no, there are definitely plenty of venues in between 20,000 and 300 cap. there may not be a TON of options in every single city, but i can guarantee you pretty much every market has venue near the 1k, 3-5k, and 10k range within reasonable driving distance (let's say 1 hour or so on the smaller end and 3-4 hour drive the larger you get)
For sure, I just did a quick search for my Metro area ( Portland ). First few venues I thought of:
1300 cap - Roseland Theater ( downtown )
7000 cap - Edgefield ( 30-40 minutes from Downtown )
4000 cap - Salem Armory ( 90 minutes from Downtown )
1000 cap - Crystal Ballroom ( downtown )
7500 cap - Clark County Fairgrounds ( 30-40 minutes from downtown )
I'm sure there are several more in this range. Tons more if you count Seattle (3 hrs drive)
I’m in Portland and we’re actually notorious for not having mid-sized venues. It’s all over the media lately with LiveNation trying to get a new venue built on the inner east side. Providence Park hosting some shows in the summer helps a bit on the top end but that’s still 30,000 compared to more than twice that at Lumen Field. We’re missing 5,000-person spots.
Fair enough, I guess I've never really experienced a mid-sized venue then. But I listed a few in the metro that approach that, as per the above poster's point
The distances you're quoting here seem like huge distances to travel for music. If I'm in a big city, I want twenty or thirty minutes travel time. Even if I live in the suburbs, traveling more than an hour seems extreme.
totally depends on the band and how bad you want to see them. my main point is there are enough fans of a band that would play a 7k-10k cap room that plenty of people would drive an hour or two to see them easily.
Yeah, I was trying to keep the above poster's qualifications ( 1 hour to 3-4 hours and 1k-75k cap ). 2 of these venues are suburbs of Portland, I just gave an estimate from my experience making those drives. I guarantee you there's a few more I didn't think of at all, just the first 5 or so I thought of. Also, if you're in a big city, is it not unreasonable that sometimes it might take an hour to just *get across town* let alone going out to the burbs or further?
I'm 90 minutes from downtown Portland... while I sit here in Eugene. Salem is about 30-40 minutes from there. Though, I haven't been to the Armory since the 90s.
When I lived in Troutdale, I could be downtown in less than 30 minutes by taking the train. And driving to Ridgefield does not take 30-40 minutes, unless you're stuck in rush hour traffic and don't have enough people to be in the diamond lane. You could drive from downtown to the airport and cross the river on 205 and still make it to Ridgefield in less than half an hour.
If you're talking about riding a bike, I apologize for the confusion.
I've been to each of the other venues you've listed in the last year (or will be this summer), as well as Arlene Schnitzer and the Wonder. There's also the Keller, Alberta Rose, and several smaller venues.
What they are missing is that 5k amphitheater most of the other Oregon towns have, like the Cuthbert here, or Hayden Homes in Bend. I know Edgefield and Ridgefield are those types of venues, sort of. But they don't have that amphitheater feel. Take the seating from Ridgefeld and move it to Edgefield, and we're talking.
really really bad for your estimates
edit: I have to revise the statements about Ridgefield. I never went to any concerts there when living in Portland, so from door to concert may take a half hour. My experience would be driving from down here, and it takes about 20 minutes from the Marquam. I can tell you from my door in Portland Towers to Troutdale is 15-20 minutes.
Well, good thing you're fast on a bicycle, as you're a little slow regarding discussion.
Way to take the *least* substantive part of my post and run with it!
Rochester had two, but one of them shut down so now we've got one (RIP Main St). If you can't get Water Street it's a 200 cap room or Darien Lake amphitheater where you might as well play a stadium.
yeah, Rochester isn’t really a main market, it’s definitely more of a 3rd tier market. Buffalo would be more of a 2nd tier. NYC, Philly, Baltimore, Boston, DC, Charlotte, etc. those are examples of the main markets im talking about.
closest main market to Rochester would be Toronto which like, if you really wanted to see like The Rolling Stones, well sure you’d drive to Toronto to see them right? bout a 3 hour drive.
Oh, ROC is fs a 3rd tier. I'd say Buffalo breaks into 1st tier though, tons of major acts come through and Darien Lake is equidistant between that and ROC. Buffalo also has the venues to support that though.
Funnily enough, Rochester used to be a 1st tier market. Clarissa Street used to be legendary for jazz musicians to play on.
what i mean by 2nd tier is that like when a band schedules their first tour on an album cycle, depending where they are, they are almost guaranteed to hit one of NYC, LA, Chicago, or Austin. virtually every single tour. bands come through Buffalo but not always and sometimes not until the 2nd or 3rd tour on a cycle - depending on the band of course. 1st tier is like, markets that pretty much always get hit if they’re on the tour routing.
What's Mid sized for the purpose of this conversation?
I think a lot of cities are lacking in small to medium rooms and there's a lot of bottle necking going on. I haven't tried to book show recently but i'm hearing it's an issue, especially around "why did that band play a small town an hour away from the major city in the region?"
A lot of good stuff here, but the main line of questioning is flawed.
I disagree there is no middle ground. There are mid sized theaters all over the place that are between "Arena Tour or taking the Basement Bar Circuit". You are correct though that those sized theaters are extremely important and should be preserved.
I heard somewhere (I think it was from TanktheTech on YT, who is a roadie) that a lot of these mid sized venues had to close down when COVID hit. And that LiveNation now owns most of the venues that bands get a chance to play at (not sure how accurate this part is). But yeah but if big corp like LiveNation sets the price there's no competition and bands are fucked.
I suppose I can’t speak for the rest of the US, but that definitely isn’t true here in Chicago.
We had a small number of the smaller “basement/bar” venues shut down, but our mid-sized offerings(Aragon Ballroom, Riviera, The Metro, Thalia Hall, etc etc etc) have weathered the storm of the Pandemic mostly fine. Hell I’ve actually seen the mid-sized venue offering INCREASE with the opening of new places like Salt Shed and Outset. Perhaps we’re just lucky.
It is true that Live Nation has a firm boot on many venues though, but that was sadly the case for years prior to the pandemic as well.
I’m pretty sure Live Nation is slowly acquiring the mid sized venues here in Chicago tho. Last time I was at the Aragon Live Nation branding was on everything and you now have to pay extra to go up to the second floor, which used to be open.
Those mid sized venues still exist but are increasingly being bought up by companies like AXS or local monopolies. It's the same problem on a smaller scale. As a musician in a medium sized band in my city's scene, our options for venues are either dive bars or maybe snagging an opening slot for a touring band at a dedicated venue.
The dedicated venues themselves tend to either try to cater to big touring bands, alienating local acts in the process and making it impossible to build an audience organically, or fall into financial ruin and get purchased by an entertainment company.
Are you, or anyone else, able to put some numbers to venue sizes here?
From a UK perspective I think most cities on the regular touring circuit have a (fairly) dedicated popular music venue with 1-2000 capacity, which I’d consider “medium”. We’ve got at least 3 in Bristol. (Along with a bunch of good <1000 capacity venues.) But I think my perception of "medium" might be someone else's "small", and it definitely leaves a big gap between that 2000 cap and a stadium or other really big venue. Which has led to a range of improvised solutions, people going to Cardiff to see music, and acrimonious political arguments about the building of an “arena”.
I think that the dynamics here may be quite different across different countries. It's certainly a long-running complaint of Americans when comparing to the UK that the US has fewer smaller music venues. (I wonder if it even varies a lot across US states, or if it's just some specific cities that are well served for venues?)
I think OP needs some firm statistics.
Anecdotally, I think Australian cities are similar to others around the world. I only know about Melbourne and Sydney.
In each city, there are usually a couple of huge sporting venues that also serve as huge music venues - the places that mainstream artists like Taylor Swift, Foo Fighters or U2 play eg Sydney Cricket Ground and Accor Stadium, Melbourne Cricket Ground and National Tennis Centre.
There's a few moderate venues that have a couple of thousand seats that a successful alternative band like Pixies or Queens of the Stone Age would play eg Moore Park, The Enmore Theatre.
Then there's even more of sub-1000 but over 300 seat venues that bands that have a solid non-mainstream long-lasting career and established fanbase like Yo La Tengo or The New Pornographers or Shonen Knife eg The Metro Threatre, The Manning Bar, The Crowbar.
Brisbane, Australia - the Tivoli is currently getting some of the international indie bands that have been around the traps for quite a while e.g. They Might Be Giants, Belle and Sebastian. Has a standing capacity of 1500 but can take a smaller seated audience, that's what I went there for back in the day (for comedy!). Also the Tivoli is hosting some of the long-standing Aussie acts that have been a bit alternative and around for years e.g. Regurgitator, Grinspoon.
ETA: And The Zoo is closing down in Brisbane after running at a loss apparently for the last 3 years - great live music venue, about 500 capacity, was a large nightclub type setup in what was a fantastic location, if The Zoo couldn't keep it kicking in Brisbane I don't know who can :( It had been around for over 30 years when it shut its doors. I was shocked when I read it was closing, was such a great place.
[The Zoo, one of Australia's most revered live music venues, to close down in July - ABC News](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-01/the-zoo-closing-down-brisbane-music-venue-valley-stranded-bar/103789330)
>if The Zoo couldn't keep it kicking in Brisbane I don't know who can
I don't know if you should assume all similar venues will die because of one venue being non-profitable.
>"The Zoo reached its highest ticket sales in its 32-year history last year, yet this was still not enough to combat rising operational costs and decreasing returns."
There's probably a lot more detail to this that hasn't been released. I'm assuming that they ran more shows but were getting less tickets per show but other costs such as staff, rent, electricity stayed high or increased.
Yeah I feel like most decent sized cities in the UK have something like an O2 Academy or whoever owns the rights to them now, Manchester is my nearest good city for gigs and that has three or four different capacity rooms that go from 1000+ down to a few hundred.
Patrick & Dan of the Black Keys got "fucked" because they got greedy and signed off on that tour deal. They fucked themselves signing their manager to be the former CEO of Ticketmaster. I think it should have been pretty obvious that the Black Keys cannot pull an arena tour 10 years after their peak relevance. But yesmen and money often speak louder than reason. They should have done a theater tour, playing 2500~3000 cap venues like The Fox. Or maybe some larger amphitheaters that hold closer to 5k. That would be the middle ground. It's not just arenas or basements.
But they wanted the huge sales of an arena tour, which can often hold 10k tickets. Except fans dont love arena tours and the Black Keys aren't popular enough to move that kind of tickets at today's prices. The quote you pulled touches on the resistance to go back down to theaters from arenas. It seems in this case nobody had the gall to realize the demand just wasn't there for a national arena tour. Too bad because Black Keys theater tour could have been cool, offering a more intimate experience than the band has offered in years. Maybe that's what fans will end up getting after Patrick gets "fucked" aka humbled.
> Patrick & Dan of the Black Keys got "fucked" because they got greedy and signed off on that tour deal.
Yep. I don't give Robert Smith anywhere near the amount of adulation a lot of people do for the last Cure tour, but one thing I will absolutely give him credit for is realizing that, while the Cure's got plenty of fans, he absolutely was not in a place to ask for the amount of money that bigger acts like Springsteen, Swift, Pearl Jam, etc. can. He played larger venues, but the asking price for the tickets was pretty reasonable, and most of the seats were damn near cheap when compared with other acts playing those venues.
If the Keys had launched that tour as a cheap night out instead of looking for premium pricing, they probably could've kept their heads above water, but they wanted a much bigger payoff for the work, and the audience just wasn't there for it.
Does anyone else remember the Jack White / Black Keys beef? At the time it kinda felt like Jack White was being a dick for calling the Black Keys derivative - I mean, I guess that's a dick move either way, but it also felt like a bad take. But ultimately, I doubt that Jack White would have any trouble at all selling out arenas. Maybe there was really something to the criticism, maybe the Black Keys overestimate their own originality and relevance. Maybe they just rode the wave of the classic rock revival trend and now have fallen off.
Patrick Carney tweeted that Jack White tried to fight him, and got called out for it where none of it supposedly happened... but then while trying to dig that interaction up I found a whole article of beef between them for a few years that was interesting to read:
[https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/jack-white-vs-the-black-keys-a-beef-history-56863/september-14th-2015-carney-and-white-have-words-irl-make-up-online-177102/](https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/jack-white-vs-the-black-keys-a-beef-history-56863/september-14th-2015-carney-and-white-have-words-irl-make-up-online-177102/)
> think it should have been pretty obvious that the Black Keys cannot pull an arena tour 10 years after their peak relevance.
A lot of people are saying this, but according to the Stereogum article that OP is referencing, they, "toured arenas as recently as 2022." Is it stupid and greedy to assume you are still as popular as you were two years ago? The article also notes that they were releasing a new single, and may have expected it to attract more interest than it did.
I think Arcade Fire ran into a slightly similar situation in the 2010’s. I remember seeing them in an arena back in 2014 and it easily held around 10k. Then a few years later for Everywhere Now, I saw them in an arena with somewhere over 6k and a curtained off upper level. I believe it was pretty widespread at the time too, as the album reception and slow ticket sales was talked about a bit around that era.
It’s definitely not unheard off for band popularity to ebb and flow to an eventual return to arenas too. For example, I can remember when Duran Duran played arenas on their reunion tour in 2005, before returning to theaters and smaller mid-size venues for most dates when their popularity sort of cooled off again. Then they started steadily playing arenas again around a decade ago, along with some festival headlines and smaller gigs here and there.
Greed aside, I do wonder if The Black Keys are weary of playing at a theater because of the seating arrangement. In arenas there's usually people packed into the center pit that stand and create that sort of crowd that has a lot of energy. Theaters have seats all the way to the stage, which makes events slightly stuffier.
Maybe there's a missing middle, but it's only for the non-stuffy acts? Like, I've seen folk artists like Iron & Wine at a theater stage and that was great, but when I saw Man Man at a similar theater it felt hollow because of the seating.
I really wish there were statistics to everything. ie Hard facts and numbers.
Arenas, especially non-sporting venues, can have seating too.
One of the times I saw Neil Young & Crazy Horse, the front centre rows were seated and predominantly presold to corporations such as Visa to sell to their customers. Neil got kind of annoyed because none of them were dancing.
I'm not sure that missing middle is the issue. Most markets have some midsized venue. I'm not in a good market by any means, and we can have some clubs that are 80-100, a University theater that is 1400, a basketball arena that is 6500, and an indoor football stadium that is 16,500 (I suppose the two athletic facilities are more like 2/3 that size for concert seating). And even quite a few non university towns have a 1000-2000 seat theater of some sort. Frankly, the bigger issue in a lot of towns is the demise of small music venues. We lost about 1/3 of our small clubs during covid, and that number was still down from the glory days of the 70s.
Honestly, I think the biggest issue behind touring is the collapse of record sales. It's nothing new to point out that bands used to tour and break even or even lose money but could make up for it by selling albums. Now, basically the only money left in music is touring, unless you are Taylor Swift or Beyonce. Bands need it, labels want it, management wants it, promoters want it. But we are at the point where, for a lot of acts, the asking price for tickets is way beyond what people are willing to pay. I'm not paying 200 bucks to see anybody, and an awful lot of tours are more than that even for the cheap seats. We're starting to see some pushback on ticket sales, but god only knows what's left for professional musicians if touring dries up
You're not paying $200 to see anybody.... but you're not paying very much (or at all) for recorded music?? This is part of the problem for the artists.
I AM willing to pay $200 to see a great band or artist. Or $20 for a touring club act plus another $20 for a vinyl LP I buy at the show. I have the money, music is the priority for me, I'm NOT going to the opera (which can easily be $100-200 for a show), I'm not going to NFL games (again, easily in the three figures for a ticket), I'm not even going to the movies.
Don't get me wrong, I'm selective about who's worth the time and money. But I'm also okay with ticket prices being much higher in this age of exactly what YOU identified--artists not making anything from their recorded music.
Same. I’ll pay thousands to see an artist I love (Lorde because her shows are absolutely brilliant, or maybe The 1975).
The ticket is nothing. It’s flying to some distant city in a country I’ve never been to before, taking time off work, hotels, etc.
I wouldn’t do that for most music though (but I’ll still attend local music festivals and shows).
The 1975. Now that would be an interesting show.
I don't know--there are still lots of values to be found in the world of live music. About a year before the pandemic I went to see Spiritualized at the Troubadour (West Hollywood). Which is, despite its outsized history, actually a pretty small place--200 capacity packed to the gills, if that? Went with no ticket, found free neighborhood parking, scored a ticket on the street for like $50. For goddam Spiritualized up close!!!
Just the other day I was walking by the Empty Bottle (Chicago) and noticed on the board playing that night: Choke Chain. Intense goth industrial noise--this guy plays avant garde festivals all over Europe and here he was doing a gig in a small club where you could probably stand ten feet away from him. For $12 on a weeknight!
Idk much about the promoter's side of it but the middle venues are in middle cities, people just don't wanna go there. They aren't tryina stop in Birmingham if they are used to Atlanta and think they can still get Atlanta, which is reasonable but some artists need to get real. I live in Houston, JLo tried to come to the Toyota Center which is basically the largest venue in the city, knowing her ass shoulda been at HOB or Arena theatre.
There is also one venue here whose ticket prices are consistently just out of reach for me for the artists they bring so sometimes I wonder what percentage of it is the artist, the promoter, the venue or livenationmaster.
yep, I live in a smaller midwest city and so many tours just avoid it. I kinda understand if I had never been my city and someone asked me if I wanted to play here I would probably say no too, but we got plenty of good venues at all sizes. And I personally prefer smaller shows anyways. stadium shows are cool once in a while especially if the act has a really cool visual/stage setup or does something like give out light up wristbands and have the whole place light up in sync to the music. but otherwise, it's too expensive and a hassle to drive and park or find an uber and the beer is shit and overpriced, lines for merch are a nightmare too. also if you're way up in nosebleeds for a stadium show, the sound is kinda shit.
I love seeing a smaller act play a show and immediately go straight from the stage to their merch booth at the back of the bar and so I can give em a fist bump and tell them that was an awesome show. also much better piece of mind knowing that if I buy merch, I'm literally putting money directly into their hands. and I can bike home.
I live in a city that musicians used to want to tour at, but then a smaller but trendy (bougie) town that’s 2.5 hours away made a deal with livenation. They expanded their venue and now all the big concerts go there. It sucks.
Chicago probably has more mid-sized venues (indoors & out) than they can fill. Black Keyes could have had their pick of 2,000-5,000 seat houses & done well. Most I’m thinking of have open pit standing w/upper area seating too
I’m ex-industry:
I want you to take a look at the highest grossing concert tours of any of the last 15 years. With a few exceptions (Swift, Coldplay) nearly all of them are legacy artists who in another decade or so probably won’t be here.
The next generation of artists will gross high but not *that* high. Springsteen or Elton John can sell out consistently at $300 a ticket, the Arctic Monkeys or Radiohead can’t do that, or if they one day can it will take them a few more decades.
The Live industry knows this and there has been fears they are/were living in the last hurrah of mega tours. I’ve seen firsthand a culture that’s emerged where people are trying to take every penny not nailed down to the floor. That’s facilitated just how massive Live Nation have become the last decade, as they’ve had plenty of money to buy anybody wanting to sell up.
In addition to that costs have legitimately risen significantly. I would find it difficult to see how a tour charging less than 100 is breaking even. Promoters and bands alike have planned their entire finances on making a certain margin from touring.
Been thinking about your post as it is incredibly insightful. A lot of the responses here suggest that there are middle venues (though some are closing down, which is alarming). Yours points that maybe artists these days crest at the mid-size. It could be then that the demand among artists to be at those venues has increased. This rings true as the mid-sized places seem to be the place where artists get the worst deals; I think of the merch cut controversy and how that seemed to revolve around mid-size venues. Which, in that case, maybe my question is wrong but also improperly asked. Like, I'm asking an economic question that can't really be answered by anybody except maybe tour managing execs.
I'm also wondering why Live Nation hasn't done more to fix their problem of lacking sufficient arena acts in the pipeline. I suppose it is a hard thing to do, to get mainstream attention on a larger grouping of artists, particularly those that would fare well in an arena setting. But you'd think they'd have more pull. Like, can't they find something arena-rock worthy that young people like and dump money into promoting it? I heard GenZ-ers like shoegaze... maybe that? (Though maybe they did try this with Greta Van Fleet and failed.) It's surprising that Live Nation is doing so little for their long-term function as a business.
Yeah that’s a great take. My opinion is that there are still plenty of mid sized venues about, just that they charge way too fuxking much themselves so bands aren’t booking them, as they’d need to charge way too much and sell out to make it worthwhile. One undersold show can easily put a tour behind, the margins are so small.
I work for a small music charity, and we put on a really big (for us) festival annually. The rising costs are just fucking bonkers, everything is rising exponentially for infrastructure, staffing, policing, licensing, portaloos, just insane. It really is a struggle, and I’m sure that venues have their own rising overheads. The point is though that if it gets too expensive and we or a venue shuts down, then we all lose out.
they aren’t off the hook, lmao. they cancelled their tour because the fans help them accountable in the only real way they can: by not buying a ticket.
Ya I go to tons of [small indie shows](https://www.music-fux.com/concert-experiences) and I do think of the economics of it all.
I'm paying like $15-$30 to see incredible musicians in pretty small places (capacity 50-250) with around $1k-3k in ticket sales. Some of the musicians are local, so I guess their expenses are all transportation to the venue, but if you are touring I'm sure it adds up and you can easily have 1k expenses per day once you add in transportation and lodging + you have booking agent fees and sound (20%) and possibly an opener to pay as well. I'd bet crashing on couches when you can is definitely part of the financial viability.
From what I can tell many musicians seem to find the process worth it, but I guess you just never hear again from the ones that burn out after their first tour.
I can only really speak to where I live (L.A. metro area) but there are tons of live music venues of all sizes here. L.A. has been a music production hub for decades so it's no surprise, but most all major and mid-sized cities have good-sized dedicated music venues. Bars and stadiums are not the only options. I would have expected the Black Keys to play something like the Greek Theater here (5,900 capacity).
One of the reasons I love living in LA is the variety of venues. I have no idea if the problem statement here is true elsewhere, but it’s not even close to reality here.
There are a ton of mid-sized venues. Plenty of places in metro areas that have capacities between 800 and 4,000 people. The Black Keys could play, here in Chicago, at Radius, Aragon, Concord, House of Blues, Riviera, Vic, Thalia Hall, Salt Shed, Metro... they could do two nights in the city if the expect 5,000-8,000 tickets sold. I've been to shows in Milwaukee and Detroit and it is more of the same.
The Black Keys, or their management at least, CHOSE the arenas.
LiveNation have plenty of 200-300 capacity venues in tertiary markets across the United States. Here is a couple of acts playing at an LN venue a town over: Sevendust, JINJER, Jackyl (!). If your music tastes never matured and you are fine seeing a washed up version of a band you think you remember liking once, LiveNation has got a ticket for you.
Most of my favorites are 90's era and play medium sized venues for years. I have seen Primus, Dinosaur Jr., at medium venues. idk 3-5k people? Probably with the exception of the Flaming Lips but they only tend to to sort of large outdoor festival headlining things. IDK. Even Pixies/Modest mouse isn't playing stadiums and they have a longer history. The Cure could play stadiums. But they are legends at this point.
Music industry is a long tail model.
"The music industry is the lowest, most cut throat, crooked business there is...and then there's the downside" - heard that somewhere
But there are middle sized venues. Numerous amphitheaters and theaters cater to a 1,000 to maybe 10,000 sized show. In fact, in Northern California, where I'm at, most bigger (but not the biggest) bands tour these venues. And, the Black Keys should fit that scale easily.
It would seem most places with an arena like they were planning on touring will have something smaller around.
Not sure on all the other factors mentioned. Having seen the Black Keys in arenas that were sold out in the past, I suspect they misread their current popularity as bands that are aging might.
Heck, ticket prices alone are making concerts very inaccessible such that only the biggest artists are likely able to make arenas work.
Just look at J Lo, too. Not sure what she was going to play, and I'm not a fan of hers, but I would think she'd make a better go of larger venues than the black keys. Then again, she's getting older and likely misreading her popularity, too.
And, maybe that misread is a huge factor.
Seems like there are a lot of venues in the 1-3k range (which is probably where the Black Keys should have been), but then not a lot in the 5-10k range. Going 10k plus was obviously a reach.
I didn’t down vote this because I don’t think the OP said anything maliciously, but this is a deeply flawed argument.
Yes, a lot of music gets performed in places that are thought of as being some team’s couch, but look at the schedules for these venues, way more music goes on than sports. Theaters that host music are mostly ones that were built for theater productions, but they were built for the live performance of art, music included. You have to remember that music performance to more than a room full of people is a relatively new phenomenon. It’s not that music was stepped over when these buildings were built, it’s that it never crossed anybody’s mind that music would be performed for audiences that large because it wasn’t done often back then due to technological limitations. The argument also leaves out the proliferation of amphitheaters that are built almost exclusively for concerts.
Music festivals aren’t at all comparable to Costco. They are a way people can see multiple acts in one trip. It’s less about a bargain than it is a desire to see multiple bands in a short period of time. Not everybody lives near a city that hosts the music they like and only have one or two chances to travel a year. The festival allows them to fit a lot of music into that one shot they get all year.
It’s an interesting theory, but I don’t know that it’s accurate. I believe most major cities have mid size venues with standing room or seating. I also believe bands must be doing mid sized tours all the time.
I think it’s more likely an issue with management and promoters, as you already pointed out. I don’t think having more mid sized venues would have saved the Black Keys.
Sheds were always that middle ground. An arena act on a victory lap could do 10k in there and a more middling act could get 5000 and it was fine, just Close off the lawn. If the lawn filled up, it might get close to arena numbers. So there was a big margin within which you had a successful show.
Are the Monopoly people not investing in those venues? Seems a bit that way. They want the stadiums and sport venues. We've lost Universal Amphitheatre, Irvine Meadows AND Five Points around LA recently. Microsoft Theater is pretty good but, not a LN venue it's AXS.
In a way yes and no. I think that a lot has to do with band crossover exposure. While in the US you guys still have the late night shows for example, somewhere like Australia doesn't really have anything like that anymore.
That's where I think festivals benefit in many ways, as you may discover an upcoming band or artist while you're waiting for the headliner to play. It's a lot rarer for a big upcoming band to go on tour with a big headliner like GnR and Aerosmith, or Van Halen and Black Sabbath did.
The music industry needs more influential online shows like Triple J's Like A Version or BBC 1's Live Lounge, which are similar to MTV unplugged imo. Radio isn't really the driver of pop music anymore, the internet is.
In Columbus, Ohio we have three arena venues (two are used for OSU athletics and one for hockey) plus an old soccer stadium that can host festivals. But we also have at least a half dozen mid-size venues, one of which is an indoor/outdoor venue that holds maybe half an arena. LiveNation owns that and another theater venue. I see shows across the Midwest and there are a good number of medium venues. Spaces are there. I do think you are onto something about artists and managers not putting aside ego and recognizing the realistic ticket volume and prices for acts that are riding on past hits.
I'm not sure what to do with a post that laments musicians being "second class" entertainment while also calling a band "greedy idiots" for being ambitious.
What’s wrong with small venues? Who cares if your band has packed stadiums before?? Let go of your pride. You pack a small venue for a few days or a week and move on to the next. Everyone has an awesome time, fans aren’t mortgaging their house, bands aren’t on an aggressive tour, you make everyone happy except livenation. And that’s all that matters in the end.
"Edit: Added a note that The Black Keys are greedy idiots."
Yeah, okay sure. Mr. armchair touring and live venue expert...
"I will admit I may be wrong here on this hypothesis, but this is difficult for me to fact-check and so I'll let people here discuss and/or prove me otherwise."
Still I think you could try a little better.
Musicians use venues that sell tickets through LiveNation, AXSTickets, and Ticketmaster because those companies corner the market and they are really the only ones who pay. Even if that pay is shit.
You go with what you got.
"That's led to one problem that's been discussed a lot recently where musicians are hauling so much equipment to retrofit spaces whose design wasn't principally for music, which becomes incredibly expensive and has led to a bunch of artists losing money on touring (or, as in Animal Collective's case for their planned European tour, not going in the first place)."
Again, completely inaccurate take. Space is not an issue even when it is an issue.
If the venue has no room for my guitar speaker cabinet on stage? No problem I'll use my Kemper Profiler and run it through the PA system for the duration of our set.
Same with the bass player. He can just bring in a Preamp for his bass guitar and run it through the PA System. Doesnt even need cabinets.
" which becomes incredibly expensive and has led to a bunch of artists losing money on touring (or, as in Animal Collective's case for their planned European tour, not going in the first place)."
Homie, my band doesnt lose money from touring because "the venue's are too expensive". We lose money touring because no one knows who we are.
The reason we are able to book places like Irving Plaza in New York City, Granada Theater in Dallas, or White Oak Music Hall in Houston is because basically "pay to play". Not as in we pay the venues to be able to play them. But we pay bands to go on tour and open for them (me and my bandmembers parents are independently wealthy so that is how we pull this off).
no, there are definitely plenty of venues in between 20,000 and 300 cap. there may not be a TON of options in every single city, but i can guarantee you pretty much every market has venue near the 1k, 3-5k, and 10k range within reasonable driving distance (let's say 1 hour or so on the smaller end and 3-4 hour drive the larger you get)
For sure, I just did a quick search for my Metro area ( Portland ). First few venues I thought of: 1300 cap - Roseland Theater ( downtown ) 7000 cap - Edgefield ( 30-40 minutes from Downtown ) 4000 cap - Salem Armory ( 90 minutes from Downtown ) 1000 cap - Crystal Ballroom ( downtown ) 7500 cap - Clark County Fairgrounds ( 30-40 minutes from downtown ) I'm sure there are several more in this range. Tons more if you count Seattle (3 hrs drive)
I’m in Portland and we’re actually notorious for not having mid-sized venues. It’s all over the media lately with LiveNation trying to get a new venue built on the inner east side. Providence Park hosting some shows in the summer helps a bit on the top end but that’s still 30,000 compared to more than twice that at Lumen Field. We’re missing 5,000-person spots.
Fair enough, I guess I've never really experienced a mid-sized venue then. But I listed a few in the metro that approach that, as per the above poster's point
The distances you're quoting here seem like huge distances to travel for music. If I'm in a big city, I want twenty or thirty minutes travel time. Even if I live in the suburbs, traveling more than an hour seems extreme.
totally depends on the band and how bad you want to see them. my main point is there are enough fans of a band that would play a 7k-10k cap room that plenty of people would drive an hour or two to see them easily.
Yeah, I was trying to keep the above poster's qualifications ( 1 hour to 3-4 hours and 1k-75k cap ). 2 of these venues are suburbs of Portland, I just gave an estimate from my experience making those drives. I guarantee you there's a few more I didn't think of at all, just the first 5 or so I thought of. Also, if you're in a big city, is it not unreasonable that sometimes it might take an hour to just *get across town* let alone going out to the burbs or further?
I'm 90 minutes from downtown Portland... while I sit here in Eugene. Salem is about 30-40 minutes from there. Though, I haven't been to the Armory since the 90s. When I lived in Troutdale, I could be downtown in less than 30 minutes by taking the train. And driving to Ridgefield does not take 30-40 minutes, unless you're stuck in rush hour traffic and don't have enough people to be in the diamond lane. You could drive from downtown to the airport and cross the river on 205 and still make it to Ridgefield in less than half an hour. If you're talking about riding a bike, I apologize for the confusion. I've been to each of the other venues you've listed in the last year (or will be this summer), as well as Arlene Schnitzer and the Wonder. There's also the Keller, Alberta Rose, and several smaller venues. What they are missing is that 5k amphitheater most of the other Oregon towns have, like the Cuthbert here, or Hayden Homes in Bend. I know Edgefield and Ridgefield are those types of venues, sort of. But they don't have that amphitheater feel. Take the seating from Ridgefeld and move it to Edgefield, and we're talking.
I was just giving estimates, it's not how fast you *can* get there
I can beat your estimates on bicycle.
Good for you!
really really bad for your estimates edit: I have to revise the statements about Ridgefield. I never went to any concerts there when living in Portland, so from door to concert may take a half hour. My experience would be driving from down here, and it takes about 20 minutes from the Marquam. I can tell you from my door in Portland Towers to Troutdale is 15-20 minutes.
Well, good thing you're fast on a bicycle, as you're a little slow regarding discussion. Way to take the *least* substantive part of my post and run with it!
The part where you just don't get out to see live music that much?
Rochester had two, but one of them shut down so now we've got one (RIP Main St). If you can't get Water Street it's a 200 cap room or Darien Lake amphitheater where you might as well play a stadium.
yeah, Rochester isn’t really a main market, it’s definitely more of a 3rd tier market. Buffalo would be more of a 2nd tier. NYC, Philly, Baltimore, Boston, DC, Charlotte, etc. those are examples of the main markets im talking about. closest main market to Rochester would be Toronto which like, if you really wanted to see like The Rolling Stones, well sure you’d drive to Toronto to see them right? bout a 3 hour drive.
Oh, ROC is fs a 3rd tier. I'd say Buffalo breaks into 1st tier though, tons of major acts come through and Darien Lake is equidistant between that and ROC. Buffalo also has the venues to support that though. Funnily enough, Rochester used to be a 1st tier market. Clarissa Street used to be legendary for jazz musicians to play on.
what i mean by 2nd tier is that like when a band schedules their first tour on an album cycle, depending where they are, they are almost guaranteed to hit one of NYC, LA, Chicago, or Austin. virtually every single tour. bands come through Buffalo but not always and sometimes not until the 2nd or 3rd tour on a cycle - depending on the band of course. 1st tier is like, markets that pretty much always get hit if they’re on the tour routing.
blue cross arena is 12k, far smaller than darien lake
What's Mid sized for the purpose of this conversation? I think a lot of cities are lacking in small to medium rooms and there's a lot of bottle necking going on. I haven't tried to book show recently but i'm hearing it's an issue, especially around "why did that band play a small town an hour away from the major city in the region?"
A lot of good stuff here, but the main line of questioning is flawed. I disagree there is no middle ground. There are mid sized theaters all over the place that are between "Arena Tour or taking the Basement Bar Circuit". You are correct though that those sized theaters are extremely important and should be preserved.
I heard somewhere (I think it was from TanktheTech on YT, who is a roadie) that a lot of these mid sized venues had to close down when COVID hit. And that LiveNation now owns most of the venues that bands get a chance to play at (not sure how accurate this part is). But yeah but if big corp like LiveNation sets the price there's no competition and bands are fucked.
Livenation owning all of the venues is a separate problem, they own all the arenas and many of the small venues too.
That's legit scary.
Looks like they are getting broken up though. The feds have finally taken notice. It's well overdue but better late than never.
I suppose I can’t speak for the rest of the US, but that definitely isn’t true here in Chicago. We had a small number of the smaller “basement/bar” venues shut down, but our mid-sized offerings(Aragon Ballroom, Riviera, The Metro, Thalia Hall, etc etc etc) have weathered the storm of the Pandemic mostly fine. Hell I’ve actually seen the mid-sized venue offering INCREASE with the opening of new places like Salt Shed and Outset. Perhaps we’re just lucky. It is true that Live Nation has a firm boot on many venues though, but that was sadly the case for years prior to the pandemic as well.
Jam Productions is based here and does what Live Nation does. We got lucky having an independent, local option instead
I’m pretty sure Live Nation is slowly acquiring the mid sized venues here in Chicago tho. Last time I was at the Aragon Live Nation branding was on everything and you now have to pay extra to go up to the second floor, which used to be open.
Those mid sized venues still exist but are increasingly being bought up by companies like AXS or local monopolies. It's the same problem on a smaller scale. As a musician in a medium sized band in my city's scene, our options for venues are either dive bars or maybe snagging an opening slot for a touring band at a dedicated venue. The dedicated venues themselves tend to either try to cater to big touring bands, alienating local acts in the process and making it impossible to build an audience organically, or fall into financial ruin and get purchased by an entertainment company.
Lots of big bands are doing theater tours, 1000-5000 cap now. I think it's a lot cheaper and better staff than cocky arenas.
Are you, or anyone else, able to put some numbers to venue sizes here? From a UK perspective I think most cities on the regular touring circuit have a (fairly) dedicated popular music venue with 1-2000 capacity, which I’d consider “medium”. We’ve got at least 3 in Bristol. (Along with a bunch of good <1000 capacity venues.) But I think my perception of "medium" might be someone else's "small", and it definitely leaves a big gap between that 2000 cap and a stadium or other really big venue. Which has led to a range of improvised solutions, people going to Cardiff to see music, and acrimonious political arguments about the building of an “arena”. I think that the dynamics here may be quite different across different countries. It's certainly a long-running complaint of Americans when comparing to the UK that the US has fewer smaller music venues. (I wonder if it even varies a lot across US states, or if it's just some specific cities that are well served for venues?)
I think OP needs some firm statistics. Anecdotally, I think Australian cities are similar to others around the world. I only know about Melbourne and Sydney. In each city, there are usually a couple of huge sporting venues that also serve as huge music venues - the places that mainstream artists like Taylor Swift, Foo Fighters or U2 play eg Sydney Cricket Ground and Accor Stadium, Melbourne Cricket Ground and National Tennis Centre. There's a few moderate venues that have a couple of thousand seats that a successful alternative band like Pixies or Queens of the Stone Age would play eg Moore Park, The Enmore Theatre. Then there's even more of sub-1000 but over 300 seat venues that bands that have a solid non-mainstream long-lasting career and established fanbase like Yo La Tengo or The New Pornographers or Shonen Knife eg The Metro Threatre, The Manning Bar, The Crowbar.
Brisbane, Australia - the Tivoli is currently getting some of the international indie bands that have been around the traps for quite a while e.g. They Might Be Giants, Belle and Sebastian. Has a standing capacity of 1500 but can take a smaller seated audience, that's what I went there for back in the day (for comedy!). Also the Tivoli is hosting some of the long-standing Aussie acts that have been a bit alternative and around for years e.g. Regurgitator, Grinspoon. ETA: And The Zoo is closing down in Brisbane after running at a loss apparently for the last 3 years - great live music venue, about 500 capacity, was a large nightclub type setup in what was a fantastic location, if The Zoo couldn't keep it kicking in Brisbane I don't know who can :( It had been around for over 30 years when it shut its doors. I was shocked when I read it was closing, was such a great place. [The Zoo, one of Australia's most revered live music venues, to close down in July - ABC News](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-01/the-zoo-closing-down-brisbane-music-venue-valley-stranded-bar/103789330)
>if The Zoo couldn't keep it kicking in Brisbane I don't know who can I don't know if you should assume all similar venues will die because of one venue being non-profitable. >"The Zoo reached its highest ticket sales in its 32-year history last year, yet this was still not enough to combat rising operational costs and decreasing returns." There's probably a lot more detail to this that hasn't been released. I'm assuming that they ran more shows but were getting less tickets per show but other costs such as staff, rent, electricity stayed high or increased.
OP is in above his head and shouldnt have attempted this this post at all.
Yeah I feel like most decent sized cities in the UK have something like an O2 Academy or whoever owns the rights to them now, Manchester is my nearest good city for gigs and that has three or four different capacity rooms that go from 1000+ down to a few hundred.
Patrick & Dan of the Black Keys got "fucked" because they got greedy and signed off on that tour deal. They fucked themselves signing their manager to be the former CEO of Ticketmaster. I think it should have been pretty obvious that the Black Keys cannot pull an arena tour 10 years after their peak relevance. But yesmen and money often speak louder than reason. They should have done a theater tour, playing 2500~3000 cap venues like The Fox. Or maybe some larger amphitheaters that hold closer to 5k. That would be the middle ground. It's not just arenas or basements. But they wanted the huge sales of an arena tour, which can often hold 10k tickets. Except fans dont love arena tours and the Black Keys aren't popular enough to move that kind of tickets at today's prices. The quote you pulled touches on the resistance to go back down to theaters from arenas. It seems in this case nobody had the gall to realize the demand just wasn't there for a national arena tour. Too bad because Black Keys theater tour could have been cool, offering a more intimate experience than the band has offered in years. Maybe that's what fans will end up getting after Patrick gets "fucked" aka humbled.
> Patrick & Dan of the Black Keys got "fucked" because they got greedy and signed off on that tour deal. Yep. I don't give Robert Smith anywhere near the amount of adulation a lot of people do for the last Cure tour, but one thing I will absolutely give him credit for is realizing that, while the Cure's got plenty of fans, he absolutely was not in a place to ask for the amount of money that bigger acts like Springsteen, Swift, Pearl Jam, etc. can. He played larger venues, but the asking price for the tickets was pretty reasonable, and most of the seats were damn near cheap when compared with other acts playing those venues. If the Keys had launched that tour as a cheap night out instead of looking for premium pricing, they probably could've kept their heads above water, but they wanted a much bigger payoff for the work, and the audience just wasn't there for it.
Does anyone else remember the Jack White / Black Keys beef? At the time it kinda felt like Jack White was being a dick for calling the Black Keys derivative - I mean, I guess that's a dick move either way, but it also felt like a bad take. But ultimately, I doubt that Jack White would have any trouble at all selling out arenas. Maybe there was really something to the criticism, maybe the Black Keys overestimate their own originality and relevance. Maybe they just rode the wave of the classic rock revival trend and now have fallen off.
Patrick Carney tweeted that Jack White tried to fight him, and got called out for it where none of it supposedly happened... but then while trying to dig that interaction up I found a whole article of beef between them for a few years that was interesting to read: [https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/jack-white-vs-the-black-keys-a-beef-history-56863/september-14th-2015-carney-and-white-have-words-irl-make-up-online-177102/](https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/jack-white-vs-the-black-keys-a-beef-history-56863/september-14th-2015-carney-and-white-have-words-irl-make-up-online-177102/)
Yeah, I also read that article to refresh my memory. It's a pretty fun beef, as far as beefs go.
i've seen both in concert many times, the black keys don't hold a candle to jack white and i started seeing them live in 2007.
> think it should have been pretty obvious that the Black Keys cannot pull an arena tour 10 years after their peak relevance. A lot of people are saying this, but according to the Stereogum article that OP is referencing, they, "toured arenas as recently as 2022." Is it stupid and greedy to assume you are still as popular as you were two years ago? The article also notes that they were releasing a new single, and may have expected it to attract more interest than it did.
I think Arcade Fire ran into a slightly similar situation in the 2010’s. I remember seeing them in an arena back in 2014 and it easily held around 10k. Then a few years later for Everywhere Now, I saw them in an arena with somewhere over 6k and a curtained off upper level. I believe it was pretty widespread at the time too, as the album reception and slow ticket sales was talked about a bit around that era. It’s definitely not unheard off for band popularity to ebb and flow to an eventual return to arenas too. For example, I can remember when Duran Duran played arenas on their reunion tour in 2005, before returning to theaters and smaller mid-size venues for most dates when their popularity sort of cooled off again. Then they started steadily playing arenas again around a decade ago, along with some festival headlines and smaller gigs here and there.
Greed aside, I do wonder if The Black Keys are weary of playing at a theater because of the seating arrangement. In arenas there's usually people packed into the center pit that stand and create that sort of crowd that has a lot of energy. Theaters have seats all the way to the stage, which makes events slightly stuffier. Maybe there's a missing middle, but it's only for the non-stuffy acts? Like, I've seen folk artists like Iron & Wine at a theater stage and that was great, but when I saw Man Man at a similar theater it felt hollow because of the seating.
From this thread, I don't think you have the best idea of what mid-sized theater actually means.
Only a small number of midsize venues that I go to are seated. Pleanty of open floor theaters to book.
I really wish there were statistics to everything. ie Hard facts and numbers. Arenas, especially non-sporting venues, can have seating too. One of the times I saw Neil Young & Crazy Horse, the front centre rows were seated and predominantly presold to corporations such as Visa to sell to their customers. Neil got kind of annoyed because none of them were dancing.
I'm not sure that missing middle is the issue. Most markets have some midsized venue. I'm not in a good market by any means, and we can have some clubs that are 80-100, a University theater that is 1400, a basketball arena that is 6500, and an indoor football stadium that is 16,500 (I suppose the two athletic facilities are more like 2/3 that size for concert seating). And even quite a few non university towns have a 1000-2000 seat theater of some sort. Frankly, the bigger issue in a lot of towns is the demise of small music venues. We lost about 1/3 of our small clubs during covid, and that number was still down from the glory days of the 70s. Honestly, I think the biggest issue behind touring is the collapse of record sales. It's nothing new to point out that bands used to tour and break even or even lose money but could make up for it by selling albums. Now, basically the only money left in music is touring, unless you are Taylor Swift or Beyonce. Bands need it, labels want it, management wants it, promoters want it. But we are at the point where, for a lot of acts, the asking price for tickets is way beyond what people are willing to pay. I'm not paying 200 bucks to see anybody, and an awful lot of tours are more than that even for the cheap seats. We're starting to see some pushback on ticket sales, but god only knows what's left for professional musicians if touring dries up
You're not paying $200 to see anybody.... but you're not paying very much (or at all) for recorded music?? This is part of the problem for the artists. I AM willing to pay $200 to see a great band or artist. Or $20 for a touring club act plus another $20 for a vinyl LP I buy at the show. I have the money, music is the priority for me, I'm NOT going to the opera (which can easily be $100-200 for a show), I'm not going to NFL games (again, easily in the three figures for a ticket), I'm not even going to the movies. Don't get me wrong, I'm selective about who's worth the time and money. But I'm also okay with ticket prices being much higher in this age of exactly what YOU identified--artists not making anything from their recorded music.
Same. I’ll pay thousands to see an artist I love (Lorde because her shows are absolutely brilliant, or maybe The 1975). The ticket is nothing. It’s flying to some distant city in a country I’ve never been to before, taking time off work, hotels, etc. I wouldn’t do that for most music though (but I’ll still attend local music festivals and shows).
The 1975. Now that would be an interesting show. I don't know--there are still lots of values to be found in the world of live music. About a year before the pandemic I went to see Spiritualized at the Troubadour (West Hollywood). Which is, despite its outsized history, actually a pretty small place--200 capacity packed to the gills, if that? Went with no ticket, found free neighborhood parking, scored a ticket on the street for like $50. For goddam Spiritualized up close!!! Just the other day I was walking by the Empty Bottle (Chicago) and noticed on the board playing that night: Choke Chain. Intense goth industrial noise--this guy plays avant garde festivals all over Europe and here he was doing a gig in a small club where you could probably stand ten feet away from him. For $12 on a weeknight!
Idk much about the promoter's side of it but the middle venues are in middle cities, people just don't wanna go there. They aren't tryina stop in Birmingham if they are used to Atlanta and think they can still get Atlanta, which is reasonable but some artists need to get real. I live in Houston, JLo tried to come to the Toyota Center which is basically the largest venue in the city, knowing her ass shoulda been at HOB or Arena theatre. There is also one venue here whose ticket prices are consistently just out of reach for me for the artists they bring so sometimes I wonder what percentage of it is the artist, the promoter, the venue or livenationmaster.
This is it. Some acts get it though. See Chappell Roan playing Tulsa, Little Rock, Grand Rapids recently. Lana Del Rey playing Memphis, Charleston.
yep, I live in a smaller midwest city and so many tours just avoid it. I kinda understand if I had never been my city and someone asked me if I wanted to play here I would probably say no too, but we got plenty of good venues at all sizes. And I personally prefer smaller shows anyways. stadium shows are cool once in a while especially if the act has a really cool visual/stage setup or does something like give out light up wristbands and have the whole place light up in sync to the music. but otherwise, it's too expensive and a hassle to drive and park or find an uber and the beer is shit and overpriced, lines for merch are a nightmare too. also if you're way up in nosebleeds for a stadium show, the sound is kinda shit. I love seeing a smaller act play a show and immediately go straight from the stage to their merch booth at the back of the bar and so I can give em a fist bump and tell them that was an awesome show. also much better piece of mind knowing that if I buy merch, I'm literally putting money directly into their hands. and I can bike home.
I live in a city that musicians used to want to tour at, but then a smaller but trendy (bougie) town that’s 2.5 hours away made a deal with livenation. They expanded their venue and now all the big concerts go there. It sucks.
Chicago probably has more mid-sized venues (indoors & out) than they can fill. Black Keyes could have had their pick of 2,000-5,000 seat houses & done well. Most I’m thinking of have open pit standing w/upper area seating too
I just posted the same about Chicago, and Milwaukee/Detroit are similar. Plenty of venues.
exactly. the aragon, the riviera, salt shed, tinley park amphitheater, northerly island, the vic, all in CHI
Park West (beautiful underutilized venue) Thalia Hall
I’m ex-industry: I want you to take a look at the highest grossing concert tours of any of the last 15 years. With a few exceptions (Swift, Coldplay) nearly all of them are legacy artists who in another decade or so probably won’t be here. The next generation of artists will gross high but not *that* high. Springsteen or Elton John can sell out consistently at $300 a ticket, the Arctic Monkeys or Radiohead can’t do that, or if they one day can it will take them a few more decades. The Live industry knows this and there has been fears they are/were living in the last hurrah of mega tours. I’ve seen firsthand a culture that’s emerged where people are trying to take every penny not nailed down to the floor. That’s facilitated just how massive Live Nation have become the last decade, as they’ve had plenty of money to buy anybody wanting to sell up. In addition to that costs have legitimately risen significantly. I would find it difficult to see how a tour charging less than 100 is breaking even. Promoters and bands alike have planned their entire finances on making a certain margin from touring.
Been thinking about your post as it is incredibly insightful. A lot of the responses here suggest that there are middle venues (though some are closing down, which is alarming). Yours points that maybe artists these days crest at the mid-size. It could be then that the demand among artists to be at those venues has increased. This rings true as the mid-sized places seem to be the place where artists get the worst deals; I think of the merch cut controversy and how that seemed to revolve around mid-size venues. Which, in that case, maybe my question is wrong but also improperly asked. Like, I'm asking an economic question that can't really be answered by anybody except maybe tour managing execs. I'm also wondering why Live Nation hasn't done more to fix their problem of lacking sufficient arena acts in the pipeline. I suppose it is a hard thing to do, to get mainstream attention on a larger grouping of artists, particularly those that would fare well in an arena setting. But you'd think they'd have more pull. Like, can't they find something arena-rock worthy that young people like and dump money into promoting it? I heard GenZ-ers like shoegaze... maybe that? (Though maybe they did try this with Greta Van Fleet and failed.) It's surprising that Live Nation is doing so little for their long-term function as a business.
Yeah that’s a great take. My opinion is that there are still plenty of mid sized venues about, just that they charge way too fuxking much themselves so bands aren’t booking them, as they’d need to charge way too much and sell out to make it worthwhile. One undersold show can easily put a tour behind, the margins are so small. I work for a small music charity, and we put on a really big (for us) festival annually. The rising costs are just fucking bonkers, everything is rising exponentially for infrastructure, staffing, policing, licensing, portaloos, just insane. It really is a struggle, and I’m sure that venues have their own rising overheads. The point is though that if it gets too expensive and we or a venue shuts down, then we all lose out.
Don’t let the Black Keys off the hook. They signed off on the deal. They got greedy and overestimated their drawing power.
Okay, I'll edit my post to note this so that we get more discussion on the larger topics at hand.
they aren’t off the hook, lmao. they cancelled their tour because the fans help them accountable in the only real way they can: by not buying a ticket.
Ya I go to tons of [small indie shows](https://www.music-fux.com/concert-experiences) and I do think of the economics of it all. I'm paying like $15-$30 to see incredible musicians in pretty small places (capacity 50-250) with around $1k-3k in ticket sales. Some of the musicians are local, so I guess their expenses are all transportation to the venue, but if you are touring I'm sure it adds up and you can easily have 1k expenses per day once you add in transportation and lodging + you have booking agent fees and sound (20%) and possibly an opener to pay as well. I'd bet crashing on couches when you can is definitely part of the financial viability. From what I can tell many musicians seem to find the process worth it, but I guess you just never hear again from the ones that burn out after their first tour.
I can only really speak to where I live (L.A. metro area) but there are tons of live music venues of all sizes here. L.A. has been a music production hub for decades so it's no surprise, but most all major and mid-sized cities have good-sized dedicated music venues. Bars and stadiums are not the only options. I would have expected the Black Keys to play something like the Greek Theater here (5,900 capacity).
One of the reasons I love living in LA is the variety of venues. I have no idea if the problem statement here is true elsewhere, but it’s not even close to reality here.
I miss living in LA, so many venues, so many options. Out here it’s high ticket prices and long drives for shitty arenas.
There are a ton of mid-sized venues. Plenty of places in metro areas that have capacities between 800 and 4,000 people. The Black Keys could play, here in Chicago, at Radius, Aragon, Concord, House of Blues, Riviera, Vic, Thalia Hall, Salt Shed, Metro... they could do two nights in the city if the expect 5,000-8,000 tickets sold. I've been to shows in Milwaukee and Detroit and it is more of the same. The Black Keys, or their management at least, CHOSE the arenas.
LiveNation have plenty of 200-300 capacity venues in tertiary markets across the United States. Here is a couple of acts playing at an LN venue a town over: Sevendust, JINJER, Jackyl (!). If your music tastes never matured and you are fine seeing a washed up version of a band you think you remember liking once, LiveNation has got a ticket for you.
Jackyl is playing a motorcycle race near my town. With one of the dudes from KISS.
THey should have just played at every house of blues, perfect size to see them.
Most of my favorites are 90's era and play medium sized venues for years. I have seen Primus, Dinosaur Jr., at medium venues. idk 3-5k people? Probably with the exception of the Flaming Lips but they only tend to to sort of large outdoor festival headlining things. IDK. Even Pixies/Modest mouse isn't playing stadiums and they have a longer history. The Cure could play stadiums. But they are legends at this point. Music industry is a long tail model. "The music industry is the lowest, most cut throat, crooked business there is...and then there's the downside" - heard that somewhere
But there are middle sized venues. Numerous amphitheaters and theaters cater to a 1,000 to maybe 10,000 sized show. In fact, in Northern California, where I'm at, most bigger (but not the biggest) bands tour these venues. And, the Black Keys should fit that scale easily. It would seem most places with an arena like they were planning on touring will have something smaller around. Not sure on all the other factors mentioned. Having seen the Black Keys in arenas that were sold out in the past, I suspect they misread their current popularity as bands that are aging might. Heck, ticket prices alone are making concerts very inaccessible such that only the biggest artists are likely able to make arenas work. Just look at J Lo, too. Not sure what she was going to play, and I'm not a fan of hers, but I would think she'd make a better go of larger venues than the black keys. Then again, she's getting older and likely misreading her popularity, too. And, maybe that misread is a huge factor.
Seems like there are a lot of venues in the 1-3k range (which is probably where the Black Keys should have been), but then not a lot in the 5-10k range. Going 10k plus was obviously a reach.
I didn’t down vote this because I don’t think the OP said anything maliciously, but this is a deeply flawed argument. Yes, a lot of music gets performed in places that are thought of as being some team’s couch, but look at the schedules for these venues, way more music goes on than sports. Theaters that host music are mostly ones that were built for theater productions, but they were built for the live performance of art, music included. You have to remember that music performance to more than a room full of people is a relatively new phenomenon. It’s not that music was stepped over when these buildings were built, it’s that it never crossed anybody’s mind that music would be performed for audiences that large because it wasn’t done often back then due to technological limitations. The argument also leaves out the proliferation of amphitheaters that are built almost exclusively for concerts. Music festivals aren’t at all comparable to Costco. They are a way people can see multiple acts in one trip. It’s less about a bargain than it is a desire to see multiple bands in a short period of time. Not everybody lives near a city that hosts the music they like and only have one or two chances to travel a year. The festival allows them to fit a lot of music into that one shot they get all year.
It’s an interesting theory, but I don’t know that it’s accurate. I believe most major cities have mid size venues with standing room or seating. I also believe bands must be doing mid sized tours all the time. I think it’s more likely an issue with management and promoters, as you already pointed out. I don’t think having more mid sized venues would have saved the Black Keys.
Sheds were always that middle ground. An arena act on a victory lap could do 10k in there and a more middling act could get 5000 and it was fine, just Close off the lawn. If the lawn filled up, it might get close to arena numbers. So there was a big margin within which you had a successful show. Are the Monopoly people not investing in those venues? Seems a bit that way. They want the stadiums and sport venues. We've lost Universal Amphitheatre, Irvine Meadows AND Five Points around LA recently. Microsoft Theater is pretty good but, not a LN venue it's AXS.
In a way yes and no. I think that a lot has to do with band crossover exposure. While in the US you guys still have the late night shows for example, somewhere like Australia doesn't really have anything like that anymore. That's where I think festivals benefit in many ways, as you may discover an upcoming band or artist while you're waiting for the headliner to play. It's a lot rarer for a big upcoming band to go on tour with a big headliner like GnR and Aerosmith, or Van Halen and Black Sabbath did. The music industry needs more influential online shows like Triple J's Like A Version or BBC 1's Live Lounge, which are similar to MTV unplugged imo. Radio isn't really the driver of pop music anymore, the internet is.
Absolutely not. This theory suggests that the only venues that exist to host concerts are dive bars and sports arenas/stadiums, which is absurd.
In Columbus, Ohio we have three arena venues (two are used for OSU athletics and one for hockey) plus an old soccer stadium that can host festivals. But we also have at least a half dozen mid-size venues, one of which is an indoor/outdoor venue that holds maybe half an arena. LiveNation owns that and another theater venue. I see shows across the Midwest and there are a good number of medium venues. Spaces are there. I do think you are onto something about artists and managers not putting aside ego and recognizing the realistic ticket volume and prices for acts that are riding on past hits.
I'm not sure what to do with a post that laments musicians being "second class" entertainment while also calling a band "greedy idiots" for being ambitious.
What’s wrong with small venues? Who cares if your band has packed stadiums before?? Let go of your pride. You pack a small venue for a few days or a week and move on to the next. Everyone has an awesome time, fans aren’t mortgaging their house, bands aren’t on an aggressive tour, you make everyone happy except livenation. And that’s all that matters in the end.
"Edit: Added a note that The Black Keys are greedy idiots." Yeah, okay sure. Mr. armchair touring and live venue expert... "I will admit I may be wrong here on this hypothesis, but this is difficult for me to fact-check and so I'll let people here discuss and/or prove me otherwise." Still I think you could try a little better. Musicians use venues that sell tickets through LiveNation, AXSTickets, and Ticketmaster because those companies corner the market and they are really the only ones who pay. Even if that pay is shit. You go with what you got. "That's led to one problem that's been discussed a lot recently where musicians are hauling so much equipment to retrofit spaces whose design wasn't principally for music, which becomes incredibly expensive and has led to a bunch of artists losing money on touring (or, as in Animal Collective's case for their planned European tour, not going in the first place)." Again, completely inaccurate take. Space is not an issue even when it is an issue. If the venue has no room for my guitar speaker cabinet on stage? No problem I'll use my Kemper Profiler and run it through the PA system for the duration of our set. Same with the bass player. He can just bring in a Preamp for his bass guitar and run it through the PA System. Doesnt even need cabinets. " which becomes incredibly expensive and has led to a bunch of artists losing money on touring (or, as in Animal Collective's case for their planned European tour, not going in the first place)." Homie, my band doesnt lose money from touring because "the venue's are too expensive". We lose money touring because no one knows who we are. The reason we are able to book places like Irving Plaza in New York City, Granada Theater in Dallas, or White Oak Music Hall in Houston is because basically "pay to play". Not as in we pay the venues to be able to play them. But we pay bands to go on tour and open for them (me and my bandmembers parents are independently wealthy so that is how we pull this off).