Member Article

New players’ role in the music market

With the never stopping development of technology, every aspect of our lives has no choice but to adapt and evolve accordingly, and the music market is no exception. We have witnessed how the Internet gave instant access to musical product to users worldwide, almost killing the record industry. Since that revolution, touring has become the main source of income for both experienced artists and newcomers.

Even today, when the record labels have long given up the battle that they cannot win, instead coming to terms with the pace of time and trying to harness this force by integrating with services like iTunes and Spotify, live shows remain the main source of financial motivation for both experienced musicians and newcomers to keep doing their thing.

It is right to say that the music market has become more competitive and audience-oriented. If generalize, the mass audiences today think, “Maybe I’ll give these guys a chance and look them up on YouTube. If I like what I see, I might spare a few pennies to download a track or two from iTunes. And if I get truly fascinated, I will probably spend a reasonable amount of my earnings to go and see these guys live. That is, if I can get a good deal for a ticket in a convenient way”.

Ticket sellers have established themselves in the front line of the music market, generating the most revenue in the industry. At first, the very opportunity to buy tickets online, without having to go somewhere or even make a phonecall, was a breakthrough. Many companies arose to offer such services and capitalized on it.

With the course of time, however, the competition grew, and the deals offered began to differ vastly by a variety of factors. Today, a concert-goer would have to compare all the available deals before finally getting a ticket to the show that s/he wants to see. As mentioned before, a variety of factors is involved, not only the price. So, each concert-goer is challenged to compare all the deals to pick the one that suits him/her personally.

This gave rise to new players – ticket aggregating platforms like ticketselect.co.uk in the UK – that give the user a comprehensive view on all the possible deals to get a ticket to a certain event, so s/he can properly compare them before finally picking the ultimate one.

It had several effects on the market. The most important one is probably the new level of the concert-goer’s involvement. Now that all the deals are put in front of him/her, the concert-goer feels even more important, and s/he appreciates that. Moreover, without the need to seek out deals themselves, they are less likely to get discouraged on the way and make up their minds against going to the show altogether, - they will more likely buy the ticket and go to the show. Secondly, it steals away whatever touch of exclusiveness any ticket seller could have, thus inspiring the sellers to come up with even better deals for the audiences!

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Mike Rotts .