Long-tail artists are touring more than ever before
Download long-tail artists graph here.
This is the graph we love the most!! We were inspired by this economics study[1] by a group of Harvard and Stanford academics (Hi Julie and Chris!) that examines the relationship between file-sharing and live music, concluding that file-sharing “increases live performance revenues for small artists, perhaps through increased awareness. The impact on live performance revenues for large, well-known artists is negligible.” The minute we read the study it felt right to us. We dug into this more by dividing our artists into quartiles based on popularity and examined their US tour dates over the last four years. The fourth quartile (least popular bands, long-tail acts) has had the fastest growth in touring over the last 4 years, while the first quartile (most popular bands) has had about the same number of concerts over the last 4 years.
The great power of digital distribution is that it’s much easier to discover and listen to new bands. Back when we had to hunt down physical albums in stores, our rate of new artist discovery was much, much lower. That means a new band can build a widespread following much more efficiently than back-in-the-day, and can therefore do a world tour a lot earlier in their career, whereas huge, popular acts like U2 and Rolling Stones are already big as ever, and won’t benefit from this additional digital distribution. (I mean… Die Antwoord anyone? When has a South African artist skyrocketed to stardom through the Interweb like that?)
We hope this opens up a discussion about how live music is contributing to artists’ revenues and whether bands can sustainably make a living by going on the road. What we’re happy about as fans is that our chances of seeing The Antlers (a team Songkick favorite) is much higher now than four years ago.
This won’t be the last from us! If you have any ideas about what analysis you’d like to see next or want to do some number crunching of your own, please get in touch.
[1] Mortimer, Julie Holland, Chris Nosko, and Alan Sorenson, “Supply Responses to Digital Distribution: Recorded Music and Live Performances.” NBER Working Paper No. 16507. October 2010.
