Stifled Grassroots Growth: GEMA Maps German Music Market

With more than 267,000 concerts and some 74.5 million visitors counted in 2025, the German concert industry is still in a state of growth, and even surpassed its pre-pandemic value. However, most of this growth is driven by the mid-size and large concerts, while the market for small shows is only slightly up compared to 2019.

These are the overarching findings taken from GEMA’s database, which comprises all shows reported to the German performing rights organization concerts over the time period.

Based on this analysis, GEMA recorded a total of 267,145 concerts, which represents a 4.5% increase compared to 2024, and a 1.6% increase compared with 2019.

The number of concert attendees also reached a new record high with approximately 74.5 million attending shows in 2025. Compared to 2024, this represents an increase of about 5.3%, and compared to 2019, a rise of about 7.7%.

More than 244,000 of shows – i.e. more than nine out of ten – were reported by clubs with the smallest event capacity of less than 500. While that segment grew 4.4% compared with 2024, the increase is only 0.4% when compared with 2019.

Concerts between 5,000 and 15,000 capacity grew 22.5% year-on-year, and 32.9% compared with the pre-pandemic levels.

All of GEMA’s findings are summarized on its website here.

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