Little fire
A gig is nothing without the fans.
Taylor Swift, the American pop chanteuse has come under fire for launching a controversial‘ pay to play’ ticketing system in partnership with music business behemoths Ticketmaster.
The initiative which has come under much derision across the industry encourages fans to purchase Swift related items such as merchandise and downloads in order to have a greater chance of being able to purchase a ticket for her shows.
Some may consider that clever thinking and an obvious commercial extension of pulling power and popularity whilst others may think it’s fleecing music fans under the pretext of increasing their chances of attending one of Taylor Swift’s vastly popular shows on her tours. When you’re at the top of the tree commercially you can afford to be ahead of the curve and indeed to shape trends and attitudes and certainly commercially speaking Taylor has been ahead of the curve for some time.
Her vocalisations against the music industry previously as well as refusal to allow streaming services such as Spotify from using her previous albums 1989 and Red, in addition to removing all her back catalogue from Spotify.
Whether smart marketing, a genuine disaffect at the industry or both, Swift and her management have shown herself to stand quite apart from others in the industry and has attracted nearly as much attention for this as her music.
These days it really is a case of grabbing people’s attention through marketing and digital media in such a way as you can ‘ funnel’ potential fans and yes customers your way before they will pay money to come and see you in the live setting. It stands to reason if you can attract positive attention online and through marketing then you’re probably about 50% there.
In the case of this new ticketing partnership between Swift and Ticketmaster however there are bound to be a number of motives beneath it all but of course as ever it’s to increase profitability.
The right of the artist to increase as well as exploit their capability to make money is rightly their own but when music fans feel increasingly squeezed to have an increased chance of getting to see an artist in the live setting I have to wonder if it’s viable in the long term.
I do think it’s clever yes but entirely remiss at the value of the music fan.
It’s true that when you have millions upon millions of fans that you can determine what percentage of them will have access to your live product but I do feel that it’s a case of the music star and the corporate manipulator being one in the same in ever greater steps.
Fans are the lifeblood of music, they are the investors, the sustainers and the customers. Granted business is all about what people are willing to pay but with the industry growing more complex with new revenue streams and points of access it’s unclear what is going to work in future and what the industry are going put in place.