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The biggest, highest-grossing tours are frequently from legacy artists. But even bands like U2 and Coldplay are sprouting grays, which raises the question: why aren't younger artists making a bigger impact?
Deloitte basically looked at the top-grossing tours over the past decade, and determined the age of the lead singer. The result was the above graph, which shows zero artists under the age of 30. Instead, younger acts are probably making their biggest impact at festivals, a huge growth category that could represent a massive shift in future concert-going (and probably wouldn't be well-represented in this study).
The calculation was shared by PRS for Music, a group tracking its own live performance declines in the UK (among other sinkholes). "The question is this," PRS posed in its broader report. "Against the backdrop of falling record sales, who is putting the time, money and expertise into developing the arena, festival and stadium acts of the future?"
And, what does this look like 5, 10... 15 years out?
Comments Closed
Versus Thursday, August 04, 2011
Good for these artists. They've paid their dues, spent decades creating a discography and inspiring loyalty in listeners, and deserve the success.
Also - an unfashionable idea in our youth-fetish culture - perhaps some performers, artists, and simply human beings improve with age.
Would it be better that artists were most successful in their 20s, and then only had to face a downward slide into oblivion?
Of course, your last concern is valid: will there be new artists to fill those shoes when these artists retire or pass away? Do we really have a new U2, Sade, MJ, or Prince out there?
Cheers,
Versus
Jason Miles Friday, August 05, 2011
The Answer is no-The new Sade U2 etc are not out there-10-15 yeras from now the stadium show will be a distant memory.
This is what you get when the system falls apart and doesn't nurture new talent
JM
Versus Thursday, August 04, 2011
P.S. An additional factor: Presumably the age of fans correlates with the age of artists. Older fans may well have more disposable income, and so are more likely to pay the (extremely high) price of concert tickets these days. I fall into the younger side of the spectrum, and generally do not go to concerts even of my favorite acts as the prices are unaffordable.
P.P.S. Why was only the age of the singer considered? If all the performers had been considered, would the results have differed?
Cheers,
Versus
paul Thursday, August 04, 2011
Perhaps the thinking was that the lead singer is the most visible, recognizable part of the group. But that approach can easily break down with groups that have highly-charismatic band members (like Flea or Gene Simmons), or are considered more of a group than an individual (like LMFAO or Beastie Boys).
Actually, we did our own study last year that considered every frontline performer, using the top touring artists of 2009. We found the average age to be 46. Check it out here.
/pr.
@JasonMiles Thursday, August 04, 2011
JasonMiles
That's because the over 40 crowd is the crowd that still has money.
@mediajorge Thursday, August 04, 2011
Jorge
And they said don't trust anybody over 30.
@Ivoryblossum Thursday, August 04, 2011
goldenrail
And they're all at mountain winery.
@MissInformd Thursday, August 04, 2011
мissInfōямεd
Bam, gettin paid at any age!
@TheRealRouga Thursday, August 04, 2011
Clicquot Geno
Wowzers
@madktc Thursday, August 04, 2011
Matt Downes
Scary stat for any lead singer.
@emh2625 Thursday, August 04, 2011
E.Michael Harrington
Ancient people still matter!
Danny Thursday, August 04, 2011
This makes sense because they are looking at the past decade. Many of the up and coming younger singers are just that, up and coming. They have been around maybe 4-5 years, where the older singers have been around the whole 10 years of the past decade allowing them to gross much more over that time.
CTyankee Thursday, August 04, 2011
Danny, I think your logic is flawed here. Imagine if the decade all featured high selling boy bands -- and every two years, a new one came along to replace the other. These would be short lived bands but the avg. age would be 25 (or whatever).
Instead, this states that pound for pound the older artists have made more, which means the industry isn't creating bigger artists or younger artists that can compete with these 60s 70s or 80s-era acts. Every year you go out it's older artists taking the cake.
PN NJ Thursday, August 04, 2011
Isn't Lady GaGa under 30?
@TrebonyMD Thursday, August 04, 2011
Todd Trebony
Theres hope for me...yay!
@1WorkinMusician Friday, August 05, 2011
Jason Parker
See, I just knew I was sitting pretty!
@ChrisKnab Friday, August 05, 2011
Christopher Knab
Old farts do well on tours!
Jason Miles Friday, August 05, 2011
They also know how to play their instruments well-Something many young artists do not know how to do
JM
@landosmusic Friday, August 05, 2011
Lando
Good to know lol
@nicolaymusic Friday, August 05, 2011
Nicolay
Almost there.... LOL.
Ritch Esra Friday, August 05, 2011
This is reflective of a previous study that Pollstar did which showed that out of the Top 100 Touring acts (Box Office wise) over 45% were over the age of 60. This is a much deeper problem for a few reasons. Number 1, regardless of how many jokes one wants to make about performing in wheel chairs, none of the acts (The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Jimmy Buffet, Neil Diamond, Striesand) will be touring next decade. Sure, some will continue to appear here and there, but we're talking about this in the context of the TOURING INDUSTRY. The problem isn't the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Jimmy Buffet, Neil Diamond or Striesand; the real issue is the Music Industry as a whole over the last 2 decades hasn't built enough new artists careers to replace the dollar volume that the current crop of acts generates in touring and that isn't going to change over the next 5 to 10 years. When you look at the next crop of acts right underneath that Top $$ Tier, it shrinks radically. From Artists 100 - 200 it's about 3-4 times less in touring earnings.
The point made earlier about the audience aging with the talent is an important one. Today's audiences haven't been raised in a Top Down monoculture where we musically all rallied around "A Beatles or a Michael Jackson or a Metallica or a U2" That era is over. We live in an era of endless choice as far as music goes and that's only going to increase over the next decade. Remember, it was the labels in the past who financially supported the development of talent in the 70's & 80's and made itr possible for many acts to tour when they made no money via tour support and other financial investments. Of course, that was also an era when there was a viable financial base for the selling of recorded music. That support doesn't exist today and there is no ONE mechanism that has picked up that financial slack. Most of the independent concert promoters that built the industry into what it is today were bought up and are now all part of Live Nation. Live Nation is facing a future of excessive debt load and not enough financially viable talent to make their numbers. No wonder John Malone & Irving Azoff want to take the company private. Who wants their financial picture out in the public. The last thing they're interested in is taking the time, energy, focus and committment to really investing in the development of the next generation of live talent. This burden has fallen onto the artists and bands themselves and we've all seen over the last decade just how difficult and how long that really takes when it's done without the financial support systems that made it work for the last 30 years.
This is no different than when the record labels wanted the natural forces of the marketplace to develop talent for them - ("We'll sign you when you've sold some albums, when you've developed a live base, when you've..........when you've..........") and we've all seen how long that process realistically takes. More importantly, we've seen how few artists have been produced from that place that could be considered competitive in the financial sense with what we have today.
The future of the live business will be a far greater number of stylistic diverse acts that make inroads and have their own audiences. In will be slow and steady. But I can assure you; based on what the current financial needs of the Live Nations and the AEG's of the world, it won't be something that they'll be willing to (or finacially able) to support until it's at a much higher money generating level.
We're already seeing this start to take place with events like The Electric Daisy festival among others.
Technotopia Friday, August 05, 2011
"Remember, it was the labels in the past who financially supported the development of talent in the 70's & 80's and made itr possible for many acts to tour when they made no money via tour support and other financial investments. Of course, that was also an era when there was a viable financial base for the selling of recorded music. That support doesn't exist today and there is no ONE mechanism that has picked up that financial slack."
Very well said. The pyramidion is disappearing leaving nothing but an ever flattening base.
A thing to be mourned.
On the road again Saturday, August 06, 2011
Is the future for "touring" digital? At least it would be easier for all the wheelchairs :)
@TJClark Friday, August 05, 2011
T.J. Clark
Crazy stats! And reason to re-unite my band Crying Pillow
@forcemm Sunday, August 07, 2011
Randy Nichols
Perhaps we have a bigger artist development problem than most realize?
Different Priorities Wednesday, August 10, 2011
There doesn't seam to be much real artist development only a lot of tax deductions.
@nicolaymusic Sunday, August 07, 2011
Nicolay
Almost there.... LOL.
@jusfrais Monday, August 08, 2011
Jus Frais
Whew
@henrysoul Monday, August 08, 2011
Henry Soul
Practice/Time makes a really good artist!!
@AlisonPIAS Monday, August 08, 2011
Alison Rogers
...come on youngsters, keep up!
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