Features
Guest Post: 10 Recommendations To Help Europe’s Struggling Grassroots Music Scene
By LÉNA LOZANO
Live DMA published a dedicated report “Post-COVID 19 challenges in the live music scenes across Europe” in January 2023, offering insights. This report has been shaped as a tool aiming at a clear depiction of the struggles of our local music scenes, guiding industry and policy makers to refine their understanding of the roles, capacities, and values of these music entities. Based on this continuous data collection and observations, Live DMA released a list of 10 recommendations to address what appear to be priorities:
(1) Improve the working conditions and wages for the cultural workers to keep the sector attractive, especially to young professionals: Before the pandemic, the music sector’s professionals were already working in a fast-paced environment. The pandemic added even more constraints, private commercial venues lost 47% of their workforce (full-time employment) between 2019 and 2020.
This massive brain-drain among staff and crew is combined with a damaged perception of the sector, which is losing attractiveness in the eye of younger generations: in 2019, 7% of the workforce was made up of interns and trainees that now tend to desert the field. National initiatives, such as Norway’s educational program for young industry professionals named Masterclass, aim to provide skills and knowledge to the participants, so they can promptly start on the job.
(2) Reinforce redistribution and support schemes for venues, clubs and festivals to book emerging artists: When asked to hierarchize the items on which they would cut back when facing inflation and rising costs, 70% of the Dutch venues represented by the VNPF association answer that their first move would be to cut back on risky programming. This comes at the cost of emerging artists that are left with less and less opportunities to play live and get revenues.
Larger players who usually benefit from the research and development of the grassroots sector might be impacted at a later stage. Redistribution mechanisms coordinated by public institutions, or within the industry itself, to support venues and clubs thatsupport emerging artists is therefore essential to sustain the whole value chain in the future.
(3) Develop local diplomacy tools and include live music representatives in urban planning strategies and sound regulations policies: a rise in complaints about noise has been registered all across Europe Following the reopening of bars, clubs, and venues after lockdown, calling for a future environmental noise mediation that will safeguard the cultural rights to live music and artistic freedom.
In 2023, Live DMA launched the Watchtower, which tracks cases where venues are
threatened by noise complaints. The aim of Watchtower is to report on such cases, in order to alleviate the feeling of isolation, debate solutions, and enrich thedialogue between local authorities and live music venues, as well as mediating with neighbors.
(4) Support alliances with education systems to provide trainings and certification for live music professionals and develop their skills: The implementation of diversity and ecological sustainability protocols are leading to the evolution of live music jobs. To upgrade the skills of workers, while alleviating the workload on people on the job, adequate training would be beneficial to the sector, and should contribute to the first recommendation of improving the working conditions and wages for all cultural workers.
(5) Support community building actions in the live music scenes and local audience development: These shifts in cultural practices, combined with climate awareness, might be perceived as an opportunity to reshape live events and working habits into more sustainable models, both environmentally and socially speaking. As an example, Live DMA is working on a tool named The Try-Angle, consisting of a step-by-step methodology to accompany live music actors in their everyday work into building new audiences and go beyond the usual conception of a concert.
(6) Create an ambitious European Music Observatory to monitor the fast evolutions of the sector, especially regarding audience practices and the live music sector’s competitiveness: Upon the reopening of live music spaces, audience behaviors have not
been back to what they used to be. While major festivals and stadium tours sold out with increasing ticket prices, the medium-sized and small venues touring circuit struggles. Fast-evolving trends call for constant vigilance, in order to anticipatethe needs of live music operators, and better regulate market distortion, especially in terms of ticketing.
(7) Regulate artists fees, and ensure fair practice codes in the music sector: The festival concentration phenomenon, as addressed by researchers Matthieu Barreira and Emmanuel Negrier, and the cutback on risky programming both indicate that live music events tend to go mainstream in order to maintain their activities. In order to limit the insane rise of headliners’ fees, to help music actors develop new talent development, and to protect independent festivals from buy-outs, a harmonization of the legal framework guiding artistic performances in Europe would be a valuable asset.
(8) Support new touring circuit methods, give incentives, and regulate sustainable events: An online survey focusing on the needs of Live DMA members pointed out that as part of their association’s strategy, and are working on awareness campaigns, measuring the impact of actions, and support programs.
Live DMA hosted The Greenhouse, a series of six online trainings to align (cross-)national strategies on sustainability. As artists and audience mobility are the main carbon emissions for venues and festivals, making up between 50-80% of their carbon footprint, these trainings gave participants the possibility to reflect upon their booking strategies and facilities.
Moreover, running a sustainable event is definitely more expensive. If regulations don’t apply to other players, the most sustainable ones might go bankrupt. Live DMA encourages its members to start working on this difficult regulatory framework and to encourage people to join.
(9) Regulate the energy costs and index subsidies on the inflation rates to maintain the live music activities: The live music economy has always operated fragile business models, which are now aggravated by the rising artistic, production, and energy costs. The latter are still sky-rocketing, up to three-times what they used to be in certain European countries, pushing the live music scene to raise the tickets prices and/or increase their audience capacity to stay financially sustainable, possibly jeopardizing their social and/or local anchorage.
(10) Encourage sectorial representation and dialogue with policy makers to define the scope of support to live music venues, clubs and festivals: During the pandemic, the associations, whose venues were recognized as cultural anchors, managed to implement an emergency support fund. However, many European countries do not benefit from the same level of recognition for their venues and are still lacking support. COVID-19 support funds from governments were able to cover diverse ranges of lost income, the main purpose was to cover fixed costs (housing costs and wages of employees). But the support did not cover artists’ fees for cancelled shows, freelancers that could not be offered anymore work, or suppliers in the industry depending on live music events.
About Live DMA:
Created in 2012, Live DMA is a European non-governmental network supporting live music associations. Live DMA is by nature a cooperation network based on shared visions and values. By nurturing exchange of information and good practices between its members and working as collective voice for the sector, Live DMA aims to enhance the recognition of live music venues, clubs and festivals all over Europe, as essential cultural, economic and social operators.
Through time, Live DMA has grown in terms of size and impact. Today, the network is composed of 20 members situated in 16 countries. The members are regional and national live music associations that represent over 3000 music venues, clubs and festivals located all over Europe.
In 2017, the European Commission recognized Live DMA as European network and granted, via the Creative Europe programme, funding to develop the network’s project Live Style Europe. Live Style Europe is a “building capacity programme” with the objective to empower music venues, clubs, festivals, and regional and nationals live music associations and to provide them with skills and tools in order to adapt to the changes of the music sector.