Counting the cost of the gig economy

© Simon Poulter 2017

I'm sure it's merely coincidence that, according to new figures from the British music industry body UK Music, gig-going has risen in this country during a period in which I returned to London after 17 years abroad. But given that I've been averaging one gig every two to three weeks since coming back last October, I'd like to think that, in my own small way, I'm keeping the real gig economy alive.

In its latest Wish You Were Here report, UK Music reveals that concert and festival attendance increased by 12 per cent during 2016, with 30.9 million people - almost three million more - going to events, generating £4 billion in direct and indirect spending. There was also a sizeable increase in the number of tourists coming to the UK for gigs, apparently adding more than 47,000 full-time jobs and spending, on average, £850 per trip.

Now, all this sounds very encouraging for the live music scene until you discover that much of this bounty came from the big venues, such as my near-neighbour, the O2, or Glasgow's SSE. Spending at the smaller venues (those I actually prefer) fell by 13%, continuing to raise concerns about the economic sustainability of Britain's independent music stages. It's something that UK Music and many of its members and affiliates are trying to do something about. "This success is being put at risk," chief executive Michael Dugher said in a press release. "That's why UK Music will continue to campaign to safeguard smaller music venues, many of which are fighting for survival. And, we will be pressing the Government to make sure the impact of Brexit does not damage our export trade or make it harder for UK artists to tour abroad and for overseas acts to come here.”

While I lived in Amsterdam and Paris, going to small, intimate venues was one of the immense charms of those cities. At Amsterdam's Paradiso and Le Cigale, Le Trianon and, yes, Le Bataclan in Paris, you could be up close and almost personal to acts that in the UK you'd have to see from Row Z of the biggest halls. Thanks to these modest theatres I've been a matter of yards away from Robert Plant, The Stone Roses, Paul Weller, the Manic Street Preachers, Kaiser Chiefs and many, many more. In fact, here's a secret: if you're thinking of coming to London to see one of the bigger bands play one of the bigger venues, check first that it wouldn't be cheaper and more rewarding to get the Eurostar to Paris...

Of course, what the UK Music report doesn't really share is the percentage of revenues generated by all the ancillary elements of gig-going. Just this week, Paul Sinclair, editor of the excellent Super Deluxe Edition music blog, was highlighting the habitual ripping off of punters at the big branded outdoor gigs.

In the superbly headlined 'Great Sausage Roll Swindle', Paul railed - quite justifiably - about how, having paid £220 for his family to attend last Saturday's British Summer Time event in London's Hyde Park (featuring Elbow, Tears For Fears and The Killers), he was then stung for food and drink he was forced to buy because his family wasn't allowed to bring its own catering in to enjoy as a picnic. "Time to vote with our wallets and not buy tickets to events that have this restrictive policy," Paul wrote. "I'm not going to accept it and I'm not going to attend another BST event for this very reason. Same with the O2 (which I loathe, anyway)."

On top of the well known problem of price gouging by so-called legitimate ticket agencies (which would take up a rather angry post all of its own), gig-goers face other hidden horrors: when The Foo Fighters cancelled their Wembley shows two years ago after the berk Dave Grohl broke his leg on stage in Gothenburg, I could only get a refund for the tickets themselves, and stoically accepted that I'd use the return flight from Paris as a family visit. However, when I challenged the Gigs And Tours ticket agency about refunding the "transaction" fee, they pointed out the Ts & Cs and that I wouldn't be getting my £2.50 back. OK, it's only a couple of quid, but it meant that over the two shows they would have pocketed a cool £450,000 from no Foo being fought at all. Harumph.

There is also the charge that concerts in the UK are more expensive than in other countries. I've certainly noticed a price difference that doesn't match up to exchange rate variations when buying tickets to see bands while I've been on holiday in America. Last Saturday The Times ran a damning story comparing ticket prices for 15 major touring acts, finding that the cheapest were, on average, 28 per cent more expensive in Britain than the United States. For example, tickets for the aforementioned Foos cost £62 for their UK dates but just £38 a pop for their US shows. Similar gaps were found for A-list acts like Katy Perry and Adele, although tickets for U2, Coldplay, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga were cheaper in Britain. Well, relatively cheaper.

Whatever you pay, it's a given that touring is an expensive business for the artists themselves. These days it's no longer a licence to print cash (a myth born from the tales from the '70s of acts like Led Zeppelin stuffing cash takings into suitcases thanks to the strongarm acumen of manager Peter Grant), unless you are Bruce Springsteen (whose The River tour last year grossed $268,300,000) or Roger Waters, whose epic three-year tour of The Wall reportedly took more than $458 million at the box office.

However, concert promoters say they have to take on the biggest risks when it comes to touring artists - covering the cost of hiring venues, insurance and paying for venue staff and security. According to The Times, the promoter also has to pick up Performing Rights Society royalty fees as well as pay for catering and transport for the talent. One promoter even told the newspaper that the high price of tickets is simply down to the bands: "Everyone is complaining that artists are asking for too much," she said, speaking anonymously. "Promoters wish they were making big money but they’re not. It's a risky business. Cash flow is always a problem. Big stars take 95 per cent of the revenue after costs."

© Simon Poulter 2017

For many artists, though, gigging and recording, recording and gigging, is a subsistence living. One leading rock musician, who is a good friend of mine, will barely make much profit from sell-out world tours of medium-sized venues, once wages and creative costs are taken into account. Not that he will complain, it's just that he's not - yet - in the echelon of the mega rock star. Being a rock star at all in 2017 is nothing like it was in 1971, when record sales and tours bought Malibu mansions and swimming pools in which to park the Roller. "Grab that cash with both hands and make a stack," as Pink Floyd satirised on Money.

Here, I'm caught in a bind. The truly great artists who still tour - a McCartney or the Stones, for example - are only going to make it work in the big halls, the venues where the fan experience is questionable, and the add-on costs of a hot dog and beer are unreasonable. Which means I can probably forgo seeing the legends.

Actually, given the choice I would rather enjoy the intimacy of a pub basement, venues like Camden's Green Note, where for a tenner acts like The Magic Numbers' Romeo and Michele Stodart will host evenings for the 30-odd people who can fit in the place, inviting their mates to join them. The bar and toilets are a better experience, too.

The other day I had the privilege to be at the famous Half Moon pub in Putney where, for just £5 I saw an incredible set by The Second Sons, a superb, rollicking young R'n'B band in the vein of Exile On Main Street-era Rolling Stones (whose producer, Chris Kimsey, worked on their current singles, along with the late Stones sax player Bobby Keys). With cold Guinness on tap at reasonable bar prices, this was as good a gig experience as you could possibly get. And you didn't have to spend the evening staring up at a giant video screen, either.

And the winner is...Black Tie, White Noise

Picture: JMEnternational

After a week of truly gloomy news in the entertainment industry, which has seen the deaths of David Bowie and Alan Rickman and, this morning, an announcement that Dame Barbara Windsor will leave EastEnders - for good!!! (I realise that this does sit at one end of the scale...) - it's time to allow regular sniping of the business of show to recommence.

Pop culture is, we must acknowledge without question, what it is. Almost by definition, there is little room for the eclectic and the obscure, and in an ideal world, elitist interests too. The Brit Awards, for example, began as a patriotic nod to HRH The Queen in her silver jubilee year with the appropriately stuffy British sobriquet, the 'British Phonographic Institute Awards', a celebration of the nation's music industry.

Over time, and via disastrous Mick Fleetwood/Sam Fox presenting combos, Chumbawumba tipping ice buckets over ministers of the crown and Jarvis Cocker goofing up Michael Jackson's grandiosity, it has evolved into a giant, paid ticket-only beanfeast at the 02 Arena.

No harm in that: in the 1960s, the annual NME Poll Winner's Party was the must-attend celebration of pop. And, as with all good awards ceremonies, the Brits always feature plenty to get annoyed about. No-one has a monopoly of opinion on what makes good and what makes bad, and taste is 90% subjectivity an probably less than 10% objectivity. But there are times when these awards dos - and I'll come to the Oscars and BAFTAs in a moment - and the nominations therein are just plain baffling.

For many years, the Brits were, as a celebration of the British music industry, less about artistic endeavour and more about recognising the number of "units" shifted. Personally I loathe those industry awards evenings where a load of predominantly male salesmen in hired Moss Bros dinner suits quaff wine, smoke cigars and behave boorishly, and then get the chance to stand on the stage of a London hotel ballroom to receive a trophy from some regional BBC news presenter. That, though, is the sort of environment where record company accountants would best enjoy acknowledgement.

The Brits, though, should be the Oscars of British music, where creative excellence is rewarded, where artistic daring is lauded and, more importantly, rock, pop and all the other genres get to be celebrated for giving those of us who love our music a damn good time. So, what about this year's Brits, nominations for which were announced this week? What sign is there of it being a superb festival of the last 12 month's grooviest choons?

Let's start with one of the perennial clangers, Best British Female. For years, this would feature almost exclusively Kate Bush, Annie Lennox, Yazz, Sade and, possibly, Clodagh Rodgers, even when they hadn't been near a recording studio in centuries. This year's BFF includes a nomination for the definitely dead Amy Winehouse, purely, it would seem, for having appeared on the soundtrack of an admittedly breathtaking film about her ill-fated life.

Inevitably Adele features prominently this year, the living embodiment of both irresistible force and unstoppable object. Depressingly, I don't see there to be any other winner, and although it's good to see the likes of Florence Welch, Jess Glynne and Laura Marling, where are Ellie Goulding and Lianne La Havas?

The nods for British Male Solo Artist - ​Aphex Twin, Calvin Harris, James Bay, Jamie xx and Mark Ronson - just depress on account of the fact Britain is currently lacking any bloke making anything truly interesting. And this in the week that we lost one of its greatest exponents.

Blur lead the odds for Best British Group, ​but with the exception of Foals, the appearance of Coldplay and One Direction, for God's sake, are all too predictable. Would it have killed the Brits committee to have included Noel Gallagher and his High Flying Birds in one of these two categories? Johnny Marr? They are quite good, if you weren't aware...

The Best International Group category has traditionally been a platform for either U2 or Foo Fighters, or Foo Fighters and U2. I may be wrong, but in truly lean years I'm sure U2 have also appeared in the Best British Group category on account of Adam Clayton being born in Oxfordshire. This year the list includes Eagles of Death Metal. As noble as this entry is for representing rock'n'roll defiance (and I'm not going to tread on the sensitivities of those - including two friends - who were caught up in the bloodbath in Paris), surely EoDM could have received a special award? Are they really one of the international groups of the year? Good, though, that the category also includes Alabama Shakes and Tame Impala.

I'm not going to go through every category, otherwise I will end up very angry indeed at the inclusion of Adele's suicidally dreary Hello as single of the year and, worse, Sam Smith's truly abject Bond theme Writing's On The Wall (yeah, I'll say...) for British Artist Video of the Year.

I know that, at 48, I have ascended to that life stage where I can legitimately be a curmudgeonly old fart, but the Brits just seem to lack a certain excitement, true pioneers. They were always meant to be a corporate event, but since getting the Smash Hits treatment, The Brits should at least amp it up and celebrate the actually good things about the British music industry.

I'm not going to re-engage the argument that music was better in the 70s, because it was and it wasn't, and there is no shortage of adventurous, exciting, music coming through now, as there has always been and always will. But for a trade association representing a national music industry that, arguably, has had more impact around the world than any others (face facts America), it should reflect the still-burning furnace of British musical invention with a bit more than Coldplay in any category that will have them.

However, there are greater crimes being committed in this, the season of black tie showbiz piss-ups. This week we've seen the 2016 nominations for the Oscars and their slightly lesser (in the mind of the rest of the world...) British cousin, the BAFTAs.

Whereas the Brits seem too populist and predictable, the film awards have, to some degree, been less so. I'm not so naive that I don't realise how film business politics plays a big part in nominations for the Oscars in particular, but there is something cringingly dismal that, yet again, diversity gets such a poor showing this year.

It should, of course, never be about tokenism, but were this last year's films so bereft of strong performances from black actors and women that the main categories this year shouldn't have a more diverse profile? Creed, Straight Outta Compton anyone...? No. This year's Academy Awards will be the whitest, straightest Oscars in living memory.

But it's not just ethnic or cultural diversity that have been badly served by the Oscars and, indeed, the BAFTAs. What about populism? Sure, The Martian is a big, balls-out bucket o'popcorn blockbuster, and it's actually quite refreshing to see a film like Mad Max: Fury Road get a look-in on gongs (though surely someone's having a laugh putting a post-apocalyptic Mad Max film up for an Oscar in the Make-up & Hair Styling category...).

But where are two of the year's biggest films - SPECTRE and Star Wars: The Force Awakens? It's possible that the latter failed to appear in time for consideration but, still, the lack of properly good, properly popular films - action, sci-fi or broad comedy - in these awards is a frustration as annually predictable as waking up on Christmas morning and not finding the keys to a Porsche under the tree.

Even with its flaws SPECTRE was exceptionally entertaining, and the Bond franchise is continuing to show every other action series how to do it. Likewise The Force Awakens, a staggeringly good romp and one that will appeal to sci-fi obsessives and regular film-goers with equal measure - damn good fun for a couple of hours on a Saturday night, with plenty of humour and pathos.

OK, neither might have, like, 'heavy, themes; neither might have the heft of human emotion stretched to its limits by survival in bear-infested forests or transgender acceptance, but does that make them any less worthy?

For the BAFTAs not to recognise either SPECTRE or The Force Awakens is even more shocking. As an awards ceremony that bigs up its Britishness (and you don't get more cut-him-open-and-he-bleeds-pure-tweed than Stephen Fry as co-host), and yet doesn't recognise two of the biggest commercial hits of the year, which were made on British soil, mostly, and which represent the very best of British acting and production talent, is just embarrassing.

Did I mention daylight snobbery? Of course I didn't. That would be terribly naughty of me...