Bad Trends in Concert Booking

 I have noticed over the past 15 years, that there has been a huge shift in how venues, promoters, booking agents and artists have prepared concerts of local bands, and after observing these trends and through my own personal experiences with my band Hoboe, I would like to call to question the productivity of this manner of putting together shows. At issue is the trend to put together multiple band concerts, with the number of bands in any given show seeming to increase from 2 or 3, to now 4, 5 or even 6 bands. I think venues and artists are hurting their own cause without even realizing it. Firstly, the more bands you have, the more intermissions you have. Every intermission is an excuse for the audience to leave. Every intermission inevitably results in people leaving. It is not as easy for a person to leave the concert when there is a captive performance going on as when there is no performance. If you have 5 bands, you have 4 intermissions--4 welcome invitations that you are giving people to "sneak away." This hurts the venues, and the bands, for retention at these type of shows is very hard to maintain throughout the entire duration. Secondly, each artist is limiting the window of time that their fans can attend, and lowering the percentage of their fans that can actually make it to the show. We have seen first hand how, when we play an entire night by ourselves, for a two to three hour set, we get double or triple the number of people out to see us--probably because if people know they have all night to make it to the show, and don't have to worry about a specific 30 or 45 minute "window" to get there, they are more likely to show up. Thirdly, artists are demoting their trade from a respectable profession to a hobby for charity. It is nice to make $50 a person for a night of playing, rather than $7.50 Fourthly, artists are limiting their own growth potential by depriving themselves from the opportunity of establishing a real and meaningful intimate connection between the audience and their music, depriving themselves from both musical growth and fan relationship-building. I question whether more bands in a concert really brings in more people. I doubt it. Concerts with 5 bands don't necessarily bring 5 times as many people as a single band concert, or even twice as many people as a 2 band concert. Instead what happens is 5 bands have the potential of getting 5-10%of their total fan base rather than 2 bands with the potential of getting 15-25% of their fan base out. Maybe it's unique to my own band, but people don't want to make all the effort to come see Hoboe for 30-45 minutes, but when we play for 2-3 hours, our fan base shows up in full force! I ask the entire local concert world to reconsider their tactics and restore to bands their potential to build a meaningful relationship with their fans. Ultimately more fans will come out to see their bands, and artists and venues alike will succeed. Just a thought. I welcome your contributions and opinions.         - NEBA