I love music. More particularly, I love live music. Nothing beats it. The feeling you get when you’re in a bustling throng of other like-minded individuals swaying their heads back and forth in rapid succession whilst watching and listening to your favourite band is an experience that can’t quite be matched. I try to attend as many local (and sometimes, not local) gigs as I can, although not being able to drive and relying on others for transport to and from the venues outside my local patch can be a pain.
To sum that opening paragraph up in one statement, I love gigs.
Other people love gigs too. Promoters love putting on gigs, giving bands much needed exposure and putting on a night of entertainment for the people who are willing to hand over a few quid for a good old night out.
The question is: Is there too much gig love?
In and around Pembrokeshire, there is now a gig nearly every Friday and Saturday, with some on Thursdays and Sundays too. More gigs? Brilliant!
Multiple promoters putting on a large selection of gigs has a good side and a bad side. On the good side, there’s a healthy selection of platforms for budding musicians to expose themselves (behave…) to the masses. There’s a place to go if you want to listen to some music, and there’s some friendly and healthy competition between promoters to draw the crowds to their gigs (Autonomous competition, might I add. It’s mostly being done without the promoters even knowing it). Competition is a good thing. Look at the Monday Night Wars between the WWF and WCW for example, without the trying to put each other out of business part though. Both companies were trying to produce the best product they could, and who benefited? The consumer. Guaranteed great wrestling on a Monday night. If this example holds any water, local gig goers are benefiting from this with a guaranteed awesome gig every weekend.
Perhaps we could be on the cusp of a ‘boom’ period for the local music scene.
On the other hand, the number of gigs in the area could possibly lead to a saturation that the current market can’t sustain. Say you’re on a low income, or a student budget. Two gigs are happening on separate weekends which both feature bands you’d really like to see, but you can only afford to go to one of them. Mr or Mrs promoter is only going to see your face at one gig. When faced with such a large choice, the man on the street is forced to choose which gig he’s going to go to. If a gig x miles away has the better line up, then he’s going to go there, and other gigs in the area will suffer because of it.
Put short, the majority of people simply can’t afford to go to all these gigs and attendances fall because of it.
As a wrestling fan, I’m really anticipating another ‘boom’ period for the product, just as I am as a music fan. As I said, a thriving gig culture can be a double edged sword. The positives outweigh the negatives, but there’s always that ‘what if…’ factor unglamorously looming overhead. Still, I pray for a boom period, and I hope it happens.
And that’s THAT rant done with.
