Ever since 2020, live music has been on a rollercoaster.
The dip during the pandemic was so bleak, it felt like concerts as a whole might just be over, forever. Six years later, it’s clear how silly that fear was. People crave the experience of live music, witnessed in person with fellow humans.
Yet, it’s not exactly been an easy path. Ticket prices are up, bands and independent venues alike are making less than ever, and there are large venues charging exorbitant prices and fees to the point that some artists have been forced to cancel their arena shows. Not to mention all the third-party seller nonsense.
So, we decided to host another Revue roundtable with the managers and talent buyers from a few local, independent venues in town. They discussed what the challenges are, what’s working, and why they still love to do this despite the grind.
This is an extended version of the conversation that appeared in print.
Participants:
- Cathy Holbrook, St. Cecilia Music Center
- Nate Dorough, The Pyramid Scheme
- Scott Hammontree, The Intersection
- Quinn Matthews, The Big Room
What are the challenges you’re facing?
Dorough: Bar rings are down, first and foremost. Even with having raised our bar prices $1 pretty much across the board, we're down $1 per head across the board now. Probably three years running now, people have just started to drink less, and it's something that is hard to root against. But most of the money is made on the bar. Our GM Jeremy tries as much as he can with our limited bar space to get non-alcoholic stuff in there. We're talking about bringing in a coffee operation to do iced coffee, but a couple iced coffees is not going to fix an industry wide problem.
Hammontree: About two years ago, our bar rings dropped like 20 percent, that’s out of maybe $3 million in alcohol sales. I mean, that's a significant amount of money. So, we’re looking at our bar prices, but at the same time, I don't want to become that venue where it's $18 for a beer. I think a lot of people switched to marijuana over COVID. You want to encourage people to be healthy, but it is a big part of a business. So, I echo that challenge.
Mathews: I joke around a lot, I think I'm a bar manager. You could put it in the same category as a restaurant or a store post-COVID. I mean, we're trying to sell stuff. We're trying to figure out, is there more food we should sell? Are people hungry, and would eat not just hot dogs and stuff? And I guess the ultimate goal is, we got them in here, what can we sell them? And that has changed over the years. It’s a new game now to figure out.
Dorough: I think the second challenge is the algorithms, right? Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, just changing their algorithms to lift up garbage content, quite frankly, instead of legitimate local content that people have chosen to follow. They've followed the Intersection’s Facebook page, they followed all of our pages on Instagram and whatever, and then they get filtered out by some just absolute clickbait trash or AI created stuff.
Hammontree: And, there are more larger events than there ever have been with higher ticket prices, and to me, that’s what’s impacting the clubs like mine the most.
Mathews: I totally agree.
Hammontree: Pollstar released their charts, and that top tier ticket price in arenas has just continued to go up while we're now going down. But there's more of them to pick. I mean, take Acrisure, there’s how many events? 43? I mean, we're probably not their target clientele anyways, but it still takes money out of people's pockets.
Mathews: I think about this a lot, and people are up for spending money, but they want to spend a lot of money to get a huge thing. They're like, “No, I spent $500 to go see this huge show, and it was amazing.” And it's like, how often do you go spend $30 at concerts? “No, never.”
Dorough: We are the place that people will go three nights a week, but even our ticket prices are creeping up too, to where it's kind of eliminating some of that. Our sold-out show tonight is a $32 ticket, which is pretty high for the Pyramid Scheme. When we first started, it was $12, $15, and $20 was the high end. So, everything's inflating. But these other guys, I think, are going to get affected more by the big country show that's going to play the amphitheater and just pull country dollars out of the market, right?
Holbrook: For us, the acts are not our competition. It's the money. If somebody all of a sudden spent $2,000 this summer that they normally wouldn't have spent, because that's available now, will they spend as much here? I'm also wondering if will there be a difference in ticket sales once that season is over, or is it just that now people don't have as much money in their bank account in general?
Hammontree: I guess I'd add too, this proliferation of outside spaces and larger tours and arena dates, I see a lot of what used to be a maybe a three-band bill, or maybe sometimes even just a headliner and opener, it's now like four artists. And those bottom ones, those first of four at Van Andel or Acrisure, they're usually playing our plays. I saw in electronic where all these artists just care about, “Oh, my name's on that festival lineup,” even though it's down here.
Dorough: Even if they’re playing in the parking lot for no one beforehand.
Hammontree: It's happening in country music right now, specifically. It’s a real issue.
Dorough: Because they’re the acts that would otherwise headline your room.
Hammontree: We did Lainey Wilson six months before she broke, Ella Langley six months before she broke, Ty Myers, all these acts that normally would develop in the clubs, now they want to pair up or be first of four playing to 1800 people that are walking into the arena. I've spoken with the with the agents about it and they're like they just right now they don't see the value of developing their fan base in the clubs. Take somebody like Eric Church, he is the gold standard for how an artist built and developed, and how he comes to Van Andel 20 years after he played our place, and still sells it out and talks about The Intersection. He played there three times, low ticket price, shook every hand. Those fans remember that forever. That’s, to me, where it all lives.
Dorough: And the flip of that is, at the clubs now, I'm getting these tour packages that are two bands and are done by 10:15. It's like, well, no wonder my bar rings suck. Last call is at 9:45 or whatever. Whereas, back in the day, those bands would play three hour sets ‘til 1 in the morning.
It sounds like you’re all feeling similar pressures.
Dorough: The nice thing is, since COVID, we talk. We didn't know each other. And now Scott and I were the president and vice president of the MIVPA that got us through COVID, and got us grant money, and now we're homies, and even though we compete on a lot of shows and I see stuff pop up at his venue, where I'm like, “God damn it,” we're rooting for each other over the other guys, right?
Hammontree: I think post COVID there was a little more of that. If you really think about it, I used to get really upset about losing a show. Now, I'm just like, there's so many shows, it's okay. And to me, a healthy Pyramid Scheme is great for my business.
Dorough: Yes.
Mathews: Ultimately, anyone going out to see music is good for all of us.
Dorough: There are enough shows to go around. I only have two off days in September. We have shows 28 out of 30 days in September, which is insane.
Mathews: Even when I opened Big Room, the first three people that talked to me are in this room here. Scott came right over to look at the space to see what we could do together. Nate did the same thing. We're already working together. We care about each other.
Let’s talk about inflation. How have costs gone up?
Hammontree: I mean, ticket prices skyrocketed Post COVID. For us a $20 ticket, $25 was like, okay. I have acts that send an offer on a $59.50 ticket, and it's an act that's going to do 800 people. And my staffing costs post COVID are through the roof. Now, I want to make it clear we needed to get in line with the market, but we did, and that seems to be stabilized a little bit. But what we hear from agents is, it's expensive to tour, and so their guarantees need to be larger, which means we have to raise our ticket prices to meet it, or we can’t do the show. So, that's a fine line balance for me. I don't want to bring somebody in here for $68, right?
Holbrook: Because you have to be really, really sure that it's going to do well, and you just don't know all the time, because it depends on what else is going on that night.
Mathews: We're all happy with more music coming in and amphitheater and all this, like we said, anyone going out and seeing shows. But yeah, I mean, I have a comedy show coming up that's on the same freaking night as John Mulaney, I just found out.
Holbrook: We have a different problem, which is that we rent the facility out for other things like weddings, and the symphony has a series here, and I start looking at dates that we have available to book stuff, and all this rental activity is in the building.
Dorough: I used to train folks out of college that were learning the industry, and I tried to explain to them how the money works, right? And it's not just a spreadsheet. I always think of a cup. So let's just take 100 pennies and stick it in this cup, right? 70 or 65 of those pennies go to the artist right away. 25 of those pennies cover the costs, and we get left with the 10 pennies that are in there, plus any pennies that were on the outside, which is your bar, parking, sponsorships, whatever ancillary income is in there. So, the costs go up because gas goes up, because trucking goes up, because labor goes up, because the cost of materials goes up, because aluminum cans go up. All those things happen, but we're still taking 90% of whatever money we make and giving it to other people.
And then, where the real rub comes is when the agent says, “65% is not enough, I need 70% to get this show done. And there's another competitor that will give it to me.” Grand Rapids is in competition with Indianapolis, South Bend, Saginaw, Flint, Traverse City. There's one show that's going to play this region that's not playing Detroit or Chicago, and there are 20 markets close to this size, and new ones popping up every day.
Hammontree: Last October, we were a little bit down and I was at every single piece of our business, and trying to find any cost savings, and it was hard to find. I called 10 venue owners and buyers in eight different markets. I'm like, “How's your year been?” They’re like, “Shitty. It’s not you, Scott.”
Holbrook: For us, cost cutting is impossible. We need to make more money. I probably need another staff person right now, so I can't cut staff. And the idea of cutting back on shows, it’s a very curated series. I’m not doing that. That’s totally the opposite direction of what we want to do. Plus, you don't even save that much money.
Dorough: We're about to crane a new air conditioner onto our roof, and that's going to cost what it costs. I can't go to them and be like, “This is a really great place. Can you charge us $5,000 less?”
Mathews: The original question, which I do appreciate, we're independent venues. I mean, Scott just said a second ago he didn't take a deal that was a $59 ticket because he didn't want to do that to his customers. We just talked about how we don't want to raise our beer prices. We are having the conversations. We’re still thinking about what we want to do for fans of music coming to us. And I don't think any of our ticket prices are ever outrageous at any of our places. So, it is a game because expenses have increased, but we think about it and we care. We want our businesses to succeed, so we've got to do what we've got to do. But we're not in this game to screw people over and take their money.
What about the third-party ticket selling?
Holbrook: When you go look up a show, you get five things that are not our site before you get to our site.
Dorough: Because they’re lobbying for that, and they're paying for that placement on Google and everything.
Hammontree: I just had a show in November that, I had 300 tickets left, and the bots hit it for 261 tickets. So I had to go through, because all they're going to do is turn around and resell it. I had to run a scrub list, go to that agent, say, “Hey, man, I suspect 220 of these are fraudulent,” and then they decide whether we're going to kick them out, refund their purchase, and then put them back on sale to the general public. It's crazy.
Somebody from the National Independent Venue Association got into a ticketing convention, undercover. She owns a venue. She walks up to a person selling the product, like, “You know the ticket counts in all these rooms? Well, will you check this one?” It was her venue, and they were within 10% of where her accounts actually were. They have software that just goes in there and finds them. We won’t even issue a low ticket alert, and I’ll see the bots.
Dorough: And there’s speculative ticketing, which is selling a ticket that you don't even own yet. You sell it on StubHub, then you go buy it from the venue. Then there also are bots that are selling nothing. They're selling you air.
Holbrook: Oh, we've had people show up with tickets in hand, and those are not our tickets. We don’t have that ticket, and we’re sold out, and I’m so sorry.
Dorough: The big thing that the lawsuit is alleging against StubHub is not only that they're deceptive, not only that they're selling tickets they don't own, but they're causing the venue then to make it right with a customer because the customer is pissed off. When you Google search Pyramid Scheme, it's not going to be our website, it's going to be something else. They can use language like "last few tickets available, or "we just released some new tickets.” They learn the lingo, and then people are desperate, man.
Holbrook: I had somebody kind of accost me at a post-concert reception, “You need to do something about the cost of what's happening out there.” I have no control over that.
Dorough: These are million-dollar lobbyists that are fighting for it. They're legislating to be able to deceive.
The other thing that happens is, because there's so much fake tickets in the market, the bots might get bad information, and then just sit on a bunch of tickets. Which, you keep that money if you want to, right? But nobody comes. We've had shows that are sold out, that only 40% show up. So, there's no one to buy alcohol, no one to buy any of merch, any of that, and the room is half full. And that's not a good feeling either. You tell a customer it's a sold-out show, or StubHub lists that it's low tickets or last tickets available, and then they show up and there's 12 people in there, they're like, "What the? Somebody lied to us.” And you know who they look at.
Well, what are you seeing that’s worked? What about special events like dance parties?
Hammontree: For years, I was like, I'm not doing these. Now it’s probably 8% of our year, and it's crazy to me. I never thought we would get to that point, especially because I feel like there's more touring bands than there ever has been. But they're low stress. The deals are fair. You don't risk a lot of money. And some of those I'm putting in Elevation, they're doing 500 or 600 people.
Dorough: And the bar rings are great. The production is good. They load in an hour before the event. The costs are low. And honestly, they’re fun. They're so much fun. We had a Stranger Things night, and it was all that music from the '80s that we've all been geeking out about since Stranger Things came out, and people just went off. It's like, the world's on fire, and we're all looking for musical or comfort food, and whatever it is that we do. And I always call those shows musical comfort food. It's just like going and getting a pizza. You know, you're surrounding yourself with a nice warm blanket, and the songs that you grew up on. You sing at the top of your lungs. You don't care if it's somebody just pressing play on a Spotify playlist.
Hammontree: I walked in one night and I had a really great show in the back, and I had Gimme Gimme Disco in the front, which isn't huge, but I was like, these 280 people are having the absolute time of their life. They were all dressed up and they loved it.
Mathews: I feel the same way with the dance show or these tribute acts or whatever, where I was like, “ugh, I’ll do this.” And then I’m in there and the bar does the best, ticket price is low, it’s an easy deal, and you're just looking around and you're like, everyone is smiling, having a great time. What do I care?
Dorough: Like, am I the art police? And Cathy, you’ve obviously curated more of a thing maybe than we're talking about, and you also have rentals. And whatever happens in your room, it's a great room for a wedding. It's a great room for a meeting. It's a room for whatever.
Hammontree: On the subject of finding other things for us, we just started into the comedy world, which has been interesting. Some home runs, some not. And is it going to become a main part of my programming? Probably not. But if I do 20 comedy shows that I wasn't doing last year, that's great. And I finally hired someone last year for special events.
Mathews: I mean, The Big Room is doing more events and private events and corporate than public shows. We designed this specifically as a great venue and I call it a music venue, but our business plan is to rent it, which we do a lot. We have a sales team. I don't just book shows constantly because I want to be an active music venue. I take the ones that come in that I want and we should do. You know, I make the joke all the time, yesterday's rental gave me the money to pay the band for tomorrow's show.
Hammontree: It’s interesting to talk to clients that start to work with us, and they're like, “Is it okay if we get there a little early? Will there be a cost?” No. I'll unlock the door for you. What do you need from us? And then, at the end, they’ve sent us notes like, “I can't believe you guys don't advertise this more. Because your staff is amazing. You have the sound and lights.” And believe it or not, our venue is highly regarded as being clean by everybody that's in it.
What else is going well?
Holbrook: I would say, yes, there are all the challenges, but people are coming out. People are coming to live music still. In fact, more. So, I am so encouraged by that. A lot of times, you do go and hear how everybody's struggling and struggling. I'm like, man, we're doing okay.
Hammontree: People are showing up. It's great, and I cannot complain about any of it. I was looking at my 78 shows upcoming, and there's not that many that are in trouble.
Dorough: We’ve survived.
Mathews: This conversation in 2021 was brutal.
Holbrook: Brutal to the point where we’re thinking, there’s not gonna be this anymore. It's just not gonna exist anymore. And then, yeah, you sit in a sold-out show every once in a while and go, wow.
Mathews: Scott said a minute ago, when you stay some nights to go down there just to get that feeling, and we all do that. And in 2021, we all thought maybe we'd never do that again.
Holbrook: People realized that they wanted that, and it was a valuable situation, to be in a community setting with other people listening to live music. I remember talking to the co-artistic director of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, from New York, right around May of 2020, when it was starting to really get real. “Oh, this isn't two or three weeks.” And I was saying to her over FaceTime, “I don't know that we're going to be able to do this anymore.” I felt like she reached through the phone and shook me by the shoulders, just, “Don't ever say that. That is not true. There has always been live music. Always.”
Dorough: It endures.
Holbrook: I start thinking about it, and that is true. Over all time, there's been some form of live music.
Dorough: Yes, there are difficulties. Yes, sometimes checks bounce or whatever it is, but the spirit is still freaking strong. And that's the thing that's irreplaceable. You think about like, going to an NFL football game, and they talked about how people don't want to go to the game because they can watch it at home and have a better experience. You can't have a better experience than what we do. I don't believe that you can. And we tried with streaming performances during the pandemic. That shit sucked, and we were done with it. The second we could go back to people again and singing together and sharing that hug, we were all about that.
Holbrook: I celebrated my 20th anniversary this year, and we had little party, and I was touched. People came to support, and I said that to them, “You're my people. You slap money down for a ticket and show up at a place at a specific time, specific day, and you all show up here as strangers sometimes, but you don't leave strangers, because you have this communal experience around the live music, and you know that's going to happen, and that's why you come.” That's my big, huge, always positive thing, that people want to come and do this, and it's such an amazing experience.
Hammontree: It's great for everybody's mental health. I talked about that over COVID all the time. I said, I think people just miss. They need that. You need that connection. And like, I personally, when I see a show, if I'm into it, what it does to me emotionally and what it does to uplift me, people didn't have that, and they gotta have it. I mean, it's been proven. It's true.
Holbrook: I also feel very much, very strongly that part of my job and part of my core is to support musicians. It is a hard life to be a touring musician and be out there and bring it every night for people and give them this experience that we so want everybody to have. And so, I just feel like giving them the space to do that and supporting them in that way is important because it's in their blood.
Mathews: I love every show we put on. It's just watching people, it is part of why we do this for sure. I like putting on the show and staying there. And it's the best feeling every show. You're just like, so cool. And it started with an email like a year ago, and everything you put into it, marketing, and then you have meetings, and then they're on the freaking stage, and these people are coming in, and you're like, “Holy shit!” I mean, every freaking time.
What’s a show you’ve seen at another venue, that blew you away and gave you the feeling only live music can?
Holbrook: I went to Dave Matthews, and that's always fun, because everybody's so into it.
Hammontree: Sam Barber at 20 Monroe. A big fan of his. Been watching him for a couple years, and then the live show was exactly what I thought it would be as far as the level, was that good, so yeah, he kind of kind of blew me away. But my wife loved it. It was a great night.
Dorough: The one that sticks in my head is the most recent and a couple years old now is I went and saw Pearl Jam at Wrigley Field. It was a band that I've listened to for almost 30 years, and they've just always been on my bucket list. I can still hear or even sense moments from that night, or certain notes that were hit by the crowd that took a part of a song and took it to a level that I didn't know was possible.
And the question was for shows that you don't work, but I love when that happens at the shows that I do work, because it feels like I sort of did it. I was part of it. You know, I did The Beths at The Big Room, which is one of my favorite bands in the world, from New Zealand. They’re a band that I really leaned into during the pandemic, that kind of helped me get through the pandemic. I've booked them a few times in smaller rooms before, but to hear those songs that are so part of my makeup done live, at a thing that him and I did together, for 1,230 people, it was not a little bit of chills. It was like, I gotta go in the back room for a minute and work this out.
Holbrook: I cry at pretty much every show that I put on here. At some point, I get a little weepy.
