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VIP- News
premium ›› Vol. 131 ›› DECEMBER 2010
McGowan’s Musings: So here we go with the very last News of the year, also the last of the first decade of the twenty first century. They say time flies when you’re having fun so at the rate this last year seems to have shot past I must be having the time of my life! I’ll probably consider that when I’m snowed in somewhere for Christmas. Of course one of the worst things about snow is that it provides perfect camouflage for seagulls – they can creep right up on you before you know and they’re famous for pecking the eyes out of snowmen! Well, they’re not really, but I just thought I’d have another go at them to wind up the year! It’s not been the greatest year for everyone in the live music industry, particularly in the US. However it’s not been too bad for Bon Jovi who were the most successful live act of the year with takings of $146.5m. The hard work on coming up with these and many other sets of figures, which the industry finds fascinating and useful, is often undertaken by Billboard magazine, but even this seemingly rock solid journal of the music industry is having its problems and had announced the closure of its London office. Advertising revenues, the lifeblood of print
prices because presumably in an uncertain economic climate people didn’t have disposable dollars to spend?! Oh well Jon’s got lots of disposable dollars of his own now to do as he wants with, and more to come as the tour when it finishes in Portugal on 31 July 2011, will have played 135 shows in 30 countries. Allan McGowan
magazines have dropped off in all areas during the economic crisis, but of course the music industry has been particularly hit with the demise of the majors and the space left where the new album release full pages used to be is harder and harder to fill. Still back to Bon Jovi who sold 1,591,154 tickets for 69 gigs between 20 November 2009 and 28 November 2010 on their ‘The Circle’ tour, they were also the highestgrossing live act of 2008, having taken $210m (£133.4m) on its Lost Highway tour. Jon Bon Jovi is reported as saying that fans bought tickets “because they’re willing to spend their disposable dollars”. Which is a bit strange when the likes of Live Nation spent the better part of last year cutting
So it seems that some people are definitely still making money out of playing live even though worldwide figures indicate a 26.4 percent decrease in gross, a 12.3 percent decrease in attendance and a 14 percent decrease in the number of shows reported. It was not an easy year, but it should still be remembered that these worrying figures still report concert attendances of slightly more than 65 million people. That’s a big market! The US figures were down by twice the drop off reflected in global numbers. But even there some still reported success, Certain sectors, including country, most major festivals and tours by superstars in pop, urban and dance/electronicperformed well and whilst Live Nation languished AEG had one of its best years yet. As AEG Live CEO Randy Phillips says. “If an artist is hot, people are motivated to find a
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