The most bullish part of the music business has always been the live sector. It’s easy to see why. If you’re putting your shirt on the line week in and week out to sell tickets, you too would be belligerent. You have to believe in the act you’ve bet your house on, even if your gamble means sleepless nights in the weeks leading up to the show when tickets refuse to budge.
Yet behind the scenes, it’s a much different matter and the bullishness fades a little. Promoters are no daws and they know that things now are nowhere near as good for the sector as before, due to decreased margins, increased competition, the corporatisation of the sector, festival flops, acts who want promoters to work for a fee rather than a percentage and a paucity of bands who can really do the business year in and year out. When you come across promoters talking candidly to their peers at something like ILMC, Eurosonic or the recent International Festival Forum, the bullish bravado is conspicuous by its absence.
At such gatherings, it’s clear that the biggest cause of concern for the sector is finding, cultivating and developing future stadium fillers and festival headliners. The live industry never possessed much talent development expertise – they always leaned on the record side for that skill – and this defect has come back to bite them in the ass.
If you want some statistical proof of this, take a trip to Dublin’s docklands and the 3Arena (previously known as The O2 and The Point). It’s interesting to examine the venue’s ticket sales since it was revamped, renamed and re-opened in 2008. In its first year under its new handle, it reported a staggering 927,000 ticket sales which, given the fact that the economic boom had just turned to bust, was quite a performance.
But dive deeper into live music industry publication Pollstar's archive and it's clear that the venue has never performed anywhere near that peak since, with a run of 670,000 or so in 2010 and 2013 being the best of the bunch. Last year, the venue did 470,875 tickets and figures for 2015 to date are at 262,102. There are a few heavy hitters due between now and year's end – such as U2 and One Direction – but it would take every show selling out (and some of the shows may involve reduced capacity because of production issues) to take the dirty look off the figures.
The other takeaway is the actual new acts heading to Dublin 1. The only arena newcomers on the coming soon list for this quarter are Kodaline and Imagine Dragons, while Foals and The 1975 are already in the 2016 diary. The reduction in the number of tickets sold at the capital’s biggest room is problematic, but the small number of acts who can reliably sell those tickets is equally troubling for the long run. Best pucker up and act bullish because it’s set to be a bumpy ride.
YOU’VE GOT TO HEAR THIS
Catherine Howe - What A Beautiful Place
Released by the then 21-year-old singer in 1971, this is as lovely a set of pastoral, blissful folk songs as you're likely to ever meet. Beautiful, hazy, wide-eyed melancholia all perfectly framed by Howe's warm, ethereal vocals.
ETC
The Spook of the Thirteenth Lock have consistently shown themselves to be one of Dublin’s more fascinating acts and their next movement is certainly in keeping with that rep. Set to be performed at The Hangar on November 21st, Lockout sees the band joined by an electric guitar orchestra and the legendary Donal Lunny for an epic piece inspired by the 1913 Lockout and its relevance on present day events.
