Not Selling Out-The Rockstar Edition

I talked yesterday about why it wasn’t necessarily the worst thing in the world if a show didn’t sell out.  I’m going to talk a bit more about that today and focus it on the concert business, since that’s where this whole rumpus started.  If you work in another genre, I still think this is interesting and useful, so don’t go away.

Back in the old days, concerts sold out.

That’s not necessarily a true statement, but it feels true.  It seems like it’s true, and to a large degree, it may be true.  It’s up to you, of course, to define what “the old days” were.

For me, it’s the world before the dawning of the Live 2.0 era, or around the turn of the century, once consumers and producers began benefiting from the Internet revolution.

Ok, so let’s agree for argument’s sake that back in the old days, concerts sold out.

There were some good reasons for that.

There weren’t many artists.  It’s only a slight exaggeration to say that you were either selling out the Forum or the Garden or you were in your garage.  Not much in between.  The great thing about the Live 2.0 world is that you can have a legitimate profession as a musician without having to be the .00001% who get incredibly rich and famous and get to drive Rolls Royces into swimming pools.

But back in the “old days” of Live 1.0, that wasn’t an option.  It was pretty much all or nothing, and for almost everyone, it was nothing.

Another thing about the old days was that concert prices were deliberately set low.  This wasn’t done out of good will toward the fans.  It was done because concerts were little more than promotional pieces for the album, tape or CD.  One show per town at a low price for one of only a few viable acts meant fast sell out.

Fast sell out meant a lot of people who looked for substitutes for the best thing, which is the show, and found CDs, records, tapes, 8-tracks, acetates, whatever.

Secondarily, prices were set low out of cowardice.  Venues and acts didn’t want to risk not selling the house so they priced well below market value to guarantee that they wouldn’t.

The reason that this model is no longer relevant is that the era of the old-fashioned drive a Rolls Royce in a swimming pool rock star is over.

That was so Live 1.0.

Just as Warhol said that everyone would have 15 minutes of fame, my corollary to that is that everyone’s a rock star somewhere.

You could be a very successful musical act, touring mid-size venues to adoring crowds and go completely unnoticed on the street.  You’re essentially moving through a very narrow tube of fame and acclaim.

But that’s not a bug; it’s a feature.  It’s only people who are overly sentimental about the ‘old days’ who boo-hoo about this.  If there had never been the Drive a Rolls Royce in a Swimming Pool Era of rock stars, we wouldn’t miss it at all.

I dare say most of us like our musical acts a little more life size.  Sure, the Beatles were gods, and that’s fine, but I don’t see any particular reason we should worry about whether our society is producing more rock gods of sufficient quality and quantity.

How about just musical acts we and others of our taste like and can relate to?

That’s Rock Star 2.0.  You can’t drive a Rolls Royce into a Swimming Pool or take your money and build a freaky amusement park on your estate, but you can make a living (possibly a very good one), make your music, connect with your fans, and most importantly, own your own career.

But you might not sell out Staples Center or Boston Garden.  Cry me a fargin’ river.

The world of Live 2.0 is about an ecosystem of niches, not Tall Towers of popularity.  It provides completely new opportunities to live entertainment entrepreneurs that simply didn’t exist before, including would be rock stars.

But if you’re sitting around worrying about the state of live music because the Pretenders are discounting some of their tickets at some show, you need to look around and see the big picture.  You may enjoy tap-dancing on the grave of Live 1.0 and the Rolls Royce in a Swimming Pool Era of rock stars.  It’s kinda fun.

But do it for too long and it tells me that while you see what’s ending, you’re too sentimental about the past to see what’s coming.