Many artists live and breathe performing live. It is the cherry on top for what they do, and the prospect of performing live, meeting fans, and hearing their songs sung back to them is as attractive as anything else they do. Coming out of the pandemic, fans, artists, and venues alike were passionate about seeing a resurgence in the live performance ecosystem. In this time, the world watched Taylor Swift's "Eras Tour" take the world by storm: 149 shows, 51 cities, 21 countries, and over 2 billion dollars of ticket sales. Shattering all the records, this doesn't tell the story of touring for anyone else. The Eras Tour frenzy put a huge spotlight on the crazy world of ticket resale platforms. If this is how you got your ticket, in many cities you probably paid around $1,500 a ticket. This doesn't even touch the fact that many fans traveled, even to other countries, to watch the tour — adding another element of hospitality costs, taking time off work, and draining savings accounts. Taylor Swift has built a fan base willing to make these sacrifices to experience a potentially once-in-a-lifetime show. Now let's talk about everyone else.
The truth is the majority of independent artists can't afford to tour. Something like 75% can't, especially young artists that haven't built up a backstop of capital to support a non-profitable tour. A study by Ditto Music states that around 3/4 of independent artists pay for what they do with personal savings. The remainder have found some way to take out loans, receive grants, or are supported by royalty revenue. If you are on your own, the prospect of paying for travel, accommodation, marketing, crews, merchandise production, gear, etc. is daunting. Even if you feel like you could swing the cash to get you going, the risk is sky-high. Making it onto the tour doesn't even touch the cost to record the record if you're touring a specific one, or the cost of rehearsal space or paying band members.
All of this being said, live shows are always happening, especially in major cities. So artists are doing it and competing for audiences. It still costs money in your own city to Uber to a show, buy a ticket, buy drinks, buy merch, and give your time. So it might not be a trip to London for Taylor Swift, but you are trying to convince your fans to give a lot of time and money to support you in an economy where most people aren't flush with cash. So, you're trying to convince a fan to make you their special occasion, and you'd be thrilled to break even.
I'm sorry, but your Instagram post advertising a flyer, or TikTok singalong of the chorus of one song to market your show isn't good enough. This might get your close friends to show up, or your relatives, but if you want to grow an audience and fill venues, you've got to attract a wider net of people who are willing to support you. Money aside, you are hoping that people will spend at least an hour of their time getting to and attending your show. You may have tens of thousands of followers, and you say, "I'm pretty popular or famous on xyz platform." To me, this means you have convinced that many people that they will support you for a few seconds, once in a while, with minor attention in the moment. You may say, "I have 25,000 monthly listeners on Spotify." To me, that means you have convinced that many people that every month in all of their waking hours, wherever they are, to spend a few minutes of time listening to you. While these numbers on their own are big, who's to say that this means that even 100 people will spend money and at least an hour of time to come watch you play in a bar? When I hear independent artists who have a large following talk about how they toured and it was both full houses and totally empty rooms, this is the dilemma I think of.
So ultimately, I believe as an artist, you have to allow people to get to know what it's like to spend time with you. Fans want to get to know you and learn about you. This is what creates loyal fans, willing to spend time and money on you. So I say, give them the opportunity to spend time with you, as part of your marketing approach. Film a tiny desk-style set of a few of your songs and post it. Make a podcast talking with your bandmates and showing off your personality. Do a behind-the-scenes look at a writing session or rehearsal. In my opinion, showing off your personality and care for your work in this way gives "kind of" fans a chance to mold into big fans. These kinds of content might not yield the high numbers you get on your short-form content, but when it comes to converting digital fans into in-person ones, we aren't striving for the same type of numbers anyway. So much effort goes into a show — show that off.
-Luke Girzadas