Giving the Audience what they want
Giving the Audience what they want
A perspective on the 2024 Music Market
The Australian Music Therapy Association notes this:
“Music therapy is a research-based allied health profession in which music is used to actively support people as they aim to improve their health, functioning and well-being. It can help people of all ages to manage their physical and mental health and enhance their quality of life.”
Here we are in 2024 and it is clear that live music shows offered by pubs and clubs now form part of a growing wellbeing index for audiences.
We are witnessing an unprecedented time of opportunity for our industry right now.
The standard so called industryt players are talking doom and gloom. Tony Burke - who I love and admire - recently released funding for Live Music Venues and Arts Practitioners.
But I regret to say that he completely missed the point.
Again.
The bottom line is that until audiences get what THEY want, businesses in this industry will continue to go broke. Governments cannot legislate audiences to want to buy tickets for shows or festivals that simply do not interest them.
Bottom line - Right now, audiences desire to engage with music that makes them feel good, distracts them from the challenges of their lives, and offers them comfort and certainty.
When we feel uncertain about our future: rising prices, global political unrest, financial recovery from the lockdowns still pinching people, and a health baseline that now documented as compromised, we seek comfort and familiarity. In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, we globally and collectively sit in the second lowest level – Safety and Security. In this space, we do not have the capacity to take on anything new and therefore seek the known and the familiar.
Right now, the current trend of Australian audiences in this market cycle swings away from emerging music with one exception - COUNTRY music. Audiences are also hungry for legacy acts. But the biggest surprise is that since our time running our agency, right now is the highest level of market demand for high quality Tribute shows and Soundtrack (cover) shows..
So what do these things have in common?
Both Country and Soundtrack music follow familiar easy rhythmic and melodic patterns and offer ease of engagement for the consumer in a nostalgic time machine.
Music Festivals and Original Music Venues are packing up and closing their doors. Yet at the same time, audiences across the country are flocking to their local pub and club eager to enjoy the comfort of the familiar.
The psychology behind this current trend appears to be driven by the economic aftermath of the COVID lockdowns and the clearly current unsustainable financial landscape that 2024 offers.
Music Artists, Festival Promoters and Venues that offer the market what it wants are faced with fortuitous circumstances right now.
It is a fine time indeed for Music to mean business.😊
Written by Nichola Burton. I work in partnership with Agents, Artist Managers and Event Producers, who juggle a diverse range of relationships in the Musoverse, to curate, manage and measure data in systems, experience, creative and content to support the entire Musoverse operation in my enterprise A Little Pitchy Copyright 2024
#musicmeansbusiness
