BuzzMachine

Your posting dovetails nicely with the comments of Michael Rapino, CEO of Live Nation, at the recent Goldman Sachs confab. Their research indicates the average concertgoer sees only an average of 1.5 shows per year.Presumably, it is boomers driving that number and what they’re seeing are the evergreeens: Stones, Eagles, Springsteen and any of the remaining Flower Power bands you reference above (CSN, Neil Young, etc).

Our demo is seeing fewer shows because the music we grew up on, and in many cases, still enjoy, isn’t being played by modern era bands. In short, there’s no one we want to see but the handful. LN takes advantage of this by jamming prices for those evergreens, knowing we’ll complain but pay up eventually because it’s only once or twice a year. It’s a poor business model with a pre-determined peak but they aren’t managing it for the long haul – they want to get as much out of the concert fan as possible today and worry about tomorrow later.

Same with Time Life. Whatever they charge for the compilation you saw is still less than the cost of buying the individual band CD’s for the same music, even if you only get half the tunes you really want. And they know boomers don’t steal via P2P, the young’uns do.

If the music biz (recorded and live) wants to attract and retain fans over the long haul, they should follow the advice of Bob Lefsetz, who says:

Make recorded music less expensive, period, to discourage piracy

Eliminate high nuisance fees charged by LN, Ticketmastera, etc that sometimes add 30% to 50% to the face value of tickets.

Create and nurture reliable 3rd party “filters” that can provide guidance to the best bands in each genre. There is simply too much noise on the Web to find great music without these – too time consuming to try. Traditional sources (MTV, Rolling Stone) have abdicated this responsibility over time.

Rock on, Jeff. If it’s too loud, WE’RE too old.

A hundred and fifty bucks? You gotta be kidding me. For that price, you can buy one of those record/tape to MP3 gizmos and convert *all* your old albums. Does Time-Life have anything from 13th Floor Elevator? I don’t think so.

Yep, really overpriced, but this stuff seems to sell really well…I bet Peter Fonda doesn’t do it for a warm meal.