Holt (2010) The Economy of Live Music

european journal of
Article
The economy of live music European Journal of Cultural Studies

13(2) 243–261
© The Author(s) 2010
in the digital age Reprints and permissions: sagepub.
co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1367549409352277
ecs.sagepub.com
Fabian Holt
University of Roskilde
Abstract
Popular music culture has changed significantly with the diffusion of networked digital media in
the late 1990s. The present article theorizes the concept of live music in light of those changes
and develops the idea of a new economy of live music. The perception of concerts as live music
is central, so this is explored conceptually and historically before outlining the main elements of
the new economy. Two immediate elements are the new economic centrality of live music and the
categorical change in concert ticket prices. Two other elements are the rise of new and renewed
event genres and the broader dynamics of the digital information society. The article integrates
perspectives of cultural and performance studies.
Keywords
concerts, cultural economy, live music, live performance, media and performing arts, popular culture
The promoter called me around noon [on 11 September 2001] and said, ‘Look, a
lot of people have been calling and saying they’re coming to the show. Do you
wanna do it?’ I said … [long pause] I really like being with people. I trust people.
I like being in a group of people. I like that kind of energy. This is one of the
reasons I bothered to go out on tour and not just concoct these things in my studio
and ship them out and sell them. I actually like the energy of seeing real people
and seeing what will happen … So, yes, that evening was very, very intense.
(Laurie Anderson on Sound Opinions, Chicago Public Radio, 5 May 2008)
Live Nation owes its window of opportunity to the rise of the live show as a profit
driver. (Michael Rapino, president of Live Nation, cited in McGowan, 2007: 24)
Corresponding author:
Fabian Holt, University of Roskilde, Department of Communication, Business and
Information Technologies, Universitetsvej 1, Building 42.2, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark
Email: fabianh@ruc.dk
Downloaded from ecs.sagepub.com at Univ Carlos III de Madrid on February 16, 2016
244 European Journal of Cultural Studies 13(2)
Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its
presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to
be. (Benjamin, 1999: 220)
While performance has been studied for decades, the category of live performance
has only just started to gain scholarly attention. This interest is fueled by economic
growth in the live music industry and by the general proliferation of performance in
the media, from home videos on YouTube to talent shows on TV and beyond to the
streaming of concerts across multiple media platforms. The trend brings conventional
wisdom into question. Are digital media practices boosting interest in live music?
Why is the market value of live music increasing at a time when media penetrate
social life more than ever?
The growing business of superstar concerts has been the subject of a few articles in
economics and business studies that draw on industry survey data.1 In cultural studies,
Simon Frith’s 2007 article ‘Live Music Matters’ is a major contribution to rethinking
the place of live music in contemporary culture. The article provides insight into the
situation in the UK and brings clarity to the economy of performing arts. Frith vali-
dates the classic economic argument about limited scalability in the performing arts,
but critiques sociologists for having overlooked the difference between live and media
music markets and between live and media experience. Frith’s argument moves the
field one step forward and opens up new avenues of research. The present article aims
to develop the concept of live music experience and provide a systematic outline of
key elements in the international economy of live music in Euro-America. My approach
to media impact differs from Frith’s. He studies the rise of secondary performances, as
exemplified by cover bands, tribute bands and reality-derived genres such as talent
shows and karaoke. I focus on concerts and festivals, have a different sample of indus-
try magazines and draw on conversations with journalists and industry professionals
held between 2006–9.2
The concert as live music

The category of live music has been central to publications in music studies (e.g. Frith,
2007; Thornton, 1995), but it has been subject to little theorization and in-depth historical
analysis. So far, the category has virtually escaped the attention of established disci-
plines.3 Auslander’s study Liveness (1999) brought new attention to live performance,
but scholars have still not explored in detail what is implied when a concert or a DJ set is
identified as live music and how that informs cultural practice.
Live music is a product of broad social and cultural transformations in modernity.
Emerging in public discourse with the rise of mass media broadcasting and recording tech-
nology, live music was born in the nexus of commerce, media and entertainment. The word
‘live’ started to be used in the 1930s to mean the alternative to recorded material in radio
broadcasts (see the Oxford English Dictionary, 1989). A sound reproduction was defined
as a copy in relation to an imagined original. Thus, the unmediated live performance and
Holt 245
its perceived aura were constructed retroactively within a new and broadened apparatus of
communication (Sterne, 2003: 219). By the 1950s, the word ‘live’ had developed into this
generic term for a performance that is not pre-produced in a studio and mediated via a
playback device, but it also continues to be used for technologically mediated perfor-
mances. Hence, the derivates ‘live show’, ‘live interview’, ‘live audience’, ‘live interaction’,
etc. The live experience is associated with co-presence in the here and now, and the strict
meaning involves a face-to-face relation in the same physical space.
A live music discourse developed in the 1940s when musicians’ unions reacted against
the replacement of performances with recordings on the radio and in bars with a jukebox
(Thornton, 1995: 41–3). Performance was defined as an authentic practice by contrasting
creative musicianship with the recording as a ‘dead’ object. This dichotomy still exists,
but its hegemony was eroded in the discotheque of the 1960s and with the MTV generation
(Auslander, 1999; Thornton, 1995).
In everyday language, the term live music is sometimes used for rudimentary pur-
poses to distinguish a musical performance from a recording or video or to distinguish a
live recording from a studio recording. These distinctions are complex. They refer to dif-
ferent modes of production and perception within different economies and organiza-
tional contexts. Live music is a cultural and aesthetic category that informs musical life
on many levels. When music exists as live music (that is to say, when it is associated with
the discursive category of live music), the perspective is broadened from the music itself
to questions about how, when and among whom the music is created, performed and
heard in relation to practices of technological mediation. Only by examining live music
in its communicative context can we understand its capacities in the production of
authenticity, festivity and social presence.
Moreover, I posit that live music is associated with the culturally and commercially val-
ued performance in a desired time and space. We know that it is a desired commodity when
performers receive a contractual honorarium, when tickets are purchased and when the
performance is prepared and perhaps also sponsored for an intended audience. There is a
long history of privileging particular types of performers and performances and excluding
others as undesired, as reflected, for instance, in negative attitudes towards immigrant street
performers and gay parades. The concert has been the most privileged genre of musical
performance in western culture since the 18th century through association with the bour-
geoisie and the idea of autonomous art (Habermas, 1962; Schulze, 2008; Small, 1987).
Concert aesthetics emerged in small-scale jazz in the 1930s (DeVeaux, 1989), and the con-
cert has also enjoyed prestige in middle-class rock culture of the post-Beatles era. Like
many other forms of popular culture performance, however, focus is rarely on the aesthetic
dimension alone. The sociality in performance and in the accompanying activities plays a
major role. Also important are acting, choreographed dancing, fashion and visual effects,
especially in the genre of the monumental stage show for a mass audience. So in many ways
popular music shows in secular society differ from ritual performance in traditional society
(Turner, 1982: 28–9). This is also reflected in the fact that live music seasons are not marked
by agricultural or religious rituals, but rather by practical weather conditions for leisure
arrangements. Outdoor music festivals are concentrated in the summer season, bracketed by
the club concert touring seasons from March to May and September to November.
The historical and social dimensions of musical performance provide a context for
considering its significance in the ontology and production of music. The significance of
performance can be seen in light of the fact that, before modern sound reproduction,
music only had a sensuous existence in performance. (In this sense, music was a performing
art like dance and theatre.) Musician performance is particularly important in historic
traditions such as classical music and jazz, but also in rock music. Performing in an
orchestra is the main type of employment for elite musicians in classical music. Here, live
performance by accomplished musicians is a sine qua non in artistic practice and aesthetic
discourse. Radio corporations, symphonies and opera houses have long had their own
permanent orchestras with a regular body of performers on year-long contracts. Popular
music, by contrast, has to a great extent been produced for mass distribution via recordings
(Manuel, 1988: 2) and the venues and employment contracts have generally been less
stable. Still, live public performance is a key site for discovering, assessing and promoting
popular music artists, and live music events are increasingly used as marketing events.4
The festival arm of the Popkomm trade show in Berlin illustrates how live music events
can serve more than one purpose for the industry. Popkomm organized a club festival in
2004 with the idea of providing opportunities for networking and for discovering upcom-
ing artists in small venues with a unique urban atmosphere and at affordable prices.
According to festival manager Dirk Schade, Popkomm needed a new strategy because the
industry could no longer survive on CD reissues and looked to the Berlin club scene
(interview with author, 27 June 2008). At the opening press conference, Schade drew on
the notion of authentic creativity in live music: ‘Clubs have always been the birthplace of
new musical ideas. At the Popkomm festival we take the business and the audience back
to the origins’ (Deutsches Musikinformationszentrum, 2 September 2004: http://www.
themen.miz.org/news_1527.html). The press conference was held in a rock club in the
Kulturbrauerrei, a symbol of urban renewal and new creative industry clusters in former
East Berlin. The club concert scene is a small business, but has comparatively great
importance to the media industry and to other urban nightlife businesses.
Outline of the new economy of live music

The live music economy has emerged during the decline of the media economy. The
spread of networked digital media has splintered the economies and organizational struc-
tures of the media and culture industries. In the era of new media, conventional forms of
content have lost economic value and the distribution channels and revenue streams have
diversified. New business models are being tested in a hybrid media economy that so far
relies greatly on revenues from hardware and telecommunication services (Consentino,
2006; Lessig, 2008). The general situation is mirrored in the music industry where busi-
ness models increasingly involve the telecommunications, computer games and advertising
industries (Collins, 2008: 107–22; Jenkins, 2007: 9). The sound recording is transformed
from a physical object into digital content with a more virtual existence, as information
that can be edited, shared and searched in new ways.
With live music, on the other hand, the market value has gone up and the consumer pays
directly for the music. The conventional business model has in fact gained from the erosion
Holt 247
Figure 1 Exterior of the MIDEM 2008 exhibition halls in Cannes, France. The new
focus of live music is reflected in the major international industry fairs of MIDEM in
Cannes and Popkomm in Berlin (‘MIDEM 2008’). The signage ‘Music Is (A)Live!)’
advertizes the concert broadcasts of the French telecom SFR, a subsidiary of
Universal-Vivendi.
Source: F. Sanuy, CA, MIDEM
of the media economy. While digital technology is a key factor in the transition, it should
be clear that the economy of a cultural field such as music is not determined by a single
factor. My concept of economy includes the metaphorical sense of a regulatory framework:
a set of interrelated structures, events and ideas that shape general conditions of agency
within the market-regulated cultural life of capitalist society. Based in cultural studies and
not economics, I examine changes in the live music business and the role of ticket prices,
for instance, as part of broader cultural and social changes. This approach is based on the
view that business practices are socially constituted and intersect with cultural experience
(du Gay and Pryke, 2002: 6). I adopt the position that cultural markets differ from other
markets and cannot be adequately explained by classic economics (Velthuis, 2005: 26). In
addition, the cultural industries are not like all other industries, but are defined by particular
types of products and labor (Banks, 2007; Lash and Lury, 2007).
The structural change in the economy of the physical phonogram can be illustrated by
considering the career paths of artists in the 1960s. A good example is Paul Simon, who
knew the business well from his experience in music publishing before his artistic career
took off. In a 2008 interview, 43 years later, Simon said he knew that his career would
change irrevocably when he read in Billboard one morning in 1965 that his folk rock
version of ‘The Sounds of Silence’ topped the Billboard Top 100. He was traveling alone
in Scandinavia, but he immediately knew that this success gave him the chance to become
an album artist, a top career destination. He had been working as a performing artist in
the UK, usually receiving £25 per night, which was the highest honorarium in the folk
circuit. Following his success in the single charts, Simon said: ‘I made more money on a
few albums than many people make in a lifetime’ (Simon, 2008). Since the early 2000s,
the situation has changed dramatically, as record labels are losing control of distribution
in the face of piracy and associated ‘free culture’ ethics (Ayers, 2006; Giesler, 2006; Lessig,
2004). Artists consider recordings less a revenue stream than a publicity tool for touring.
An act with some historical indexicality was Radiohead’s distribution of In Rainbows
(issued on the band’s own label in 2007) via their own website at a price decided by the
individual fan. The past decade has also seen unprecedented economic growth in super-
star touring. The Rolling Stones, for instance, made half a billion dollars on their Bigger
Bang tour in 2005–7 (Waddell, 2007a).5
The first sign of the new economy was the increase in concert ticket prices in the mid-
1990s. A growing trend in Euro-America was apparent to business observers around
2000 (Evans, 2000; Waddell, 2001), who talked of a boom a few years later (Frith, 2007: 2–3;
Worden, 2005). Revenue growth has been registered in venues of all sizes, but especially
in 2500+ capacity venues featuring star performers. In terms of audience growth, the
main domains are rock festivals and the new genre of theatre-style shows (Davies, 2005;
Parmley, 2004), but not individual superstar concerts (Black et al., 2007: 157). Some of
the newly developed structures in the music industry persist and the global recession has
hit later and softer than in other industries (Billboard.biz, 2009; Parmley, 2008; Tari,
2008). Popular music concert production has become professionalized and internationalized;
concerts are still the main source of income for many artists and their managers; and live
music has a new cultural location in the era of networked digital media. One of my
broader arguments in this article is that live experience and particularly live music have
gained cultural value in contemporary culture. Music shows constitute more than two-
thirds of the live entertainment economy (IQ News, 2009). In systematic terms, I should
now like to outline four key aspects of the new economy.
1. Live music as economic driver

The main reason for conceiving of a live music economy is that live music has become a
major domain and structuring force in the economy of music. The main source of income
for artists is generally concerts rather than recordings (Connolly and Krueger, 2005: 3, 10).
Concerts are being priced more as single-market monopoly products rather than as
complementary to recordings (Krueger, 2005: 26), and concerts have become a driving
force in selling other products. But the economic growth also extends to forms of live
music other than individual concerts, including festivals, theatre-style shows and major
DJ parties. Live music events featuring star performers have strong commercial potential
because of their idol status and power to attract public attention. The business centrality
of the live show is reflected in: 1) the growing business of associated products such as
merchandising and recordings; 2) the expansion of live music promoters into the terri-
tory of record, ticketing and merchandising companies; and, 3) growing interest from
other sectors. Around 2004, international music industry conferences added live music to
their agendas, and 2007 seemed to be the year when everyone wanted to get into this
sector (McGowan, 2007: 23).
Holt 249
The most powerful companies in this development are the two biggest international
concert promoters, AEG Live and Live Nation. Their headquarters are in Los Angeles and
they primarily own venues in the US, but they also dominate the promotion of superstar
concerts in Europe. AEG and Live Nation are subsidiaries of multinational media corpora-
tions and now have a big business in venue operations, merchandising and sports events.
Live Nation is the company that has expanded most aggressively. It has established itself
as the major national promoter in many countries, built a huge club venue franchise with
the Fillmore and House of Blues brands, seized further control of ticketing and generally
moved towards the 180- and 360-degree business models through long-term contracts with
stars such as Madonna, U2, and Jay-Z, with package contracts involving touring, merchandise
and recordings (Hillary and Peters, 2008; Waddell, 2007b, c, 2008b). The company has
thus become a self-contained entity that capitalizes on its control over the value chain. Its
monopoly was near complete when it merged with the dominant ticketing company
Ticketmaster in February 2009. The merger prompted reactions from critics, fans and the
US Justice Department, but the only superstar that immediately raised his voice in protest
was Bruce Springsteen (Nakashima, 2009; Waddell, 2009).
In economics, a performance is commonly viewed as a non-scalable product because
the audience size is limited and production costs are high in reproduction. Recent devel-
opments have transformed the concert into a semi-scalable product. The live music
industry has expanded the boundaries via technologies of amplification and festival
events with large audiences (Frith, 2007: 4). Moreover, the scalability has expanded
with highly efficient touring teams and the touring geography. There is already a level
of scalability in shows lasting several months. They can be compared with big wandering
exhibitions where much of the production is in place from the start and would be too
costly to do only once.
The expanded touring geography of Anglo-American artists accompanies the monopoli-
zation of the concert industry and general globalization. The most commercially successful
touring artists are heavyweights such as the Rolling Stones, Police, U2 and Madonna, who
have a relatively stable and large international market. Their touring geography has extended
to new regions of Europe, but also to other continents. One experienced promoter in Serbia
explained to me that he and several of his colleagues have realized that superstar concerts
can be organized virtually anywhere if the standard honorarium is in place (Dragan Ambrozic,
interview with author, Beograd, 19 January 2008).
One perhaps overlooked aspect is the expansion via online ticketing. In Germany,
online ticket sales accounted for 11 per cent of total sales in 2003 and 23 per cent in 2007,
when online buying had become the prime buying method for the age group 20–9 (‘GFK-
Studie 2007’, GFK Panel Services Consumer Research, report conducted for the IDKV,
excerpt obtained via email from Doris Volk, IDKV, 19 February 2009; Schruefer, 2004).
New levels of scalability are possible with online ticketing. Today, even midsize club
venues are using online ticketing because it is much easier for them to handle ticket sales
in this way. Previously, a local venue manager would call various ticket offices to get
information on ticket sales at various stages in the process. Moreover, audiences now
have more search options and can choose a seat or area via a map of the floor plan. The
internet has also created new opportunities for scalable distribution via travel agencies,
for instance, and has facilitated a boom in the secondary ticket market, which may
account for as much as 30 per cent (see Ballantine, 2007; ‘GFK-Studie 2007’, above;
Tudor, 2004). The large secondary market is a feature of the new economy and gives an
indication of the market value.
2. Categorical price change

The average price of a superstar concert has more than doubled since 1996. In the
1980s, the price would be roughly the same as the recent album by the artist. Today it is
equivalent to about 5–10 albums. Based on Pollstar’s surveys, conversations with
reporters and regular visits to internet vendors 2006–9, my estimate of the average
ticket price for a superstar concert on the primary market is $100–150 in the US and
€60–120 in Europe. Pollstar reported an average ticket price of $26 in 1996 and $62 in
2006 (Yoshino, 2007), but prices for superstar shows are higher. The average was $85
for the top-10 grossing artists in 2008 (Lewis, 2009). Top-price seats at a Madonna or
Police concert are in the neighborhood of $350, and prices for these tickets in the
secondary market on eBay.com are in the range of $500–1500. These prices and the
price-differentiated seating have psychological effects on the entire culture. They
intensify the atmosphere of dynamics exploitation.
With prices at the level of an opera, Broadway show or one-day visit to Disney World,
the superstar concert takes on a new commodity character, with cultural implications.
The price increase is so steep that it makes fans think about their spending budget and the
value of the concert. My ethnographic studies of music scenes do indeed suggest that
classic Marxists were right in their basic assumption that high prices for cultural products
tend to have corrosive effects. This is not to say that prices cannot have many different
meanings for individuals before, during and after the event (cf. Velthuis, 2005). Music
critics and online debates among fans indicate that some go to fewer concerts and many
voice their frustration at their exploitation and monopolization. I have observed a few
debates indicating that many baby boomers do not complain.6 Insiders of the live music
sector have also expressed concerns about the long-term consequences of exploitation
(Ballantine, 2007; Campbell, 2008; Challis, 2007; McGowan, 2007; Dirk Schade, inter-
view with author, 27 June 2008). Since around 2005, it has become harder for festivals
to book the headliners because superstars are making more on individual concerts than a
festival can afford. As a consequence, a festival such as Roskilde registers a widening
economic gap between the 20 top acts and the hundreds of smaller artists (Esben
Danielsen, conversations with author, 2008–9).
Superstar concerts become a luxury product that cost more than many other short-term
cultural experiences, more than going to an amusement park or a museum. This involves
an expansion of audience demographics from students and die-hard rock fans in rock
clubs to a larger 30+ demographic with more spending power. Changes in class association
with major live music events have not been studied in detail, however. The indications
that many of those aged above 30 continue to go to popular music events, rather than,
say, art jazz and classical music events at a similar price, coincide with long-term accred-
itation of rock music (Gendron, 2002) and the rising age demographics of high art
Holt 251
audiences. The latter has been addressed by museums, symphony orchestras and theatres
since the early 1990s. These organizations are also facing new challenges with tourism
and postmodern expectations for immediacy and spectacular experiences (Aronson,
2008; Cuno, 2004; Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 1998: 131–76).7
Attendance frequency is another important factor. A large survey of the German market,
one of the biggest European markets, found that audiences purchased an average of
3.7 tickets in 2007 (IQ News, 2009). Individual audiences have diverse attendance
frequencies, of course, but the survey indicates that the economic boom is in major live
events. Club scenes have cultural importance in rock-associated popular music types, but
their economy is very small. A few business insiders in fact say that students now allocate
more of their spending budget to one superstar concert every third month (Nikolai
Lubich, interview with author, 10 August 2006; Anderz Nielsen, interview with author,
30 August 2006; Benjamin of KOKA36, 8 May 2009). The director of a major German
concert promotion company stated at Popkomm 2008 that 90 per cent of live music
revenues come from upscale shows in large venues. Aware of the place of clubs and
youth in rock mythology, he added that a substantial part of the growth lies in the 50+
audience members that purchase €200 tickets for a musical or opera show (Michael
Bisping, 10 October 2008).
3. New and renewed event genres

Contemporary audience interest in live music is partly due to cultural innovation in
different fields of popular music production. Each field has complex boundaries and
cultural divisions and cannot be subsumed under the idea of one integrated popular
music industry (Negus, 1999).
First, rock festivals have broadened their appeal to a wider age spectrum by adopting
a more holistic approach to the festival experience and focus less exclusively on the
music. Festivals such as Glastonbury, Roskilde and Sziget have invested more in food,
sanitation, safety, environmental solutions and mobile technology facilities. They also
offer a variety of non-music events, from comedy to film and interactive installations,
and they design the festival fields to make the entire festival experience fun and pleasant.
This development has been identified as gentrification (Davies, 2005).
Second, popular music concert promoters started cultivating the new genre of theatre-
style shows in the mid-1990s. The shows are mainly held in arenas, where promoters
have, for decades, had a cultural background in rock music. Many promoters were reluc-
tant to include the genre to begin with, but the shows attract large audiences without
eating into the market of rock shows (Parmley, 2004). Journalists share some of the skep-
ticism, so most of the publicity is via advertising. The trend was boosted by the Irish
dance show Riverdance and the male body performers The Chippendales in the mid-
1990s. Their successes led to a number of Irish dance shows and to the David Copper-
field show. The huge success of Disney on Ice led to a stream of ice skating shows.
Another and still very popular genre in this domain is musicals in touring versions
organized and produced like rock concert tours. Cash cows include Abba: The Show and
arena versions of Cats and the movies Chicago and High School Musical.
New forms of mediated performance

1989- MTV Unplugged (began in the US)
1995- Dogma film (began in Denmark)
1999- Big Brother (began in the Netherlands)
1999- Popstars (began in Australia)
2002- American Idol (US)
2004- X Factor (began in England)
2007- MTV Unplugged series extended to VH1 and CMT
Concert broadcasting
1996 Beginnings of internet concert broadcasting
1998- MTV broadcasts from festivals
2001- DCN webcasts concerts with Sony artists
2005 AOL webcasts ‘Live 8’ (5 million viewers)
2006- Apple’s iTunes sponsors, organizes and podcasts concert
tours, concert series and a festival
2007 MSN.com webcasts ‘Live Earth’ (8 million viewers)
2007- SFR telecom broadcasts concerts to mobile phones
2008- iTunes podcasts recordings of American Idol finalists
Figure 2 New forms of media performance and concert broadcasting.

Sources: Billboard (1996); Farzad (2005); Garrity (2001); http://www.liveearth.org/?p=237; Tijs (2007).
4. Live experience in the digital information society

While the media economy of content has declined, media penetration is greater than ever
before. Media technologies and practices themselves have changed enormously and affected
many kinds of communication. Some historical performance genres in music and theatre
exist in their basic ritual format of the hour-long stage performance before an audience.
In live theatre, artistic practice is embedded in the visual and spatial dimensions of the
physical stage scenography. The art form is thus at odds with a society where visual and
spatial domains are primarily constituted in digital multimedia (Aronson, 2008: 25).
Recordings have not replaced concerts in the way that movies have replaced theater. First,
the art form is basically the same in live and recorded music, whereas theatre is particularly
challenged by cinema with regard to the representation of reality through visual technology.
Second, a major part of the live experience in popular music shows is the sensuous totality
of the loud sound and the large crowd in generally non-seated performance venues. The
situation with live music and theatre is very much related to the boundaries of art and popular
culture. It is easier to attract a larger audience if the stage show is entertaining and the
artists and repertoire are frequently broadcast in the media.
Still, all forms of live performance are limited by the medium of the physical perfor-
mance space and by the medium of communication that is performance. Performance has a
high degree of immobility because it involves physical co-presence in a singular time
and space. Stage performance involving a face-to-face encounter between artist and
audience is one of the most bounded forms of interaction, spatially and temporally,
because the view and roles have to be virtually fixed for the communication to make
sense and allow for continuous concentration. Communication via digital media is much
more flexible in terms of the temporal and spatial dimensions. Bodily gestures activate
Holt 253
procedures or are transformed into data that can be edited, fragmented, reproduced,
shared and stored by an infinite number of people in different places and times.
That media penetration sustains the desire for bodily co-presence is a common view and
perhaps obvious. Media impact on performance is complex, however. It cannot be observed
empirically at the level of the individual event, but requires abstract concepts and theoretical
explanations. My starting point is Turner’s fundamental hypothesis that there is a dialectical
relation between ritually marked performances and everyday life (Turner, 1982). Perfor-
mances comment and reflect, stimulate and transform everyday life, against which they are
constituted as marked moments, says Turner. Entertainment is no longer so separate from
everyday life, but public performances are still marked moments, not least because they
differ from everyday media consumption. The media shape the horizons and form a frame
of reference for social life. Media representations of performance, for instance, shape the
culture of performance (Auslander, 1999). The relative autonomy of media and perfor-
mance will be addressed below, but there can be no doubt that digital communication offers
very different experiences than live performance. The live performance offers physical,
bodily co-presence in a social and material space. In this sense, we might say that stage
performance offers a contrast to the ‘noisy’ and disembodied spaces of communication in
the digital information society (Tsoukas, 1997).
My own experience of going to concerts has brought a few clear results that are rele-
vant here. First, I would not claim that rock concerts, for instance, generally provide a
meditative refuge from everyday life in the way that deep religious trance can do. But
the live experience frequently involves immersion into a process of musical and social
experience. The process has a curve like many ritual performances, and artists, fans and
reviewers frequently express frustration when the immersion curve is broken, missing or
does not lead to the desired culmination.8 I can also testify that live shows involve a
rather active and social form of consumption. They involve planning and transportation and
participation for at least one hour. Fans frequently share the experience with friends and
encounter strangers in the audience who share their musical interest. Also, periods of
regular live music experience have enriched my media experience. The skills and embod-
ied presence developed around the physical experience have a general effect on one’s
musical perception. Experience of the social totality and process of musical performance
gives a more complete experience of music as an art form.
A few layers of complexity lie in the double-edged role of media. Media practices are
simultaneously moving closer and further away from live performance. Multimedia are
performative and appropriate live performance via interactive features and live footage.
Performance is also fetishized in talent shows on TV where media can intensify the drama
via mass audience awareness, as illustrated by phrases such as, ‘the nation is watching’.
Moreover, multiple cameras can do more than the human eye. Fascination with live music
in the media is related to festive moments: shows, parties, club nights, festivals, and so on.
The association with such moments among younger people underpins the freshness and
coolness that the words ‘live’ and ‘performance’ connote in popular culture. Media and
advertising companies represent live music to convey an imagined atmosphere of festive
live events. These companies broadcast and in some cases even organize concerts
(see Figure 2).9 A marketing director at Coca-Cola in Denmark in 2007 confirmed that
the company was redirecting its marketing approach to music with greater emphasis on
club concerts.10
Figure 3 Promotional photograph for the Jennifer Lopez fragrance ‘Live’,

released in September 2005. © 2009 Coty Inc. [Accessed 21 February 2009: http://
www.jenniferlopezbeauty.com/templates/products/liveluxe/default.asp]. This
is one of two photographs for the fragrance entitled ‘Live’. Both photos show
Lopez in sexually suggestive dance moves, so the music is imagined, as is the
motion. The photo illustrates how the word ‘live’, and visual representations
of performance, are used to boost the emotional dimension of a persona and
product brand. In these contexts, the meanings of the word ‘live’ emerge through
the spectator’s association of the media representation with the emotional
atmosphere and experience of particular events. The word ‘live’ can convey
notions of immediacy, excitement and erotic intimacy around a star performer in
a festive atmosphere. This sense of liveness circulates in both musician- and DJ-
based performance genres.
Media and performance can be complementary, converge and cross-fertilize, but their
competition in capitalist society also involves differentiation and alienation. In capitalist
cultural production, each organizational unit is expected to maximize profits and enhance
the consumer appeal of the product. This includes adopting or mimicking the qualities of
other products. Yet media and performance survive as distinct practices and domains of the
communication apparatus due to the unique qualities of each medium. This is despite media
dominance. The decline of theater and the rise of TV and film are core examples. In music,
the media product has generally replaced performers in dance and background music.
Holt 255
In this context, we can understand the live music show as a performance that features
the artist and repertoire known from the media. Media activity around the event heightens
the sense of magnitude and the social performance of media culture and its own sense of
reality. The combination of experiencing a unique performance and being part of a major
media event is powerful. Culture plays a key role in self-realization and identity-making,
according to many social theorists, and I have suggested that interest in live experience
is related to the conditions of everyday life in the digital information society. This reso-
nates with Schulze’s portrait of the experience society in which individuals are seeking
authenticity and immediacy through participation in the here and now of cultural events
(Schulze, 1992, 2008).
However, media culture and capitalism also threaten performance. The conditions in
modern society are counterproductive to performance because the deeper qualities of
performance depend on social intimacy and regular participation. The desired experience
of communitas is replaced by solitude when audiences have little experience, and mainly
experience mediated and presentational rather than participatory performances. A jour-
nalist friend who has reviewed hundreds of concerts in the past five years was puzzled
when he told me about an issue that he has not addressed in print: ‘You know that you
are together with many people, but you’re alone. You’re alone in the crowd’ (Simon
Lund, conversation with author, January 2008).
The above outline focusses on the general situation in Euro-America and is based on the
premise that major live music events and the media operate in broad international processes.
There are greater differences in local scenes, which feature smaller artists and rely on local
economies and entrepreneurs. We should not ignore local differences. My theorization of
media culture in performance, for instance, is developed from experience in Berlin and
Copenhagen where media penetration is high. 2007 survey data indicate that media pene-
tration is generally lower in East Europe, although some of the new EU countries are close
to the average in the West. About 65 per cent of the population in Denmark and Germany
had internet access, whereas Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania and Poland had between
29–35 per cent (Internet World Stats, 2007). A 2006 survey indicates that only 41 per cent
of all households in Serbia had a computer and only 31 per cent were using the internet
(‘Internet Penetration in Serbia 2006’, Centre for Research of Information Technologies of
the Belgrade Open School: http://bos.org.yu/eng/archive.php?subaction=showfull&id=11
61088176&archive=&start_from=&ucat=10&). As many as 47.1 per cent gave the reason
as being that they do not need a computer! Thus, the concept of the information society is
somewhat inadequate for contemporary Serbian society.
Conclusions and suggestions for new research strategies

In this article, I have theorized a historical change in the economy of music, drawing on
original industry sources and research by economists and sociologists. I have argued that
the restructuring of the economy of music is to a high degree related to factors beyond
the music itself, especially the qualities of live experience, but also the social conditions
of media and capitalism and postmodern narratives of self-realization through cultural
consumption. This does not mean that the music itself is irrelevant. Rather, it means that
we cannot understand how, why and with whom music is produced and valued if we do
not examine musical practices in the context of broader social and technological change.
There is much to learn from the economic boom in live music. First, it confronts us
with a domain of music culture and the music industry that is underresearched. It begins
with the term live music, which has virtually been ignored in scholarship, despite the fact
that it is a central discursive category and key to understanding music in modernity.
I believe Benjamin was right that even the most perfect reproduction is always lacking
presence in the here and now. This remains most important in practices where co-presence
in a physical performance space matters. Examples include a concert, football match or
a walk in nature. Wind, smells and other peoples’ emotional expressions are affective,
not least the collective energies of the audience. Regardless of technological develop-
ments and massive media consumption via iPods and YouTube, for instance, being at a
live concert remains a different kind of experience. This can be registered in the atmo-
sphere, the artistic performance and in social interaction. So performance retains some
elements of its uniqueness, even though it has lost some of what Benjamin calls aura
because it is not quite as unique when it can be reproduced.
Performance is a unique experiential category and specialized practice within distinct
domains of cultural production. Future research should examine experience and production
in various domains of the communication apparatus and should take economic and techno-
logical issues into account. Such research requires interdisciplinary teamwork between
media and performance studies, and cultural studies can serve as a common ground.
To illustrate the value of the practice perspective, let us return to the idea of the concert
as media experience. Audiences usually expect artists to perform their favorite songs, but
music is rarely reproduced from a recording, although this would save production costs
and in some cases improve sound quality. On-site musical performance allows for a more
dynamic and spontaneous interaction with the audience. The visual and theatrical dimen-
sions, moreover, are designed for the live performance specifically and reveal the perfor-
mance skills of the artist. In my ethnographic work on club concert scenes, musicians
have described the live and studio contexts as being much more different to one another
than many fans and journalists realize (Holt, 2007b).
Such ethnographically derived knowledge among audiences and producers is necessary
for grounding theorizations of media and performance. Auslander’s Liveness (1999) is a
major contribution to the field, but is nonetheless lacking ethnographic grounding.
Auslander’s categories of media and performance are inscribed in a rather generalizing
postmodern narrative of mediatization. These include claims that ‘mediatization is the
vehicle of the general code’ (1999: 5) and that performance can no longer be a site of
resistance (1999: 7).11 The book was a reaction against the ignorance of media in perfor-
mance studies, but its argument is based on media and literary sources rather than firsthand
participation in performance.
Contemplating the strengths and weaknesses of Auslander’s book has been invaluable in
the research that led to the present article. Above all, I realized the need to situate media and
performance as cultural practices conditioned by economic and technological forces. In my
terminology, Benjamin suggested that the communication apparatus is contingent to techno-
logical change, but it is also contingent to cultural and economic change. Current transfor-
mations of the media economy will most likely affect the economy of live music. It is likely,
Holt 257
moreover, that the unique elements left to performance will remain. Those elements account
for the striking fact that the economy of popular music has shifted drastically from recordings
to concerts in less than 10 years, even though the music is still largely produced for mass
media consumption. For about 100 years, the major record labels were the backbone of the
popular music industry, which is no longer the case. Music also remains a performing art, at
least partially. Musical performance is still highly valued in professionally produced public
events and media reproduction has mainly replaced performance in contexts where music is
in the background or where media extend the range of consumption, such as in traveling. If
live music was not central to the cultural study of popular music 20 years ago (see Note 3),
this has become more difficult to maintain.
Acknowledgements
It goes without saying that I am grateful to the journal editors and two anonymous referees for their
high professional standards throughout the process. I would also like to express gratitude to the
informants and research colleagues involved in this research. They are too many to mention, but
include the Berliners Dirk Schade and Klaus Gropper (Popkomm), Heiko and Simone (Köterhai
Booking), Sara Raimann (SO36) and Spencer Theile (Karrera Klub); Dragan Ambrozic (EXIT
festival and Music Export Serbia); everyone at Politiken, spillesteder.dk, and Vega in Denmark;
David Hesmondhalgh, Francesco Lapenta, Jon Sundbo and Simon Frith. Thanks also to my
department head Lene Palsbro for encouragement and support that have been valuable to this
research in many respects.
Notes
1. The most substantial study is by Krueger (2005), who accounts for market changes and points
to the declining economy of recordings. Krueger has influenced others (e.g. Black et al., 2007).
2. I served as a commentator in the Danish media from 2006–7, when tickets prices in the
country were among the highest in the world and twice as high as in Sweden, a neighboring
country with a similar social situation. The industry magazines used in the present study are
mainly Billboard and IQ magazine. Billboard is the leading trade magazine on the international
music industry and I have found several of its reports on international trends echoed in leading
European trade magazines, including Music Week and Musikwoche. For more detailed reports
on European concert promoters and festivals, I have turned to IQ.
3. The social sciences do not give high priority to aesthetics, and disciplines focussed on
expressive culture such as musicology have historically given low priority to things associated
with commerce and media. It is indicative that Middleton’s foundational book Studying
Popular Music (1990) discusses issues of performance without addressing mediatization and
live music discourse. Another indicative example is the contemporary Grove Music Online
(the major academic encyclopedia of music in English), which does not have an entry on live
music. It has a ‘concert’ entry that almost exclusively deals with bourgeois classical concert
life of the past and says little about contemporary concert life (Weber, 2008). It also has an
entry on television with a similar emphasis on classical music and little discussion of liveness
(‘Television: II. Concert and recital relays and recordings’).
4. One executive at Universal Music in Germany explained to me that executives rarely sign a
band before they are convinced that the band can ‘put a spell on the audience’ when playing
live (conversation with author, Berlin, 19 September 2006).
5. The tour comprised 144 shows with paid attendance by about 4,600,000 people.
6. One of the first industry reports on the booming live music economy also pointed to the
growing spending power of the baby boomers (Evans, 2000). Bill Wyman has organized the
blog Hitsville on the topic (http://www.hitsville.org/), and critics Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis
have regularly addressed ticket prices in the ‘music news’ section of their radio show Sound
Opinions on Chicago Public Radio. For fan debates, see Nakashima (2009); Sydney Morning
Herald Online (2004); Times Union (2008).
7. In Denmark, I have encountered these concerns in interviews with the manager of the Sealand
Symphony Orchestra, Søren Bojer Nielsen (15 September 2006) and the art museum ARKEN
during meetings in spring 2007.
8. The showcase genre is limited because it is too short for deep immersion.
9. AOL broadcast a Dave Matthews show from New York’s Central Park in 2003 and had about
5 million viewers for its broadcast of the Live 8 concert series in July 2005 (Farzad, 2005).
MSN.com had an estimated 8 million viewers for its broadcast from the Live Earth concerts
(‘Live Earth Breaks World-wide Audience Records’: http://www.liveearth.org/?p=237) and
regularly features concert broadcasts on its music website (http://music.msn.com/default.aspx).
10. When the iTunes-Coke tour began, the manager of Coca-Cola’s music sponsorship in
Denmark announced the company’s turn to concerts (Finnedal, 2007).
11. Performance continues to be a site of collective resistance to social problems, especially when
groups of people feel that the political system is causing those problems or not doing enough
to solve them (Holt, 2007b). Rock clubs, for instance, were the main sites of youth resistance
against the Milosevic regime in Belgrade (Collin, 2003).
References
Aronson, A. (2008) ‘The Power of Space in a Virtual World’, in D. Hannah and O. Harsløf (eds)
Performance Design, pp. 23–37. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum.
Auslander, P. (1999) Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture. New York and London:
Routledge.
Ayers, M. (ed.) (2006) ‘The Cyberactivism of a Dangermouse’, in Cybersounds: Essays on Virtual
Music Culture, pp. 127–36. New York: Peter Lang.
Ballantine, R. (2007) ‘Touting for Business’, IQ 12: 13.
Banks, M. (2007) The Politics of Cultural Work. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
Benjamin, W. (1999[1936]) ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, in H. Arendt
(ed.) Illuminations, pp. 217–51. London: Pimlico.
Billboard (1996) ‘Live Music Cybercasts Bring Concerts Home’ (8 June): 90.
Billboard.biz (2009) ‘Live Nation Seeing Healthy Ticket Sales, Stock Up’ (8 January). [Accessed 29
January 2009: http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3i4d62455821370cf-
bc4bb531604fc5802]
Black, G.C., M.A. Fox and P. Kochanowski (2007) ‘Concert Tour Success in North America: An
Examination of the Top 100 Tours from 1997 to 2005’, Popular Music and Society 30(2): 149–72.
Campbell, D. (2008) ‘Listening to the Audience’, IQ 21: 12.
Challis, B. (2007) ‘Legal News’, IQ 15: 10.
Collin, M. (2003) This Is Serbia Calling: Rock ‘n’ Roll Radio and Belgrade’s Underground Resistance.
London: Serpent’s Tail.
Collins, K. (2008) Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory and Practice of Video
Game Music and Sound Design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Holt 259
Connolly, M. and A.B. Krueger (2005) ‘Rockonomics: The Economics of Popular Music’, NBER
Working Paper 11282. [Accessed 11 May 2009: http://www.irs.princeton.edu/pubs/pdfs/499.pdf]
Consentino, G. (2006) ‘Hacking the iPod: A Look Inside Apple’s Portable Music Player’, in M. Ayers
(ed.) Cybersounds: Essays on Virtual Music Culture, pp. 185–207. New York: Peter Lang.
Crosley, H. and M. Peters (2008) ‘Live Nation, Jay-Z Deal Imminent’, Billboard.biz (2 April).
[Accessed 3 April 2008: http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_
id=1003784811]
Cuno, J. (ed.) (2004) Whose Muse? Art Museums and the Public Trust. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
du Gay, P. and M. Pryke (eds) (2002) Cultural Economy: Cultural Analysis and Commercial Life.
London: Sage.
Davies, D. (2005) ‘Keeping the Customer Satisfied’, IQ 3: 24–9.
DeVeaux, S. (1989) ‘The Emergence of the Jazz Concert, 1935–1945’, American Music 7(1): 6–29.
Evans, R. (2000) ‘Fans Foot the Bill for Concert Industry’s Record Year’, LiveDaily (5 January).
[Accessed 17 February 2009: http://www.livedaily.com/news/567.html]
Farzad, R. (2005) ‘Concert Video Is a Hit, Validating a Bet by AOL’, New York Times (5 July).
[Accessed 5 March 2008: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/04/technology/04live.html?_
r=1&oref=slogin]
Finnedal, M. (2007) ‘Coca-Cola sniger sig ind på Vega’, Politiken, iByen (6 January). [Accessed
31 January 2008: http://ibyen.dk/musik/article216531.ece]
Frith, S. (2007) ‘Live Music Matters’, Scottish Music Review 1(1). [Accessed 1 June 2008: http://
www.scottishmusicreview.org/index.php/SMR/article/viewFile/9/8]
Garrity, B. (2001) ‘DCN Signs Deal to Webcast Live Concerts by Sony Stars’, Billboard (9 June): 75.
Gendron, B. (2002) Between Montmartre and the Mudd Club: Popular Music and the Avant-garde.
Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press.
Giesler, M. (2006) ‘Cybernetic Gift Giving and Social Drama: A Netnography of the Napster File-
sharing Community’, in M. Ayers (ed.) Cybersounds: Essays on Virtual Music Culture, pp. 21–55.
New York: Peter Lang.
Habermas, J. (1962) The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Cat-
egory of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Hillary, C. and M. Peters (2008) ‘Live Nation, Jay-Z Deal Imminent’, Billboard.biz (2 April).
[Accessed 3 April 2008: http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_con-
tent_id=1003784811]
Holt, F. (2007a) Genre in Popular Music. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Holt, F. (2007b) ‘Kreuzberg Activists: Musical Performance as Social Vehicle’, Popular Music
and Society 30(4): 469–92.
Internet World Stats (2007) ‘Internet Usage in the European Union’. [Accessed 28 February 2008:
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats9.htm]
IQ News (2009) ‘German Live Industry Stable’. [Accessed 29 January 2009: http://www.ilmc.
com/iq_magazine/iq_news/german_live_industry_stable_21.html]
Jenkins, H. (2007) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York and
London: New York University Press.
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, B. (1998) Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage. Berke-
ley: University of California Press.
Krueger, A.B. (2005) ‘The Economics of Real Superstars: The Market for Rock Concerts in the
Material World’, Journal of Labor Economics 23(1): 1–30.
Lash, S. and C. Lury (2007) The Global Culture Industry: The Mediation of Things. Cambridge:
Polity Press.
Lessig, L. (2004) Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture
and Control Creativity. New York: Penguin.
Lessig, L. (2008) Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy. New York: Penguin.
Lewis, Randy (2009) ‘Madonna, AC/DC and the Year’s Highest-grossing Pop Acts’, Los Angeles
Times music blog (13 January). [Accessed 17 February 2009: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/
music_blog/2009/01/madonna-acdc-an.html]
McGowan, A. (2007) ‘2007 Review’, IQ 15: 22–8.
Manuel, P. (1988) Popular Musics of the Non-western World: An Introductory Survey. Oxford and
New York: Oxford University Press.
Mayfield, G. (2007) ‘2007 Billboard Money Makers’, Billboard (3 March): 30–1.
Middleton, R. (1990) Studying Popular Music. Milton Keynes and Philadelphia, PA: Open
University Press.
Nakashima, R. (2009) ‘Antitrust Woes Could Dog Ticketmaster, Live Nation’, Huffington Post
(6 February). [Accessed 17 February 2009: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20090206/
live-nation-ticketmaster/]
Negus, K. (1999) Music Genres and Corporate Cultures. London: Routledge.
Oxford English Dictionary (1989) (2nd edn). Oxford University Press. [Accessed 7 March 2008:
http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50134416]
Parmley, G. (2004) ‘It’s Not Rock and Roll (but We Like it)’, IQ 1: 18–23.
Parmley, G. (2008) ‘European Festival Report 2008’, IQ 20: 16–19.
Schruefer, M. (2004) ‘The Battle for Customers: Ticketing in Germany’, IQ 1: 10.
Schulze, G. (1992) Das Erlebnisgesellschaft. Frankfurt am Main: Campus.
Schulze, G. (2008) ‘Searching Aura: Cultural Production and Experience in the Age of Unlimited
Reproducibility – The Case of Live Music’, keynote paper presented at the ‘Cultural Production
and Experience’ conference in Roskilde, Denmark, 13 November.
Simon, P. (2008) Public interview in the Barnes & Noble store, Times Square, New York City,
webcast. [Accessed 20 November 2008: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/index.asp]
Small, C. (1987) ‘Performance as Ritual: Sketch for an Enquiry into the True Nature of a Symphonic
Concert’, in A.L. White (ed.) Lost in Music: Culture, Style and the Musical Event, pp. 6–32.
London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Sterne, J. (2003) The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction. Durham, NC and
London: Duke University Press.
Sydney Morning Herald Online (2004) ‘Your Say: Is $99 too Much to Watch Ageing Rock Stars
Such as The Who?’ (30 July). [Accessed 17 February 2009: http://www.smh.com.au/your-
say2/2004/07/30/index.html]
Tari, M. (2008) ‘Music in Shares’, IQ 20: 11.
Thornton, S. (1995) Club Cultures: Music, Media, and Subcultural Capital. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Tijs, A. (2007) ‘MTV Revives Unplugged’, Undercover HD (31 May). [Accessed 4 April 2008:
http://undercoverhd.com/news/Story.aspx?id=2215]
Times Union (2008) ‘The Police at SPAC’ (14 February). [Accessed 17 February 2009: http://
blogs.timesunion.com/readandreact/321/the-police-at-spac]
Tsoukas, H. (1997) ‘The Tyranny of Light: The Temptations and Paradoxes of the Information
Society’, Futures 9(9): 827–43.
Holt 261
Tudor, P. (2004) ‘Tickets to Trouble’, IQ 1: 6.

Turner, V. (1982) From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play. New York: PAJ Publications.
Velthuis, O. (2005) Talking Prices: Symbolic Meanings of Prices on the Market for Contemporary
Art. Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Waddell, R. (2001) ‘Concert Biz Is on the Road to Success’, Billboard (19 May): 22.
Waddell, R. (2007a) ‘Rolling Stones Tour Grosses over a Half Billion’, Billboard.biz (2 October).
[Accessed 18 February 2009: http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/
e3ia5be1da221ff008738094ae2b829e652]
Waddell, R. (2007b) ‘Live Nation Expands Fillmore Franchise’, Billboard.biz (29 March).
e3i100c7d91734c12fba65abb9cb1d0adbf]
Waddell, R. (2007c) ‘Update: Madonna, Live Nation Sign Global Pact’, Billboard.biz (16 October).
e3i172f2c4d34dd5766e64291d7752db92d]
Waddell, R. (2008a) ‘Live Nation Takes Ticketing In-house’, Billboard.biz (11 January).
[Accessed 19 February 2008: http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_
content_id=1003695537]
Waddell, R. (2008b) ‘Live Nation Inks 12-year Pact with U2’, Billboard.biz (31 March). [Accessed
3 April 2008: http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3ib32aa438464b-
c12575262eb811b39f54]
Waddell, R. (2009) ‘Live Nation, Ticketmaster Merger Confirmed’, Billboard.biz (10 February).
e3i73b3660e2c6025e6620c58a108ed9129]
Weber, W. (2008) ‘Concert (ii)’, Grove Music Online. [http://www.grovemusiconline.com]
Worden, M. (2005) ‘Newsline … : Live-music Revenue in Italy’, Billboard (5 March): 56.
Yoshino, K. (2007) ‘“Cheap Seats” a Relative Term as Concert Ticket Prices Rise’, Los Angeles Times
(3 July). [Accessed 17 February 2009: http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jul/03/business/fi-prince3]
Biographical note
Fabian Holt is Associate Professor of Performance Design at the University of Roskilde in
Denmark. His recent publications include Genre in Popular Music (University of Chicago Press,
2007) and the article ‘Kreuzberg Activists: Musical Performance as Social Vehicle’ in Popular
Music and Society (2007). He is currently editing (with Carsten Wergin) the volume Music and
Sociality in Urban Europe for Berghahn and a special issue on creative labor (with Francesco
Lapenta) for the Journal of Cultural Research.

Holt (2010) The Economy of Live Music

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Holt (2010) The Economy of Live Music

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

european journal of

The economy of live music European Journal of Cultural Studies

The concert as live music

Outline of the new economy of live music

1. Live music as economic driver

2. Categorical price change

3. New and renewed event genres

New forms of mediated performance

Figure 2 New forms of media performance and concert broadcasting.

4. Live experience in the digital information society

Figure 3 Promotional photograph for the Jennifer Lopez fragrance ‘Live’,

Conclusions and suggestions for new research strategies

Tudor, P. (2004) ‘Tickets to Trouble’, IQ 1: 6.

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen