ‘creative accounting’, and the artistes’ representatives justified the inequitable deals to themselves and others by asserting, with perfect circular reasoning, that the promoters indulged in creative accounting anyway.” By this time, sides will be splitting loudly. “The really funny thing” he will go on “was that the promoters thought they were doing terribly well, one way or another, and even when their deshabille was pointed out, they seemed to walk more proudly than ever…”

”Thankfully,” I hope he will continue, “it all changed, when…” There has been enormous change in our business since the new Millennium dawned. It has become increasingly corporate, as Live Nation (formerly Clear Channel) and AEG have expanded, (and it will continue to do so, as other multinationals, including both record and ticketing companies, join the fray). It has grown, both in terms of turnover and significance, with the same rapidity with which the record industry has declined. In the last Millennium, artistes regularly charging at least a million dollars a performance were comparatively rare. Nowadays, their number is well into double figures and is increasing rapidly. A lot of this change has been very positive and has resulted in a business, which is more robust and optimistic perhaps than ever before. It seems that the live music industry is growing up and discovering a new, more self-confident identity. But while much of the old establishment is gradually being swept away, there is one issue which has not yet been addressed, namely the ludicrous imbalance of power in the business relationship between artiste and promoter.

The historical origins of this imbalance are clear. Some promoters undoubtedly exploited artistes in the early years (in fact going back around fifty years from now, when many of us were not, or were only just, alive, for those who like to be reminded of their ephemerality), but as artistes individually and collectively woke up to the fact that each one of them is unique, whereas there are more promoters in each major city than you can shake a Gibson Les Paul at, so the scales were tipped ever further in their favour by the bevy of advisers they employed to defend their rights and maximize their income. Which is all well and good, except that the scales have now lurched so far in the other direction, that the profession of promoter can only really be recommended to someone who is either star-struck or ridiculously rich or lucky enough to be Dutch. For this imbalance, and all that it entails, has resulted not just in financial difficulties for many promoters, but in an unpleasant and distasteful atmosphere of mistrust that pervades the business like the stench of decay around a municipal rubbish tip.  The preservation of this imbalance, rationalized by the arguments born of mistrust, puts in question the future stability of our business. There is a small central-European country, which is illustriously famous for its musical past, admittedly a different type of music to the one we normally peddle, but music is music, in all its manifold forms. It was the spawning ground of the mysterious Magic Flute, the majestic Creation, the ethereal Romantic Symphony, the electrifying Resurrection Symphony and even of the revolutionary 12-tone technique. But now, with that glorious past seeming increasingly distant, there are more, relatively recent, music business bankruptcies in this little country, than major music promoters. Is that the bright future we all have to look forward to: rich-list artistes being paid king’s ransoms on a daily basis, at the expense of the taxpayer and various suppliers? In another even smaller republic, further to the South-East, I am currently witnessing the unedifying spectacle of new promoters on the block, fighting each other for the honour of paying 7-figure sums to various artistes, apparently oblivious to the limited buying power of this nation’s rather small and impecunious population.

Of course, there are undoubtedly a number of countries, which are economically strong enough to be able to continue making a successful business out of concerts, despite the universally inequitable deal structures. But the point is that, with all the change which is currently going on, and especially with the corporatization process which is underway, we have a unique opportunity, not just to find a more balanced relationship between the different parties, but to completely change the framework within which those parties operate. For precisely the corporatization of the industry offers us the possibility to eradicate its most serious faults and deficiencies. With 360-degrees being the new industry buzzword, the ownership by one company of all the links in the chain between artiste and ticket-buyer, especially if coupled with centralized risk, can eliminate the causes of mistrust and deception that plague our industry. And at the same time, the increased power of the multinationals can act as a counter-balance to the currently overwhelming power of the artistes, resulting in equitable deals being struck that make good business sense for all parties.   Some may say I am advocating an adoption of the major record company model, and look what happened to them. Well, to a certain extent, I am, but the current difficulties of the record companies are largely a result of their inability to combat internet piracy, and are not because their fundamental business structure is flawed. As long as we keep our eyes open to our own potential pitfalls (and internet-generated secondary ticketing is one of them), we can successfully apply a global, corporate model to our industry, which will help to clean up many of its bad practices, while still leaving plenty of room for independent artistes and promoters to operate and thrive.

If we fail to grasp the nettle, we will perpetuate an anachronistic, outmoded system, which foments ill feeling and instability, and could ultimately lead to a collapse of the business, as unbridled greed on the one hand, and myopic, competitive mania on the other, combine unwittingly to produce the downfall of both. So this is your wake-up call, or, as they say in that little central-European republic, “Oh Mensch, gib Acht!” If we carry on the way we are going, many promoters will almost certainly be left with no clothes on, not just metaphorically, but in some cases literally. Better by far for the business to reform itself, than to wait for change to be forced upon it by dire emergency. Then our perspicacious successor can indeed say: ”Thankfully, it all changed, when…” Which doesn’t mean that they will all live happily ever after. But it does mean that a mature and stable business will replace the divided structure we now live and work in. 

© Tim Dowdall/2008