Behind the Stage

Amidst the roar of the crowd, sing-alongs and the electric energy in the air— the experience of live entertainment is something I have etched into my memory. There’s no feeling quite like seeing your favourite artist right in front of you, singing their songs with thousands of other people who all share the same love for music. There is something transformative about this experience, and until I can pin-point to what it really is, you’ll just have to take my word for it.

The pandemic had a massive impact on the live entertainment industry, in the sense that most of us were confined to our houses, and entertainment was confined to the four corners of our screens. The duality of this situation was that half the world gained a new appreciation for live entertainment, while the other half’s interest depleted. This all came down to the idea of accessibility for an artist and their audience. Take Camila Cabello as an example— when her album “Familia” was released in the beginning of April, she prefaced it with a virtual Tik Tok concert, “Familia: Welcome to the Family.” The technology used behind the event, reality XR tech, was new and impressive, where Cabello and her team were able to make the visuals immersive and an experience for viewers, mimicking Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland. The event gained massive traction by major news outlets like The Rolling Stone, Women’s Wear Daily and even Vogue who stated, “Who says you have to crowd into a stadium to hear your favorite musician play?”

But it wasn’t just people’s interest and attention that had depleted in those two years. Due to massive changes within the economy and inflation, the idea of touring has been out of reach for many independent artists. As described by Vulture journalist Larry Vitzmaurice, “All it takes is a positive rapid test on an artist’s team, or travel-prohibitive supply-chain issues, or a mental-health crisis, or a straight-up lack of funding to derail an entire run of shows.” Global names like Shawn Mendes, Demi Lovato, and Justin Bieber all pulled the plug on their World Tours last year for personal and health reasons. From the perspective of a fan, I never really understood how demanding life on the road is for an artist, both mentally and physically. What was more shocking to understand was that artists actually do not profit as much as we think from their live performances, due to the structure of the music industry. Santigold, an artist name checked by Beyoncé herself, pulled the plug on her North American leg of her tour due to unattainable costs. However a number of artists post Covid-19 have faced similar issues— high prices of travel, fuel and even tour bus shortages. The solution to these problems seem practical and easy to an outsider, like the advance booking of tour buses, but one doesn’t realise that “you can’t establish a tour itinerary without a budget, but you need to set ticket prices before they go on sale.” So all in all artists aren’t really profiting from their shows – and even if they do manage to breakeven, some venues take a cut from their merchandise sales. The touring ecosystem has a lot of artists questioning the worth of the touring experience, and rightly so.

There is a completely opposite perspective one can view live entertainment from, however — “The Eras Tour” being the biggest example. From massive ticket sales, going viral on social media, and quite literally helping the economy, it is the outcome that every artist dreams of. However to a certain extent I do believe a turnout like the one she had in terms of fans, music and financially was only possible due to her platform— which takes a long time to cultivate and maybe might have been easier in the pre-pandemic world. With time the industry has changed, and although some changes have been for the better, a new artist trying to replicate a trajectory like Swift’s is seeming more and more out of reach as after all, “[w]hen it comes to artist welfare the music industry is rotten to the core.”

Is there truly a solution to these problems? I’m not particularly sure. With the embracement of technology and entertainment, however, there has been a positive evolution in the industry. There has been an intrinsic rise in the incorporation of VR, AR and VFX within live entertainment, making it more accessible to a larger audience and enabling an interesting, stimulating visual experience for them. U2, Eminem and Maroon 5 are among some of the artists that have added elements of AR to their concert experiences. When I think about the integration of technology with live entertainment, two performances immediately come to mind: the ABBA Voyage Residency, and Madonna's 2019 Billboard Music Awards (BMAs) performance with Maluma. The ABBA Voyage took five years to curate: a 20-song long set using ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) that featured the pre-recorded avatars of the band members, alongside a physically present 10-piece band, grounded the show in present time. Madonna's performance, on the other hand, used AR (Augmented Reality) to produce four copies of the pop star, each adorning signature outfits from her career, alongside herself and Maluma in the present. Since the pandemic has made a large part of the population homebodies, the VR experience allows people to access the concert experience from the comfort of their homes, opening the market of live entertainment to a wider consumer market. 

So no, I don’t think the live entertainment industry will die off as there are many people in this world (me included) who believe the live experience is completely magical. However, I do believe that in order to survive and be dominant, the industry will keep having to adapt to the changing tides of their audience and environment. As Miley Cyrus once said, “There’s always gonna be another mountain”— they’re just going to have to make it move.