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REPORT | The Live Music Industry Is In Big Trouble

By Anya Wassenberg on October 24, 2022

Image by vividsoup (CC0C/Pixabay)
Image by vividsoup (CC0C/Pixabay)

This was supposed to be the year that live music came back with a roar, heading into a 2023 that many insiders predicted would be a year for the books.

Show cancellations was not the record that anyone in the industry hoped to surpass.

Canadian sensation Shawn Mendes cancelled shows this past summer, telling fans on Instagram that it was a break for mental health. It was the second time in 18 months that he called for a break in his schedule.


He joined a fairly long list of musicians and singers who’ve bailed on tours and cancelled shows recently. Justin Bieber, Santigold, Lindsey Buckingham and others also cited mental health and general tour burnout.

What’s the problem?

In a word: inflation.

As anyone who buys groceries or buys gas is aware, inflation is rampant. Compounding the problem:

  • Many acts on tour have raised the rates for gear rental;
  • A labour shortage among the pool of available road techs and tour managers;
  • The price of gas and vehicles;
  • Air travel has become its own nightmare of uncertainty;
  • The price of accommodations has increased;
  • Insurance for touring has risen, especially in the wake of the Astroworld disaster.

Artists who have rebooked 2019 and 2020 shows cancelled due to COVID are finding that the deals they made a couple of years ago may no longer be viable. Grammy winner Aroooj Aftab took on a headline tour with solid audience figures, only to finish tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Some bands are cancelling overseas tours altogether for the time being.


Singer-songwriter Cassandra Jenkins tried to tour with a trio instead of her usual full band to lower costs, and she reported that her promoter threatened to cut her fee.


The result for fans is rising ticket prices to bear the cost of it all. Realistically speaking, it means many people will have to cut the number of shows they attend drastically. Conversely, too many touring acts can actually drive fans away.

Coupled with inflation, the rising US dollar, the currency by which most of the industry’s finances are calculated, puts Canadians and other non-US artists at a distinct disadvantage. Geography is also a factor for UK-based acts, who now have to contend with a post-Brexit world of increased paperwork and currency fluctuations for European tours.

Shirley Manson, singer with the band Garbage, created a post titled The Live Music Industry Is Broken.

On the local scale, many artists are finding a smaller and smaller pool of available venues able to pay even scale rates.

The biggest problem, of course, is that artist can no longer depend on revenues from recording work to survive in the streaming era. It puts pressure to play more and more concert dates, and when combined with rising costs and shrinking profits, it puts many of them into impossible situations where long gruelling tours yield little in the way of income.

What about classical music?

Certainly, the cost and uncertainties of travel are a barrier to touring, no matter what the musical genre.

Aside from travel difficulties, the problem in the world of classical music in particular may also be that audiences simply aren’t ready to come back full scale.

A June 2022 report by Wolfbrown for the League of American Orchestras found that up to 20% of former audience members have no plans to return at all, at least not for the immediate future.

Among those who had not yet gone back to live shows, the reasons varied.

  • The largest percentage (46%) said they hadn’t found anything they wanted to attend yet;
  • Health reasons were cited by 35%;
  • Cost concerns were cited by 23%.

As the year winds down, uncertainty for artists and audiences seems destined to continue into 2023.

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