I’ve been thinking about this all weekend (and for years of course). Not least because this extends to the low fees that GMVs pay.
Is record label restoring your support the answer then? That’s what I take from your article, but any kind of pipeline investment fund would do?
My understanding was that £50 stuck around because if paying £0 was an option it would happen more. But there’s some ancient case law that set the contract standard at £50. Could be an old promoters’ wives’ tale. An old hand at Asgard could be worth asking, say Paul Charles?
Here’s who’s not been increasing the fee:
Headline artists and their agents. They need the dough themselves.
Promoters. Not getting the choice most of the time.
Arts Councils, other funding bodies. Though PRSF have certainly made contributions. Outwith them, the expectation is that the market sorts the rock n roll wheat from the chaff. Well it’s not doing it, it’s sorting the rich from the poor.
Export funds (lack thereof). Canada, Aus, Ireland, lots of other countries have incredible funding schemes for touring that should embarrass UK.
Audiences. Other than certain arena and stadium shows, the kind that court controversy over ticket pricing, the market is still price sensitive. Promoters could pay more if the ticket price was what it should be. I’d say ticket prices are up past CPI inflation this year. But venues’ costs are way up past that, as are touring act costs, so that’s your ticket price increase eaten (and then some).
Record labels (and let’s put publishers in here too). Lots reasons. There are so many more artists’ music released by all levels of labels now. How can they all get support? The long tail is extremely long and dragging.
But a record deal advance can still exist, for acts that can generate competition between labels. And publishers are increasingly where the up front dough is at. Regardless of whether some of it is hypothecated for touring, there’s sometimes a pot that could be used to make up the difference between rising artists’ costs and stagnant fees.
Here’s a sensible appeal to labels and publishers to get back into tour support:
If labels reinstated touring support for the acts they were most strongly picking as winners, I’d certainly want to know who was on that list. If nothing else, the signal to the rest of the industry that an new act had tour support could be worth much more than the actual cash spent. “Who are the buzz acts st Great Escape?”, “Well Columbia are giving your support to [XYZ bands], and UMG are are sorting out [*^¥ bands]”... “sound well then I know who to book”.
All well and good an agent tells me their act has 20m combined streams. Tell me they can afford to tour because the record label gave them dough, and I will book that show.
Heartily agree with this post! Here's my experience as a humble venue promoter..
50% of shows I have no say over the support & there is tour support in place
25% I’m asked for my suggestions (subject to mgmt approval) and the remainder I can control.
On my costings I set support fees at £100 as std.
And almost always the agent says that’s excessive and takes it down to £50.
That’s their decision and/or the mgmt of the headline act.
So when artists complain about support fees, and they are right to, it is (in the majority of cases) not something I have control over.
100% this Mal. I think we need a concerted effort across the industry to change the approach to this.
I’ve been thinking about this all weekend (and for years of course). Not least because this extends to the low fees that GMVs pay.
Is record label restoring your support the answer then? That’s what I take from your article, but any kind of pipeline investment fund would do?
My understanding was that £50 stuck around because if paying £0 was an option it would happen more. But there’s some ancient case law that set the contract standard at £50. Could be an old promoters’ wives’ tale. An old hand at Asgard could be worth asking, say Paul Charles?
Here’s who’s not been increasing the fee:
Headline artists and their agents. They need the dough themselves.
Promoters. Not getting the choice most of the time.
Arts Councils, other funding bodies. Though PRSF have certainly made contributions. Outwith them, the expectation is that the market sorts the rock n roll wheat from the chaff. Well it’s not doing it, it’s sorting the rich from the poor.
Export funds (lack thereof). Canada, Aus, Ireland, lots of other countries have incredible funding schemes for touring that should embarrass UK.
Audiences. Other than certain arena and stadium shows, the kind that court controversy over ticket pricing, the market is still price sensitive. Promoters could pay more if the ticket price was what it should be. I’d say ticket prices are up past CPI inflation this year. But venues’ costs are way up past that, as are touring act costs, so that’s your ticket price increase eaten (and then some).
Record labels (and let’s put publishers in here too). Lots reasons. There are so many more artists’ music released by all levels of labels now. How can they all get support? The long tail is extremely long and dragging.
But a record deal advance can still exist, for acts that can generate competition between labels. And publishers are increasingly where the up front dough is at. Regardless of whether some of it is hypothecated for touring, there’s sometimes a pot that could be used to make up the difference between rising artists’ costs and stagnant fees.
Here’s a sensible appeal to labels and publishers to get back into tour support:
If labels reinstated touring support for the acts they were most strongly picking as winners, I’d certainly want to know who was on that list. If nothing else, the signal to the rest of the industry that an new act had tour support could be worth much more than the actual cash spent. “Who are the buzz acts st Great Escape?”, “Well Columbia are giving your support to [XYZ bands], and UMG are are sorting out [*^¥ bands]”... “sound well then I know who to book”.
All well and good an agent tells me their act has 20m combined streams. Tell me they can afford to tour because the record label gave them dough, and I will book that show.