If musicians are
likely in the future to make their money selling tickets and merchandise instead of records, will the price of live music rise accordingly? Or is it already on the way up due to the
price of gasoline?
The struggles of labels, artists and the music business in general may not be "highly
correlated to the economy," but if it costs Kenny Chesney $28,000 to get 28 large vehicles from Portland, Ore., to Las Vegas these days, you'd think ticket-buyers will have to pay extra to cover the higher costs of touring. For lesser-known acts trying to build their audiences on the road, traveling to far-flung cities is becoming an indulgence they can't afford: "I can't go as far as Denver," one Portland-area musician
tells the
Oregonian.
With MySpace and a variety of other online services, the tools are in place for musicians to gain popularity far from their homes. If it's inefficient and expensive to build an audience on the road, and if labels won't sign acts until they're already moderately popular, using those technologies will become increasingly important for bands looking to draw a crowd. They might not sing about social networking or free/ad-supported business models, but fewer and fewer artists might experience firsthand the fabled life of cheap
hotel rooms, late-night
loneliness and the road that goes on
forever.
The music business is generally expected to produce
fewer superstars and cater to
niches more. Those trends may point toward music becoming an increasingly local phenomenon, with most musicians traveling less, having fewer expectations of national or worldwide popularity, and closer interaction with fans and communities willing to pony up to support them. Once again, it'd be a return to humbler ways for an industry whose boom time may have ended.
-- Paul BonanosSee story from The Oregonian concerning touring bands and gasoline prices
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