As Live Nation leverages its power across the concert ecosystem to increase its profits, concertgoers see higher prices, and artists experience challenging touring dynamics. Artists’ touring costs have become especially onerous, creating difficult economics for small and midlevel artists. Santigold canceled a recent tour because of exorbitant costs, as did Animal Collective. Live Nation, though, is reporting record revenues.
All this is happening at a time when musicians are reliant on touring. Streaming platforms pay around one-third to one-half of one cent per stream, which makes it difficult for small and midlevel artists to make a living. Musicians now use streaming services to get noticed and build an audience, but ultimately most of their income is from touring. Even now that our band is enjoying more success on streaming sites, our touring income was more than triple our streaming income this year.
So what can be done about this? While the Justice Department is said to be investigating Live Nation and its practices, artists, fans and industry actors should work together to press for changes that will improve the live music experience for everyone.
We should pressure Live Nation to lower its cut on merchandise sales, especially for developing bands. If Live Nation argues that it deserves a cut of our merch sales because it provides the retail space in its venue, then we should get a cut of Live Nation’s ancillary income streams in venues it owns and operates. After all, it’s providing the retail space, but we’re providing the people. Live Nation’s getting around 20 percent of gross merch sales while we get nothing on ticket fees, bar tabs, coat checks and parking passes doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
We can expand off-platform ticketing. Currently, many venues’ ticketing contracts allow roughly 10 percent of tickets to be sold to “fan clubs,” through which artists control ticketing fees and maintain a direct relationship with fans. Many artists I spoke to didn’t even know this option was available to them. Other fair-minded ticket companies are popping up, but without expanding the percentage of tickets that Live Nation allows to be sold on other platforms, these innovative companies can’t become a relevant part of the touring ecosystem.
And artists should be vigilant about costs. Settlement sheets should reflect a clearer, more comprehensive set of revenues so that the numbers at the bottom, showing how much the artist and Live Nation made, are more accurate. Cost breakdowns should also be more transparent about what line items like “house nuts” and “facility fees” cover, and should include more of the touring costs of artists, not just of Live Nation.
Musicians, don’t trust Live Nation with your livelihood. My understanding of deal nuances comes from my poring over the numbers line by line after many shows, often in the same sweaty outfit I wore onstage just minutes earlier. My bandmate Jordan Cohen and I regularly find discrepancies or clerical errors that can lead to over an hour of recalculating, digging up old emails and even tense debate, all taking place after midnight. I’m not suggesting that these types of issues are intentional or nefarious, but all told, correcting them can leave us with up to thousands more dollars per night than we would have otherwise made had we not caught them. (Live Nation told The New York Times that artists seldom debate settlements after shows.)