Thursday, January 10, 2013

Festival Scene Financially Here To Stay




In the entertainment business, music industries still fight the good fight when it comes to ticket sales and the constant battle against digital revolution and illegal downloads. CBS News reports that U.S. consumers access between $7-$20 million dollars worth of digitally pirated music annually. With all the Internet file sharing and downloading, what are record companies and concerned artists supposed to do to raise revenue and see their intellectual property gain profit? The answer is simple and a course of action that most have taken arms to already…live music festivals. The summer of 2012 demonstrated over 500 music festivals that took place nationwide for every genre of music imaginable according to CBSNEWS.com. Some of the most popular genres breaking through the spectrum include electronic music, electronic dance music (EDM), dubstep, and folk music. The festival scene is here to stay in other words. Festival patrons like myself travel far and wide to enjoy the experience and entertainment that can only be accessed through festivals like Bonnaroo, Ultra, Coachella, Electric Forest, and SXSW. The festival scene is more than just a scene, it’s a revenue tank. Everyone from the festival coordinators to the food vendors on site earn a piece of the proverbial festival pie. 

Concert ticket sales tripled from $1.5 billion to $4.6 billion between 1999 and 2009, not bad for a ten-year span where music was evolving like never before. Diversity and availability is key in this business. Make wide ranges of music available live all over the country and sit back and watch the masses flock to it. Even in tough economic times, publics still splurge on live entertainment because the experience is irreplaceable. 500 music festivals in one summer session seems expansive and risky, but was exactly what this country needed for a little kick-start for what is to come in the future. Launching new music festivals is a huge risk, and every team’s contribution to projects like this has to count. But what is so great about launching new projects and events like this is how many jobs it creates. Positions like festival promoters, and online social media managers are created to help grow and expand awareness of the upcoming festivals. Live music can save the morale of the people and the pockets of the music industry easily. 

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