The Cadence: Charting A Course For Concerts
by Jacob Smid
The Cadence is a newsletter discussing all things Music x Content x Brands, produced by GoodLife Music and Content Curious.
We believe that the great reset to the music industry caused by COVID will usher in a new era where creativity sits at the head of the table and IP at the center of the conversation.
We intend to keep this Substack free for all of our global colleagues (i.e., you) and encourage you to share it. If you want to get in touch, email us: thecadence@contentcurious.com.
No one in the live music space has spent the past year working on what they expected (if they’ve been able to work at all).
On March 2nd, 2020, it was announced that Jacob Smid was joining MRG Live as Managing Director. What seemed like a natural next step for the successful now US-based Canadian promoter whose previous roles included leading U.S. festival expansion for SFX and leading IMG Events Global Music & Festivals division instead became a daily exercise in managing through uncertainty.
10 months into the shutdown, The Cadence asked Jacob to tell us his current view of the live music landscape and to prognosticate on the future of the business.
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The one thing that ties together what's happening in the live space globally is chaos and inconsistency. For every good news story, there's a bad news story. For any overregulation, there's a complete lack of regulation. Nevermind state-to-state, but county-to-county.
In light of all this, the most important role of any professional in this industry is to stay informed of all the variables and be able to give directional guidance to artists, venues, partners, ticket holders.
For example, when an agent or an artist calls and says, “Can I do shows in September?” the answer can't just be “maybe.” You have to have an answer and you have to have a reason for your answer (even though, of course, the answer is “maybe”).
SURVIVING TODAY
Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash
Measures to mitigate uncertainty have been mainly seen in the industry advocating for financial assistance from governments. This has occurred throughout Europe in a quite material and organized way, and to a lesser or later extent, in Canada and the U.S. — particularly with the $15 Billion in funding for Save our Stages grants earmarked in the larger stimulus package approved in December.
The best news in recent days has been the study out of Germany that shows low risk of infection at indoor shows that was mentioned by Dr. Fauci when he predicted a return to live events by fall of this year. But it remains to be seen which governments will accept these sorts of results as part of a potential phased plan to reopen as opposed to waiting for full-scale vaccination or herd immunity.
The difficulty in predicting government mandates has been seen at all levels. Our company produced a holiday drive-thru event in British Columbia in collaboration with a major brand partner. This was not a park and watch event like the kind that causes consternation over the summer, but a strict no-contact experience where the audience never left their vehicle. Nevertheless, the event was canceled after one day of operations as part of broader providence-wide measures being instituted, only to have the government reverse course in a minor update two weeks following, at which point the event had passed.
While British Columbia has a well documented positive track record in managing the pandemic, it has caused situations such as this one where the initial restrictions are extreme and require advocacy and lobbying to get them overturned to a more appropriate level.
At the same time on the opposite end of the spectrum, lawsuits like the ones filed in Florida and other similar legal actions being prepped have the potential to completely overturn government ordinances. This shows the inconsistency caused by various levels of government not finding ways to agree on policy and confusion over jurisdiction which is creating the opportunity for business owners to try to force the most favorable rules through the courts. In other words, uncertainty isn’t going anywhere.
THRIVING TOMORROW
Photo by Nicholas Green on Unsplash
Unlike Charles Barkley, I don’t believe in guarantees. In the short term, I think 2022 is probably going to look a lot like 2018. But 2025 is going to look very different.
Festivals look to be in pretty good standing to take place this fall in a variety of North American regions. The core "festival-goers" have been largely less affected psychologically by the pandemic and are ready to get back at it; we see this in the positive traction of destination festivals and marquee names in late-2021 / early-2022.
The urge to want to go out and party over-indexes nicely with those audiences, from country music to EDM festivals. As in 2019, the boutique festivals and the AAA properties will continue to thrive given either their flexible scale or their position on millions of "bucket lists." It will be interesting to watch the festivals in that middle ground, as well as the new festivals, which will still take millions of dollars to develop and are dependent on investors of all shapes and sizes.
Headliner talent was at a premium already and the pandemic's impact on music discovery, "star" development and the volume of opportunities will continue to stress the cost of the top lines of any festival poster with unknown ROI on some of the newest of "headliners" who have yet to prove their ability to sell out arenas.
These macroeconomic factors hold for Live Nation (which recently traded at an all-time high while the core of its business was in hibernation) as a whole. Its ability to continue to dictate large swaths of the industry will be contingent on if investors continue to see that there is value to consolidation and to find efficiency in that scale.
The reality is that LN's core pillars in ticketing, brand partnership and large/global tours have lots of inventory that is ready to deploy over the next 24 months. It will be interesting to see how consumer confidence from a safety and economic perspective evolves, especially for those fans who would go to 1 or 2 shows per year historically. In the event they need to make a choice between a Peleton membership, a trip, or another ticket to see the Jonas Brothers, how will they choose?
For small- to middle-size venues, those experiences and offerings will always be in demand. Not only for consumers but also for the artists. Artists want to go there. It's part of the development process. We know many of these consumers go to multiple shows and the investment is relatively low. This is the "latte" of the live music scene, a small indulgence, perhaps as part of a bigger night out.
One thing that will be interesting to see is, with the transformation of the music discovery cycle with everything from Spotify to TikTok, is how this will impact "tour support" and decision making for the really early stage acts that have great digital traction—or at least, the appearance of great traction and very little history.
The biggest game-changer and most positive thing to come out of the pandemic thus far has been the industry coming together more than it ever has before. Historically, for-profit live music producers have been disorganized compared to similar industries like film. Groups like the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), the Canadian Live Music Association and hundreds of other local and national associations have made great strides in organizing and are hopefully creating a structure for future advocacy, even beyond COVID.
Regardless, it will be extremely difficult to operate as just a promoter with scale as an independent. There will always be a place for the venue-owner-operator in the midsize market and venue space if one can manage any sort of real estate risk. There is lots of dead retail and other space looking for content, so the real estate advantage may no longer be the most important thing long term.
Figuring out how to layer your offering—not only to the audience but to an artist—and how to build on top of that is going to be very important. For the independents, a mix of "river of nickels" and "hit'em where they ain't" baseball mentality with a little bit of Elon Musk spirit of adventure is probably some part of the recipe for the new world!
TAKEAWAYS
The most salient statements from recent industry articles.
1. The Moderation War Is Coming to Spotify, Substack, and Clubhouse
As moderation takes hold on social media giants, other major platform operators (and the major labels that own part of them) need to consider what they could be liable for.
Takeaway: “I think [Spotify will] be able to maintain their current line because there is just so much broadly offensive or wrong podcast and musical content out there.”
Photo by Mildly Useful on Unsplash
2. What to Know About Music’s Copyright Gold Rush
Pitchfork took a deep dive into the recent music publishing headlines and came up with some real treasures, like the increased capital gain tax and Bob Marley Vegas show [!!!] driving the bull market.
Takeaway: “Why would you spend your time trying to create something new at the expense of your catalog, when your catalog is already filled with songs that people know and love and have demand for?”
3. Bye Bye, Mixcloud LIVE Beta!
While DJs have spent the pandemic hopping from platform to platform for their livestreaming needs, Mixcloud has been somewhat quietly building a robust platform that solves takedowns the way they always have—by paying for rights.
Takeaway: We have built out many core features like the ability to legally save recordings of your streams, high fidelity 320kbps audio, improved stability, and negotiated the music licenses that ensure the artists who are played, get paid.