festivals

The concert business is set to close out another record year fueled by pent-up pandemic demand, higher priced tickets and intense fan commitment to their favorite artists.

Hoping to capture a snapshot of the concert business when cumulative grosses for the top 100 tours and attendance are higher than ever, Variety VIP+ and talent agency UTA have released a new report titled “Peak Performance” combining data from Billboard and Pollstar with insights from PwC and an online survey of more than 1,500 concert goers.

“Our desire to do this study was spurred by the anecdotal evidence we were seeing from our own music representation and music brand partnerships business,” said Joe Kessler, UTA partner and global head of UTA IQ.

The report paints a bullish and optimistic picture of the concert business with more fans willing to spend money and travel farther to see their favorite artists live, as well as an increased urgency for consumers to find time for more live music and festivals in the post-pandemic period. But the rapidly increasing price of tickets and the increased use of credit cards and debit to pay for experiences continues to represent a potential liability for both music fans and the industry writ large, the report finds.

For the first time ever, the concert business is expected to cross the $30 billion revenue mark in 2023, with the top 100 tours accounting for nearly 20 percent of total sales. Survey respondents overwhelmingly agreed that some of their favorite memories took place at concerts and 79 percent of respondents agreed that attending a concert or festival is more important to them following the COVID-19 pandemic. Approximately 43% of consumers said live music events were more meaningful to them than other types of live events or experiences.

Driving the enthusiasm for concerts, Kessler explains, are millennials, now in their mid 20s to early 40s, who have “consistently and substantially shown a desire to want to engage in collaborative and communal experiences as a group.”

“Music has always been a big part of that,” Kessler says, noting that it was millennials who fueled the growth of the festival business over the last two decades.

“As the economy improve and they have more disposable spending, I think we’re going to see a continued rise in the desire to want to see live shows,” Kessler says,” a trend he expect to grow “as our lives become increasingly virtual and we spend more and more time behind screens.”

While Taylor Swift and Beyonce have dominated the headlines in 2023, the report found that men still significantly outnumber women in terms of concert attendance, with men more likely to have gone to a concert in 2023, with 42 percent saying they’ve attended a live music show in the past 12 months, compared with 31 percent of women.

The survey also found that more fans are traveling for events than ever before, with half of respondents traveling four hours or more to attend a concert, 39 percent have flown within the U.S. to attend a show, and 30 percent have traveled to another country for a live music event.

While fans are willing to spend more money that ever on concert tickets, the survey also finds that high ticket prices are among consumers’ chief complaints. With average ticket prices north of $122, more than 62 percent of respondents said the biggest impediment to live music attendance was the price, while 38 percent of fans reported that high ticket prices have prevented them from attending at least one concert in the last 12 months.

“That should not be all that surprising,” says Andrew Wallenstein, president and chief media analyst for Variety Plus, noting that while concerns over price have long existed in the concert business, ‘more than half of the consumers surveyed are just as willing to purchase VIP tickets now as they were prior to the pandemic, while 3 in 10 have become more willing” to buy expensive tickets.

“I think there is a demographic out there that despite the cost pressures feels there is more value in spending top dollar than ever before,” Wallenstein says.

Unsurprisingly, debt is fueling a large part of consumer spending. The survey found that more than one-third of fans had used a buy-now, pay later service to buy tickets, while 34% have opened a credit card specifically for a concert or music festival presale.

“Macroeconomic circumstances have to be paid attention to,” says Wallenstein, who notes that federal student loan payments are resuming this month after a three-year pandemic pause, but notes “this demographic values the concert going experience in a way that previous demographics may not have.”

“Despite the fact that student loan forgiveness is out the window, and many are not saving for things like home ownership, [millennials] may still spend money on concerts the same way they have in the past,” he tells Billboard.

While the report doesn’t offer up any forecasts as to how much runway is left for growth in concerts, Kessler says be doesn’t expect the business to cool off any time soon.

“No one can know how long it will last, but I don’t think this is a temporary blip on the map,” Kessler says. “The data that came through the study tells us that, this is here to stay for the foreseeable future.”

Click here to access a copy of the report.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit as “West of Tulsa” singer-songwriter Wyatt Flores was just beginning to launch his career. With opening for bigger artists in large venues not an option because of the shutdown, he began playing a slate of smaller clubs and venues that were allowing performances.
But as the nation has rebounded, nearly a dozen festivals highlighting Americana, Red Dirt, alt-country, and bluegrass artists have sprung up, providing new financial and touring avenues for artists including Flores. In 2023 alone, inaugural festivals include the three-day Redmond, Oregon’s Fairwell Festival (headlined by Zach Bryan, Turnpike Troubadours, and Willie Nelson & Family), Bethel, N.Y.’s two-day Catbird Festival (Tyler Childers and the Lumineers), which brought in 25,000 attendees, Gordy’s Hwy 30 Texas Edition in Fort Worth, Texas (Bryan, Koe Wetzel), Marietta’s Georgia Country Music Fest (Cody Jinks, Wetzel, Turnpike Troubadours), Georgetown, Texas’ Two-Step Inn (Bryan, Childers), Rush South Festival in Columbus, Georgia on Oct. 14-15 (Dawes, The Texas Gentlemen, Paul Cauthen) and Nov. 3-4’s Dreamy Draw Music Festival in Scottsdale, Arizona (Trampled By Turtles, Margo Price, Stephen Wilson, Jr., American Aquarium).

“It’s made things a lot easier on routing, because we’ll just base other shows around festivals,” says Flores, whose team surrounded his appearances at Fairwell Festival and the California music festival Rebels & Renegades with a slate of West Coast club dates. “With Fairwell Fest, I didn’t think that many people listened to my music on the West Coast, [but] we estimated 10,000-12,000 people were watching us on that stage. The new fans we gained being in front of the people there to see Turnpike [Troubadours] or Zach Bryan, it was great.”

Other newly launched festivals over the past few years have included Kentucky’s Railbird Festival, Oklahoma’s Born & Raised Festival and Monterey, California’s Rebels & Renegades festival, as well as Goldenvoice’s Palomino Festival in Pasadena, California (though the Palomino Festival did not return in 2023).

Like many already-existing festivals in the space— such as Bristol (Tenn.) Rhythm & Roots, Nashville’s Americana Music Festival & Conference and Franklin, Tennessee’s Pilgrimage Music & Cultural Festival, Master Musicians Festival and MerleFest — the lineups for these events draw heavily on artists who operate outside of mainstream country, and who traditionally have not received much terrestrial country radio support.

“We’ve definitely seen an uptick in genre-specific festivals,” says Sophie Lobl, a global festival talent buyer for C3 and Live Nation, who curated the inaugural Fairwell Festival, which welcomed 60,000 music fans over three days. “Americana has been pretty popular for a while, but in the past [8-to-12] months has definitely become a really hot topic. For us, especially for Fairwell in that market specifically, it’s definitely the biggest ticket seller so far there.”

Shannon Casey, senior vp, fairs & festivals for booking agency Wasserman Music Nashville, says the pandemic famine helped lead to the current feast. “During the pandemic, there were so many artists who have had to dig into platforms, like Instagram, TikTok and then Spotify playlists, to stay in touch with audiences,” says Casey. “I think that has allowed fanbases to really discover new artists who have an underserved lane of artistry. I think a lot of this was stuff starting to brew right before COVID and now you have all these environments that are supporting it.” Wasserman Music’s Americana and alt-country roster includes Childers, Allison Russell, Brandi Carlile, Kacey Musgraves, Price, Trampled by Turtles and Colter Wall.

“It’s not like we haven’t had Outlaw country before, and it’s not like Americana is something new,” Casey continues. “I think it’s a time and place where there is so much music discovery. We are seeing that separation from the mainstream, which has always been there. There is just an explosion of all of these genres — Red Dirt, Americana, alt-country, folk, bluegrass — in a time and place that people are absorbing it.”

The Zach Bryan Effect

Dan and Amy Sheehan worked to launch the Rebels & Renegades festival in 2022, which featured Trampled By Turtles, Godwin, Kat Hasty, and Nikki Lane and drew 5,000 attendees each day. This year’s Oct. 6-8 lineup expands the fest from two days to three days, and features Flores, The War and Treaty, Old Crow Medicine Show, Whiskey Myers, Shane Smith and the Saints, Morgan Wade, Jaime Wyatt and Flatland Cavalry.

“There’s been this blossoming, obviously, with Tyler [Childers], but I do think Zach Bryan has definitely pushed this space even higher,” Dan Sheehan says. “I think he’s one of the bigger factors in all of this. A rising tide lifts all boats, and I think that’s what’s happening right now. But we’re also seeing artists like Charley Crockett become more and more of a staple and [acts like] Paul Cauthen and Sierra Ferrell and Morgan Wade — they are all selling tickets at a rapid pace.”

Simultaneously with the surge in these festivals, more acoustic and/or roots-oriented artists are ascending to new career heights on Billboard’s charts, thanks to streaming gains. Bryan’s Aug. 25 self-titled album release (on Belting Bronco/Warner Records) spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, while his collaboration with Musgraves, “I Remember Everything,” debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100. Meanwhile, Childers notched his first Hot 100 entry with “In Your Love,” which debuted at No. 43. Roots-oriented artists including Dylan Gossett, Charles Wesley Godwin and Sam Barber have also made inroads on the charts, while Turnpike Troubadours’ current album, A Cat in the Rain, debuted in the top 10 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums — the album marked the first from the group since 2017’s A Long Way From Your Heart.

“I think we got lucky with a lot of serendipitous timing,” Lobl says of the Fairwell Festival. “Obviously Turnpike and Willie [Nelson] for example, have crushed it for a very long time, and I think it was just perfect timing that Willie’s kind of doing this huge run. Turnpike had not had an album out in a while. I think that Zach is doing phenomenal things in that space and now crossing over into other spaces. It’s exciting to see that a lot of these artists are garnering a lot of new fans.”

Sheehan notes that many of these festivals offer tickets at more reasonable prices than events featuring bigger mainstream names and fill a gap in the mid-sized festivals space.

“If you have a 25,000-capacity venue, you can do a Morgan Wallen or a Zach Bryan,” he explains. “If you have a 10,000 cap as we do, there’s a certain level of artists you pursue. Developing some of these artists into the next headliners is also crucial.” Expenses, including insurance and van rental costs, have soared since Covid, but Sheehan stresses there is a price point they can’t go beyond: While the festivals want to break even, “You have to set your ticket price, but you can’t make it too expensive. It’s a delicate balance.”

Casey also credits Stagecoach, particularly its Palomino Stage, as helping seed the ground by highlighting a wide swath of musical styles since the California music festival debuted in 2007. While the Mane Stage is generally reserved for mainstream country superstars, among the artists who have played on the secondary stage are Bryan, Wall, Cauthen, Crockett, Price, and Rhiannon Giddens.

“If you look at the Palomino Stage at Stagecoach, you can see that [Goldenvoice vp of festival talent] Stacy Vee and her team had their fingerprints on the pulse of all of this,” Casey says. “I think that’s what has sort of slowly been translating and going into other markets, including markets where there traditionally hasn’t really even been a country festival.”

Looking Ahead

Sheehan, who is both a festival promoter and a venue owner, notes that as with live performances in general, oversaturation can be a concern.

“I think it comes back to what can the consumer actually afford. There are only so many events that one person can physically, let alone financially, go to,” Sheehan says. “On the West Coast, I don’t think we are oversaturated yet, but right now, touring lanes [overall] are very oversaturated, and venues and festivals alike feel it.”

For Flores, the surge in popularity of roots-oriented artists, marks a change in musical tastes since the pandemic.

“I definitely believe a lot of people went through some difficult times — emotionally, financially — and the stuff they were listening to wasn’t adding up to how they were actually feeling inside. I think their music tastes maybe changed, because they were trying to find something they could relate to… So many songs were about happiness and positivity, and I don’t think a lot of people were happy when COVID hit — a lot of people’s lives changed completely,” Flores says.

And as people re-emerged, they wanted to hear the artists who they discovered during their hard times. “It’s really good music,” Sheehan says, “which is why [people] are building festivals around them.”