Live concert economy in India is booming-so are complications. With Smashing Pumpkins cancelling their show days before the concert; we see what the deeper issue is in this mechanism.
Another year, another live concert cancelled. In India, this seems to be a recurring pattern-with concert economies already heading to the millions after Coldplay’s largest concert ever recorded in Ahmedabad, Gujrat. This time, our focus is on the latest show cancelled-The Smashing Pumpkins calling off their India leg of their ‘Rock Invasion’ Asia tour.
This isn’t new; the same thing happened with Cigarettes After Sex when they were scheduled to perform in Bangalore, India. They had the same “technical difficulties” phrasing for the same-while the producers had managed to do a good job in Mumbai and Gurugram for their shows. Where does the friction lie when it comes to this?
Let’s start thinking where this can technically begin:
The Systemic Foundation Failure
I know. BIG phrasing. It only means that there is a disconnect between all the parties organising live events. In continents like Europe or the Americas, there is a central law in place for live events. This differs with a small additional set of rules set by the local government. The first is:
Venues
Unlike countries abroad, India does not have an abundance of space and hence, a varied number of venues to choose from. If a promoter needs a venue of let’s say; 3000 capacity in a city like Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Pune etc., there are a limited number of options they can choose from. Indoor venues have longer hours of playing live music, and shows happen only during nighttime due to social convention. Open venues can’t be waking up the neighbour, closed venues can’t cater to our needs far beyond bedtime.
So a natural monopoly gets constructed, as well as the terms & conditions.
Promoters
Now, like other countries-promoters often become lumped into one large category. In India, we have names like BookmyShow, District by Zomato, Skillbox. They have their limited promotions on social media, as well as the app. However, they cannot be expected to handle marketing beyond this as they remain “ticketing partners” by virtue of their business model. That’s how the Coldplay kerfuffle ensued, where tickets were sold for 500x the original cost almost at the same time sales have begun. This prompted conspiracy theories that people within the organisation already had early access. None of this can be confirmed.
The same was noticed in the Steven Wilson concert-where the event was shifted by a day in Mumbai only because Sunday was a dry day in the state. This created massive chaos and confusion; time schedules being difficult when it’s a working day. Naturally, this impacted the turnout as well; and refunds are denied.
Technical Limitations
Bands, performers, artists. Everyone in the live industry has technical riders so that the quality and style of their performance can be standardised. This is from the tiniest light to the largest stage prop. So if you’ve seen an old Pink Floyd performance; yes, they shipped that prop all around the world. If you cannot design and deliver, they will travel with it-and you as a promoter/event organiser will incur the cost.
This is another reason a lot of performers withdraw. Either the transportation cost doesn’t work for them, or they look for cheaper alternatives (which lets be honest, no artist would be okay with). Some of these equipments have lakhs of rupees in cost per day, and everyone tries a workaround.
The Coordination
Like mentioned earlier, now it comes to agreement between promoters and governance. Local rules might say there is a hard stop at 11pm. Due to the show starting late, some performers tend to extend this number. Friction ensues, and there is a ban on live performances for some time. This time, duration and venue rules change from place to place, which makes it difficult to standardise a concert series.
In Sheeran’s Bangalore leg, his team swears they took permission for the Church Street impromptu show. The police, however, say they were never notified. Less than perfect.
All aboard – The Hype Train
As important as social media is for artists to inform their fans about concerts- it has turned into a whole other thing now. The moment a big artist announces their tickets, most of them get sold out within minutes-only to appear on reselling sites for 100x the price. This isn’t just a local issue, it has been talked about globally with the Ticketmaster series as well. And, even though it becomes a massive monopoly; they have figured out how to not ever get sued.
What tends to happen is that those who can afford the hype, go for the hype. There are several thousand genuine fans who will never get to see these shows simply because of how expensive it is. Hype builds on social media in waves, and tends to flood interest. Parties outside those concerned become invested in this money making swirl, and you have third parties purchasing tickets in bulk. It is a global problem, and is not going away anytime soon. Unless there are regulations on how tickets are purchased and how many can be bought at a time-this is something that you can foresee for the good future. And it doesn’t seem very good.
The Costs Incurred
When bands travel across other countries, they do tend to drop by in smaller dive bars, speakeasies and more. Smaller events are just not possible thanks to how promoters view performances. For many artists, performances are their main source of joy-they might spend hours and months in studios recording their music-but it all comes to the human connect.
Many bands and artists-from Prince to Foo Fighters, Fleetwood Mac have talked about missing performing at the human scale. Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters also shared the same view, which is when he wrote the concept for The Wall.
Performers might want to perform at smaller venues, despite the kind of crowd and numbers they see. They are at an elemental level looking for connection through their music. The cost finally, however, just isn’t feasible for the promoters or labels. Everything is noted as financials, and something other than a 3000-4000 sold concert over days is what will make them back any money.
When these don’t happen, the cost is losing an experience. Not only for the artist, but for the fans. It is us being subject to a system that is larger; so anything we say is either conspiracy, ill-informed or outside our spectrum of understanding. The bottom line is; these issues cost us experiences with our favourite artists. Either involve us in the process of understanding how the live performance industry works, or do better, for the sake of art.
Self professed metalhead, moderately well read. If the music has soul, it's whole to me. The fact that my bio could have ended on a rhyme and doesn't should tell you a lot about my personality.
