INVISIBLE AIRWAVES Issue #045 - Tom MacDonald | Page 9

Is it time to rethink festival culture?

The rumblings are there that fans are getting sick of having to pay festival prices to see a few bands they like plus a whole lot of filler and not much of it killer. Festivals were cool when there were a few benchmarks, but now that they are a dime a dozen and becoming more niched, have they lost their impact? Would artists be better served returning to traditional touring that radius clauses are killing?

Can ticket pricing be fixed?

Now that big names... Springsteen, Taylor Swift... are being caught up in ticketing controversies, will anything be done about it? Pricing is out of control and access to great tickets for superstar artists is being poached by VIP experiences and corporate partners. Only the artists can fix this, but can they get past the dollar signs in their eyes to see what they are doing to their fans? At the moment, the answer is no.

Will people return to shows?

Forget the ticketing fiascos and sky high ticket prices for superstar artists, many promoters and venue owners are concerned about the slow roll of people returning to shows in confined quarters, an after effect of COVID lockdowns. Fortunately, this issue is state-by-state and seems to correlate to the severity of lockdown. In other words, the Florida and Texas concert scenes are killing it.

Music Discovery = New Alternative

With ALT becoming reliant on Spotify as its music director, have the "Music Discovery" stations become the leaders for exposing new tunes to the masses and become the New Alternative as a breeding ground for ALT radio? Billboard magazine just dedicated page space to Music Discovery stations, finally catching up to what we already knew, there's a new cutting edge slicing through the old one. Don't ruin it!!

It's the economy, stupid!

Most of the previous is meaningless if the predicted Great Recession of 2023 becomes a reality. Alphabet, Amazon and Spotify have all cut workforce recently. The Federal government is entering 2 years of lame duck as the House investigates the "Biden crime family." The debt ceiling fight is real. The Petro Dollar losing dominance is real. All we can do is hope great music gets us through the landmines of life.

2023 WATCHLIST