Author| Mia
Edit| fig
Music fan Konishi obviously feels that the ticket price has become more and more expensive recently, and it is becoming more and more difficult to grab tickets.
In order to grab tickets for Taiwanese musician LÜCY's performance at Bluenote, she set an alarm clock twice to grab tickets, but to no avail. A few days ago, the highest ticket price for the performance of the Rejuvenation Dan Stadium was as high as 680 yuan, one end of the scale is the love and coffee seat of musicians, and the other end is the difficulty of grabbing tickets and ticket prices, "will hesitate." A few days ago, the American Lollapalooza lineup flowed out, "Thunder Sister" Lana Del Rey, "Bi Pear" Billie Eilish and other big names are like clouds, the following high praise comment is "Won't it be cheaper than suing five?" ”
If it is expected that the concerts of big names such as Jay Chou, Lin Junjie, and Old Wolf will be popular, the LiveHouse and music festival bands that used to seem to be niche and have been surrounded by music fans have also become the hardest hit areas of "rising prices and difficult to grab tickets", what is the reason? In another of our surveys on scalpers, one scalper said that "the price increase is not determined by us, the premium starts from the organizer, and we only price according to the market conditions." Has the relationship between supply and demand really changed so much?
In this regard, the entertainment unicorn had an in-depth dialogue with a number of senior practitioners in the music performance industry, trying to find out the reasons for the "performance assassin" phenomenon, and to see the changes in the industry and the real recovery.
Crossing "false prosperity" and "madness": the second half of the year may return to rational health
If the past three years have been the darkest moment for the music performance industry, then 2022 can be described as a "trough of troughs". From April 30 to May 4, the number of performances (including tourist performances) nationwide totaled about 5,900, down 53% year-on-year; The box office revenue of the performance was about 143 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 79%; The number of viewers was more than 2 million, down 67% year-on-year.
Against the backdrop of last year's dismal situation, the explosive outbreak of this year's performance market is particularly prominent. Practitioners said that "the first half of the performance of the north to the city is full", show data shows that in the first four months of 2023, the number of live house performances in the country has reached 1,000, and the number of midweek weekday performances has increased significantly. Its ticket prices are also rising, and many VIP performances have exceeded the 300 yuan barrier, and then touched the 1,000 yuan mark.
Last year, "Traffic" Jiang Yunsheng's "Destiny Online" 2022 tour second stop Chengdu officially announced, the ticket price is divided into three levels: pre-sale tickets (299 yuan), full-price tickets (499 yuan), and VIP tickets (669 yuan), which has triggered heated discussions and diss battles in the circle.
As for the reasons for "skyrocketing ticket prices", many respondents believe that from the audience level, it is related to the general mentality of the public after the epidemic three years later, "timely entertainment" has become the main tide of thought, and the skyrocketing ticket prices are the continuation and repetition of the phenomenon of "sky-high music festivals" in the past three years. "After the epidemic is over, this price is unlikely to fall back, everyone gradually explored, and found that ordinary people can accept 200 yuan to see a live house, 800 yuan or 900 yuan to see a music festival, then I will not reduce the price again." From the perspective of cost factors, involving the transfer of operational pressure, in the past, due to the epidemic restrictions, the profit margin of the organizer and the venue was low, and after the offline performance was allowed, it was the same as the previous increase in the release price of the film.
Taro Mu, a senior practitioner who has been responsible for operating music festivals in many leading music companies, believes that at the invisible level, even after the peak of traffic in the broadcast stage of the program, with the combined help of programs such as "Summer of the Band" and "Rap New Generation", band culture and hip-hop culture bid farewell to the past underground niche state and went to the public and aboveground. Live House has gradually spread to third- and fourth-tier cities, becoming an emerging way of life entertainment like drinking and watching movies.
Other practical reasons are the restrictions of large venues, and various performances have shifted their positions to small and medium-sized venues, and the final result is that "before the epidemic, the average price of bands, which can exceed 150, is actually already a very big name band, but after the epidemic, you see many small brand bands, have been sold for two or three hundred prices."
Everything looks thriving, but is the industry really picking up across the board?
This is probably not the case, and is more akin to superficial prosperity and uneven heat and cold. Liu Fei, founder of Beijing's well-known Live House "School", believes that the current band performance is obviously more rolled, which can be summarized as "drought death, waterlogging death", popular bands are hard to find, the organizer makes a big profit, the unpopular band sits on the cold bench, and the box office revenue has not risen significantly. The performance of music festivals is more obvious, Taro said that "if you check all the overall ticket data, except for some large established music festivals, the lineup quality is very good, and many small music festivals, the box office is actually not ideal."
Like the structural problems of the film industry, this is one of the results of the accumulation of structural problems in the music industry over the years. Taro mud talked about the industry's "sold out" routine: "Two days ago, I hung out what student tickets were sold out, or pre-sale tickets were sold out, so that everyone felt that this performance was very hot." But in fact, he may have opened 100 student tickets, I opened 150 pre-sale tickets, and then the rest were all hung up at full price, but it was difficult for him to sell out. ”
Wei Tsai, the producer of the band MV, believes that this kind of "skyrocketing prices" and "retaliatory consumption" are very common in tourism, catering and other fields, in addition, "many performances have signed contracts last year, but they have been forced to postpone until this year, such as Trojan Horse's current tour, so venue reservations are more difficult." ”
In fact, the global economy is entering a recession, and "price increases" are also happening in many fields abroad. Recently, "Thailand is too expensive to go" has caused heated discussions on the Internet, and as a spiritual and cultural product, a scarce performance, ticket prices are rising much faster than the inflation rate. According to the "2022 Box Office Report" released by Pollstar, the ticket price rose from $96.17 in 2019 to $106.07, an increase of 10.29%. The fare growth was even more pronounced in the top 200 in North America, reaching $103.71 in 2022, up 19% from $87.19 in 2019.
The irrational crazy outbreak in the first half of the year may not be the norm, as Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan artists and overseas artists gradually resume their participation in the second half of the year, the return to rationality and health in the second half of the year data may be more of reference value. "The selection will be more diverse, and the lineup, fans, and funds will be scattered. Of course, this is also closely related to the overall national economic recovery trend and industry development trend. ”
The Livehouse of "Boat Little Good U-turn" was cast wildly, what is the Internet celebrity password of "Sue Five"?
The other side of the "performance hit" is that from last year to this year, the popularity of Live House has soared, and it has even been favored by capital.
Live House accelerated to break the circle, idol Zhu Zhengting, former lead singer of Fei'er Band, former rocket girl Meng Meiqi and other artists have sung at Live House, Meng Meiqi ticket prices range from 580 yuan to 1380 yuan, similar to stadium concerts.
Originally, the plate of the music performance market is not large, LiveHouse is even smaller, a performance box office may be 10,000 to tens of thousands - some practitioners mentioned that whether it is Xiudong or Barley, the main component of the revenue of the ticketing platform is the commission commission from large-scale concerts, and the convention is not to take commissions from LiveHouse, or take very few commissions. According to the "2020 China Music Industry Development General Report" released by Communication University of China, the overall size of the performance market in 2019 reached 20.041 billion yuan, of which the box office revenue of large-scale concerts and music festivals was 4.259 billion yuan, and the box office revenue of LiveHouse was 375 million yuan - accounting for only 1.87%.
However, since the epidemic, especially since last year, the situation has changed, "the proportion of large-scale music festivals canceled or postponed in recent years has exceeded 50%, and the approval of large-scale concerts will basically stop nationwide in 2022", and the advantages of LiveHouse's "boat is small and good to turn around" have been reflected, and it has become "almost the only place that can hold performances" on and off, which is very popular.
Not all Live Houses have ushered in high ticket prices, the size of the venue is the strength to take over popular bands and raise prices, can carry 1,000 people or even 1,500 people, 2,000 people of the large venue, is the first choice for star idols, big-name bands to perform, operating costs are higher, ticket pricing is set in the range of more than 200 yuan or even higher.
The market is picking up, and a number of new Live Houses are speeding up. The "Fulang" of the Beijing Station of the "Lexia Star Patrol Project" held by the former Trojan drummer and organized by New Blood Project and "Lexia 3" was premiered as a supermarket shortly after the opening of the North Third Ring Road, followed by Anti-General, which is divided into two halls, large and small, which can accommodate 1200 and 500 people respectively. According to 36Kr Future Consumption, Yuanqi Forest's entertainment brand "Genki Forest LIVE" recently released a video preview, saying that its first Livehouse will open in the spring, and the store is located at 3F-5F, Building C, Wanda Plaza, Yangpu District, Shanghai. It is reported that Yuanqi Forest has been preparing for offline Live for a long time, and the Beijing store is also in preparation at the same time to create a lifestyle, link the young market, expand offline channels, and enhance brand voice.
How many can be done in the end is still unknown. "The industry is still in the reshuffle stage, and many investors this year are also irrational. As far as I know, there are now several venues with 1,000 to 2,000 or 3,000 people newly built across the country, but they are still in the kind of cultural support subsidies linked to real estate thinking, or deceive the government's cultural support subsidies, open in some places with less musical atmosphere, or places with inconvenient transportation in big cities, such as Beijing has plans to open in the border of Xiong'an New Area, and there is no supporting infrastructure. ”
For all kinds of retaliatory consumption, practitioners perceive that the money-making is still concentrated in the head band, Internet celebrity band, a "five-person special session" in the secondary market as high as 1,000 yuan, the cost is related to the size of their own team, the scalper industry after the cold winter, but also gradually "recovery", after a round of shutdown impact, Beijing's old indispensable Live House is only a few left, the schedule is full, but also earned, the ticket platform is not obvious in terms of income.
The same is true of music festivals where the band takes out the venue fee and profit model is different, and the dividends are concentrated on the head brand and the Internet celebrity band, and the rejuvenation dan, the summer invasion plan, and the five people are representatives, and the Internet celebrity band offers more.
The market can't really digest the explosion of quantity, and due to the decrease in the income of some fans, the purchase tendency is further concentrated in the head, exacerbating the "Matthew effect". It is understood that Wang Feng's concert is actually "selling very poorly", in addition to "Xi'an Strawberry" and other big brands still have high appeal, some unknown music festivals may sell an average of 500 tickets a day, last weekend there are some small music festivals, the scene may be less than 500 people, 1,000 people.
The band's manager Jiu Jiu has recently brought his artists to several music festivals and performance venues. In her opinion, those festivals that do not have "Internet celebrity bands" have "significantly fewer audiences". The high ticket price is a double-edged sword, on the one hand, "let some artists get rich first", on the other hand, it also affects the entire industry atmosphere.
So, how can you become an Internet celebrity band and crack the traffic password?
The key to building an Internet celebrity band is to "apply the product model of FMCG, use the thinking of people and goods to operate, rather than use music content", and the first step is to have a "catchy, simple and bright melody, and easy to accept style". Taro Mu mentioned that short videos have rewritten the traditional record industry, and the cost of musicians has gradually decreased, for example, to make an album, 50,000 yuan can come down, but it is necessary to invest 50 to 1 million to publicize.
The second step is to continue to do offline performances, combine with online popularity, and increase popularity through performances and variety shows. Jiang Yunsheng's operation is biased towards the rice circle model. Taking Rejuvenation Dan as an example, after a few songs of his previous "Dream is Special" came out, he just started to have a little traffic, and then immediately followed by a large-scale performance offline. I can't wait to be performing 28 days a month, crazy occupies the entire market, and its music does have a certain popularity, everyone keeps listening, this band is popular at once. ”
But when similar melodies are repeated, the originality and uniqueness of the music are dissolved, which is not conducive to the sustainable development of the industry in the long run - there are even bands that imitate Caodong and imitate the five.
It's another night, and new young people are pouring into Live House, discussing the upcoming Beijing Strawberry Music Festival. Practitioners, on the other hand, rushed to the construction site of the new 1,000-person stadium. How will they look back at this time next year?
![Why is it that the music of young people is now incomprehensible?[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)