You can pretty much guarantee that when a band or artist announces some gigs or a tour the “why aren’t you coming to my city / town?” grumbles will begin to flood in. It’s a particular gripe of ours. Not that bands don’t visit every single city in the country, but that quite often it seems that ‘fans’ display a sense of entitlement whilst remaining very passive about actually getting off their arses to do anything about it.
There was an interesting article by Stephen Ansell of the band Blood Red Shoes on Drowned In Sound earlier this year that questioned if music is becoming exactly that – a passive experience (here) and it's worth a read, he makes some good points about how music is becoming dumbed down and reducing in value because of the expectation of being able to have it all.
This year we’ve been recording every gig we go to and how much we spend in attending, to try and find ‘the true cost of gig going.’ Maybe at the end of the year the figures we get will explain why many people aren’t prepared to travel outside of their home town, to see live music. Maybe it really is too expensive?
This month we attended 7 gigs and saw 16 acts (including Charli XCX at London’s Heaven - pictured above). Not one of them was in our home city. We travelled to Brighton five times and London twice. In total we travelled approximately 800 miles to see those 7 shows. We don’t believe in grumbling about not being able to see our favourite bands. We’ll either work towards finding a way to removing the barriers to us seeing them or stay the f*ck shut up.
Here’s the figures:
October
Gigs attended 7
Acts seen 16
Total ticket cost (inc booking fees) £66.50
Total transport cost £136.50
Drinks at venues £32.65
Merchandise £0
Accommodation £35
Total Spent £270.65 (an average of £38 / gig or £16.90 / artist)
At the end of the year we'll be adding all the figures up and will be giving a figure that we believe to be the true cost of gig going.
No comments:
Post a Comment