Why The Live Music Industry Needs to Rethink Its Growth Strategy
The live music industry is experiencing a paradox. On the surface, major tours are thriving, with Live Nation Entertainment reporting revenues of $23.2 billion for the fiscal year 2024, reflecting a 2% increase from the previous year and indicating a robust appetite for concerts and festivals.
But beneath these impressive figures, independent venues and smaller festivals are facing significant challenges. In the U.S., the festival industry is far less regulated and harder to quantify, but the cracks are just as visible. Dozens of notable festival series have announced their end or indefinite hiatus over the past year. Some, like Desert Daze festival in California, made their exit with grace, while others, like Lucidity Festival, collapsed under scandal, leaving ticket holders without refunds. Even as I write this, Summer Camp Music Festival has announced it will shift to a series of smaller events throughout the summer of 2025, with only a distant promise of a full-scale return for its 25th anniversary in 2026.
The U.K. market is seeing similar turmoil. In 2024, the country saw a notable increase in festival cancellations, rising from 36 the previous year to 60, with nearly 200 festivals disappearing since 2019. Contributing factors include a saturated market, rising operational costs, and the broader economic climate. Additionally, the prevalence of dynamic ticket pricing by major ticketing companies has led to higher prices for consumers, prompting criticism and calls for regulatory action.
This dichotomy underscores a pressing issue: while large-scale events and major promoters continue to flourish, smaller, independent segments of the live music ecosystem are struggling to survive.
Industry leaders have blamed low ticket sales, assuming the problem is a shortage of concertgoers. But the data tells a different story. Fans are still willing to spend—ticket usage in the U.K. is at its highest recorded level, and consumers are prioritizing premium experiences. The issue isn’t that tickets aren’t selling; it’s that they’re being undervalued. Instead of prioritizing quantity over quality—venues need to rethink their approach, shifting toward exclusivity, experience, and higher ticket value.
TomorrowWorld was an electronic music festival, held in the Atlanta metropolitan area within the town of Chattahoochee Hills, Georgia. Held from 2013 to 2015, the festival was a spinoff of the Belgian festival Tomorrowland. The festival was owned by LiveStyle, Inc. (formerly known as SFX Entertainment, Inc.) and organized and produced by EDM promoter ID&T, a wholly owned subsidiary of LiveStyle. (IMG Source ABC News)
The Bubble As A Business Model
The rise of massive festivals and corporate-backed events has fundamentally distorted the economics of live music. For years, these large-scale productions have been upheld as the industry’s gold standard for success, but their business model has always been built on shaky ground. Many of the most recognizable festivals don’t generate profits through ticket sales alone—in fact, many operate at a loss, relying instead on massive sponsorship deals and inflated artist fees that prioritize hype over sustainability. Similarly, corporate promoters running large-scale, one-night events inside major venues often rely on exclusive contracts, secondary market fees, and aggressive pricing strategies to maintain profitability, further warping the financial landscape for independent promoters and venues.
Some of the most notable festivals have taken cost-cutting to an extreme, turning their lower-tier slots into pay-to-play schemes where emerging artists receive no compensation. Instead, they’re forced to win competitions, pay for “opportunities,” or perform for exposure—driving down industry wages and reinforcing the idea that music itself has no inherent financial value. This deliberate erosion of artist compensation isn’t an accident; it’s a calculated measure to carve out the margins necessary to justify the immense scale of these productions.
Beyond the exploitation of artists, this model has also distorted audience expectations. By cramming dozens of performers onto bloated lineups, these events create the illusion of a once-in-a-lifetime experience, persuading casual attendees that they can’t afford to miss out. However, this strategy is fundamentally unsustainable—it relies on selling vast numbers of low-cost tickets to an audience with little long-term investment in the music scene. Rather than catering to dedicated fans who value high-quality, immersive experiences, these large-scale events thrive on a revolving-door economy of one-time attendees, many of whom may never return to another live music event once the novelty wears off.
This has left smaller venues and promoters in an impossible position. They’re expected to compete not only with massive, corporate-run festivals but also with industry giants that dominate single-night events in traditional venues—all while operating under completely different financial constraints. Unlike large-scale promoters who can absorb losses through sponsorships, subsidies, and bulk ticketing deals, grassroots venues and independent event organizers must generate consistent profits just to survive. Yet rather than leaning into their unique advantages, many small promoters have attempted to imitate these large-scale models, prioritizing volume over value in an effort to draw in casual audiences. It’s a losing battle—one that sacrifices long-term sustainability for the fleeting appearance of higher turnout.
The truth is: Big festivals were never a profitable model. They were a branding exercise. And trying to apply the same tactics at a local level has only accelerated the collapse of independent music spaces.
Venue and Staffing Issues
One of the biggest challenges facing live music isn’t just about getting fans in the door—it’s about being able to afford the right people behind the scenes. Across the U.S. and U.K., venues are struggling to retain experienced staff, from sound engineers to security teams. The pandemic forced many of these workers out of the industry, and few have returned. In the U.S., venue owners describe an ongoing struggle to find and train reliable staff, as highlighted in Forbes’ report on independent clubs barely keeping their doors open. Meanwhile, in the U.K., the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee noted that many skilled professionals, from tour managers to lighting directors, have moved on to other careers, leaving gaps that have yet to be filled.
This issue is especially pronounced in large-scale venues and festivals, where logistics become unwieldy and staffing costs skyrocket. But it’s not just frontline workers that are disappearing—so are the essential behind-the-scenes roles that make events viable. Promoters, event coordinators, and marketing specialists—roles once seen as vital to curating a city’s nightlife—are increasingly viewed by venue owners as expendable. With budgets stretched thin, these positions are being eliminated entirely or relegated to underpaid, part-time work.
Large festivals and event series are able to rely heavily on volunteer labor in order to offset operating costs and drive down tickets at the gate, a luxury most local venues don’t have.
At the root of the problem is the live music industry’s failure to demonstrate its own value to venue owners. Music itself has become commodified, and instead of being seen as a premium, high-margin product, it’s treated as a volume-based business where success is measured solely in sheer number of ticket sales. This has led to a cycle where venues attempt to cut costs by eliminating essential staff, ultimately weakening their ability to create compelling events that justify higher ticket prices. The result? A race to the bottom, where venues chase lower overhead rather than investing in better experiences.
Until venues recognize that great events don’t just happen—they are created—this downward spiral will continue. The future of live music doesn’t depend on cutting costs but on rebuilding the infrastructure that makes each show an experience worth paying for.
Creamfields is an annual U.K. based electronic music festival, drawing an estimated 280,000 attendees each year, and counts amongst it’s sponsors brands such as Rockstar Energy, SHEIN, and more…
The Industry’s Misguided Response: Chasing Volume Instead of Value
For years, small venues have been chasing a losing strategy—trying to compete with the festival economy instead of rejecting it outright. The expectation of cheap, high-turnout events has warped the independent music scene, forcing venues into a cycle where they attempt to match the scale of large festivals without any of the financial backing. Instead of embracing their strengths—intimacy, exclusivity, and premium experiences—many small and mid-sized promoters have instead tried to cut costs, book cheaper headliners, and cram as many people into a room as possible.
The result is a race to the bottom. The UK’s House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee report highlights how grassroots venues are collapsing because they can’t compete with corporate-backed mega-events. Small rooms can’t offer festival-scale artist fees, they can’t subsidize ticket prices with major brand sponsorships, and they can’t sell the illusion of a once-in-a-lifetime experience when they’re running the same format every weekend. The numbers bear this out—grassroots venues in the UK are closing at a rate of two per week, while promoters struggle to turn a profit under rising operational costs and stagnant ticket prices.
At the same time, the cost of running a venue has skyrocketed. Rent for grassroots spaces has risen 37.5%, energy costs have ballooned, and staffing has become more expensive as experienced workers leave the industry. Yet ticket prices remain artificially low, held down by the false expectation that live music should always be cheap and widely available. The entire industry has been conditioned to believe that success is about maximizing ticket sales, rather than maximizing ticket value.
The harsh reality is: building a bigger room, and filling it with more people at a lower price does not create a sustainable business model. If small venues want to survive, they need to reject the idea that more is always better. The real future of live music isn’t about selling twice as many tickets—it’s about making every ticket worth more.
The LIVE Report finds that the average consumer spends $180 per live music event, reinforcing that live music is a premium product. Instead of chasing volume with low-cost tickets, venues should focus on high-value experiences that justify higher prices and cater to dedicated fans willing to invest in quality.
Changing Consumer Habits
Live music fans haven’t disappeared—they’ve just become more selective. According to the LIVE Insights Report, cost of living pressures, post-pandemic anxiety, and shifting social habits have fundamentally altered how audiences approach concerts. Instead of attending multiple smaller shows throughout the year, fans are pooling their resources for fewer, high-impact events. The report found that 27% of respondents felt that “everything feels expensive”, while 20% reported having less disposable income for tickets—figures that have steadily risen over the last two years.
This shift has had a profound effect on smaller venues. Where fans once casually attended local gigs as part of their weekly routine, they now treat live music as an occasional splurge. The LIVE Insights Report shows that younger demographics, particularly 18-24-year-olds, are now less likely to go out midweek or on weekends due to financial constraints and lower energy levels. Meanwhile, 65% of respondents say they always use tickets they purchase, the highest recorded figure across all survey waves—indicating that when fans do buy, they are highly intentional about where their money goes.
The key takeaway is: audiences haven’t abandoned live music, but they are prioritizing quality over quantity. While large-scale tours and festivals have adapted to this new reality by offering massive, once-in-a-lifetime experiences, independent venues have struggled to make the same transition. Many are still chasing the outdated model of frequent, low-cost events, failing to recognize that the audience they once relied on no longer sees casual gig attendance as a given.
If smaller venues want to survive, they need to stop trying to compete on volume and start competing on exclusivity and experience.
Recognizing The Reality
The live music industry needs to stop treating itself like a mass-market commodity. The hard truth is that most genres do not have an infinite audience. The idea that venues can simply create new fans out of thin air by lowering ticket prices and increasing show frequency is a fantasy. Instead of chasing an imaginary mass market, small and mid-sized venues need to embrace the niche reality of their audience and build business models that reflect it.
Live music thrives on deep engagement, not casual participation. The people who consistently attend concerts aren’t passive consumers—they’re dedicated fans who structure their social lives around music. This is the audience that will pay for quality, exclusivity, and access—but only if venues stop devaluing their own product.
The solution isn’t to sell more tickets to more people. It’s to create a higher-value experience for the people who are already here. Instead of treating live music as a cheap, disposable product, venues need to curate an atmosphere that justifies premium pricing. The goal shouldn’t be to compete with festivals by offering a watered-down version of the same thing—it should be to offer something that festivals can’t.
Be The Premium Option, Not The Filler
The obsession with ticket volume has blinded the industry to a more sustainable approach. Instead of trying to sell twice as many cheap tickets, venues should focus on selling half as many at a premium price. The result is the same revenue, but with significantly lower overhead costs—fewer security staff, lower operational expenses, and a more manageable event that prioritizes experience over sheer attendance numbers.
This shift in strategy hinges on rethinking what audiences are actually paying for. Live music isn’t just about hearing music—it’s about exclusivity, atmosphere, and access. The most successful venues and promoters understand that people will pay more for a unique, intimate experience rather than just another standard concert.
By adopting an Exclusive Access Model, venues can add value without relying solely on ticket sales. Artist meet-and-greets, behind-the-scenes access, premium sound environments, and curated hospitality options can transform a night out into something memorable. Fans aren’t just buying a ticket; they’re buying proximity, exclusivity, and a level of immersion they can’t get from a festival or stadium show.
Rather than competing in the race-to-the-bottom discount entertainment economy, venues should align themselves with the luxury market. High-end restaurants, boutique hotels, and private clubs thrive because they understand that scarcity and exclusivity drive demand. The same principle applies to live music. If people are willing to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on premium experiences in other industries, there’s no reason why live music can’t adopt a similar approach.
The goal isn’t to make concerts inaccessible—it’s to make them valuable. When venues stop treating live music as a cheap, mass-market product and start presenting it as an exclusive, premium experience, they create a business model that is not only more profitable but also more sustainable for artists, promoters, and the industry as a whole.
Locally Grown Organic Scenes
If today’s live music economy teaches us anything, it’s that audiences are spending more selectively. Venues and promoters need to rethink what a successful event looks like. Many fans are no longer attending multiple shows a month; instead, they’re seeking a single, high-impact experience before taking a long break in spending. This shift in consumer behavior makes scarcity and exclusivity more valuable than sheer volume. Rather than trying to fill the biggest room possible at the lowest viable ticket price, venues should focus on intimate, premium events that justify higher ticket costs.
Consider a small local scene of just 250 dedicated music fans. If those 250 people are willing to pay a premium for a high-value experience, a venue can generate just as much—if not more—revenue than a larger event selling cheaper tickets to a broader, less engaged audience. A venue chasing 1,000 attendees at $20 per ticket might struggle to break even after factoring in marketing costs, staffing, and artist fees. But that same venue could instead book a mid-tier headliner for a 250-person show at $80 per ticket and hit the same revenue target with far lower overhead, fewer logistical headaches, and a more dedicated audience eager to invest in the experience.
The advantages of this model go beyond just ticket sales. Smaller, more intimate events encourage higher per-person spending on premium amenities—VIP seating, exclusive merchandise, table service, and meet-and-greet opportunities. Fans attending a one-night-only, limited-capacity performance are far more likely to splurge on extras than those casually attending a large, low-cost show. This approach transforms a simple concert into a luxury experience, where attendees feel they’re getting something truly special—something they can’t replicate at a massive festival or stadium show.
For venues, this model also means fewer risks and greater financial stability. Instead of relying on unpredictable, large-scale turnouts, smaller premium events cultivate a core audience of high-value attendees who return again and again. Promoters no longer have to gamble on selling thousands of tickets to casual concertgoers, hoping to break even. Instead, they can build a sustainable ecosystem where dedicated fans—willing to pay for quality experiences—become the foundation of their business.
Cater to the Core
Every city has its own cultural identity, and successful venues understand their audience before they ever book a single act. Market research—analyzing which types of events draw consistent crowds, where engaged communities already gather, and what experiences are underrepresented—can reveal untapped opportunities for premium experiences. Instead of chasing trends dictated by national festival lineups, venues should be cultivating unique, localized scenes that can’t be replicated anywhere else.
Many venues overlook the fact that their strongest potential audience already exists but lacks a space that caters to them in a premium way. A dedicated local following may have no venue offering an experience tailored to their needs—whether through intimate performances, enhanced production, or elevated hospitality. A strong community of devoted fans might be willing to pay significantly more for smaller, exclusive performances featuring sought-after artists in a close, immersive setting. In other cases, a city may have a scene that thrives on social connection, where integrating elements like dining, dance floors, or private seating options could elevate the experience beyond just live music. Some audiences may not even want traditional venue spaces at all but instead seek unconventional settings—a warehouse, rooftop, or gallery transformed into a high-value destination for curated events.
Rather than trying to cater to a broad, undefined audience, successful venues should focus on deep engagement with niche communities. VIP club experiences can cater to longtime supporters with loyalty programs, early ticket access, and private event invites. Invite-only warehouse parties make exclusivity part of the appeal, transforming attendance into an event in itself. Members-only ticketing fosters a sense of belonging while ensuring a steady, dedicated customer base that venues can count on for long-term sustainability.
This isn’t a radical reinvention of live music—it’s a return to what always worked before the corporate festival boom distorted the industry. Exclusive, intimate, high-value events have always been the backbone of underground music scenes. The venues and promoters who recognize this shift—not as a limitation, but as an opportunity—will be the ones who survive and thrive in the new live music economy.
Final Thoughts
The collapse of independent venues and the struggles of live events have never been about a lack of ticket buyers. Fans still want live music. The problem is that the industry has spent too long undervaluing its own product, chasing large-scale, high-volume events at the expense of quality, sustainability, and financial stability. Instead of recognizing live music as an experience worth paying for, too many venues have raced to the bottom, slashing ticket prices, cutting costs, and diluting what makes live music special in the first place.
The path forward isn’t in bigger crowds and cheaper tickets—it’s in smaller, high-value experiences that justify premium pricing. The venues that survive will be the ones that stop chasing mass-market appeal and start cultivating exclusivity, atmosphere, and deep community engagement. This shift isn’t just a strategy for survival—it’s a return to the roots of what made live music culture thrive. Before festivals, corporate-backed mega-tours, and streaming, music was always about intimate, immersive experiences where dedicated fans paid for access to something unique.
If the live industry wants to survive, it needs to think like a boutique, not a department store. Scarcity creates demand. Premium experiences drive revenue. The most successful venues in the future won’t be the ones selling the most tickets; they’ll be the ones selling the best experiences to the right people at the right price.
