Market Update - State of the Live Music Events Industry July 2020.

For an industry that has seen consistent strong growth over the last few years 2020 will look very different. What is the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global music events sector and when will it recover and start growing again? Some recent research suggests 2020 will just be a hiccup in continuing growth but these very much depend on where the world is with COVID-19 as we enter 2021. 

Growth in the music events industry has been consistently strong since 2017 and is set to be a huge and profitable sector for the many businesses involved. But with the global pandemic bringing live music events to a virtual halt what are the prospects going forward to next year and beyond? The latest research suggests that 2020 is a mere pause in growth and from 2021 the industry is expected to continue on its path of consistent growth. 

Global revenue from live music events in 2017 was $14,708m rising to $18,392m in 2019 but this is expected to drop to $7,547m in 2020. Whilst a quick recovery is expected this is still open to speculation, however estimates put global revenue growing significantly in 2021 to $19,654m. In addition, this growth in global revenue is set to continue, reaching $30,129m by 2024.

In terms of market share it’s not surprising that the US leads the way with $3,106m, the global top five counties for revenue from live music events looks like this: 

• US $3,106m
• UK $560m
• Germany $494m
• Japan $382m
• Canada $267m 

Running in tandem with the revenue estimates are the number of event goers with 268m people attending live music events in 2019. As with the revenue drop obviously attendance will fall in 2020 to an estimated 100m but growing significantly in 2021 to 252m, reaching 345m event goers by 2024.

Not surprisingly the bulk of revenue generated in the Music Events segment is from ticket sales and includes concerts, festivals, musicals, music shows and operas for example. For artists live performances are now almost the only way they can earn money because virtually no revenue is earned form music streaming services. This rise in ticket prices is inevitable as the costs of organising and hosting a live music event have been increasing year on year. 

In 2017 the average revenue per user was $63 and is $75 in 2020, it is expected to keep on rising through to 2024 hitting when it is expected to hit $87. With the current restrictions on audience numbers prices of tickets to the few live music events that are taking place have sky rocketed. Hopefully this is will stabilise in 2021 and some sense of the ‘old normal’ is restored. 

Source Statista July 2020.

Using an events management software solution like FestivalPro can help make the planning and running of live music events more efficient and reduce overall operating costs. The guys who are responsible for this software have been in the front line of event management for many years and the features are built from that experience and are performance artists themselves. The FestivalPro platform is easy to use and has all the features an event organiser needs to plan and control their live music event. 

Photo by Lorenzo from Pexels

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