Japan: Festivals Thrive, Recorded Music Suffers

As sales of recordings in Japan, both physical and digital, continue to drop, the live music scene remains stable, and in the case of summer festivals seems to be thriving, according the national daily Yomiuri Shimbun.

Photo: facebook.com/fujirockfestival

The paper ran a feature that reported the Fuji Rock Festival, the most iconic and well-known of Japan’s summer music festivals, earned almost twice as much in revenues in 2014 as it did 10 years ago, with attendance rising by 50 percent over that period.

According to an employee of Dentsu Communications, Japan’s leading advertising and marketing firm, the festival experience for many Japanese transcends music and “emphasizes the experience.”

He likens it to the appeal of amusement parks, whose fortunes tend to be tied to specific seasons, and stresses that it’s a communal thing. People have a desire to share their experience with a much larger group.

One music journalist added, “Especially for young people, festivals are a place to say on social media, ‘I’m here.'”

Daily Pulse