The resilience of the live music industry An insight into visitor motivations

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected the creative industries, including the live music industry. The restrictions included in the pandemic lockdowns have made it unable to visit live music for a prolonged period of time, despite its increasing popularity in the preceding decade. This has resulted in significant financial losses for all parties involved in the live music industry, including musicians, venues, and concert organizers. Therefore, it is important that the live music industry shows resilience, especially since touring makes up the main part of income for most artists in the popular music sphere. During the spring of 2022, most COVID restrictions were lifted and live concerts could again return with a record number of concerts planned during the year. However, as live music is audience-centred, it is important to consider how the pandemic has affected demand for the live music industry. The present work provides an insight into how the pandemic has affected visitor motivations of popular live music attendees by answering the question: What is the effect of the COVID pandemic on the visitor motivations of pop concert attendees? To examine this question, a quantitative survey method was applied after the omicron lockdown utilizing the Live Music Motivation Scale (LMMS). This data of the post-omicron lockdown concert attendees (n = 421) was then compared to the motivational data of pre-COVID visitors (n = 749) from the research of Mulder and Hitters (2021), that developed and also employed the LMMS. Both studies used a comparable sample of the Dutch population of popular concert visitors. Overall, motivations to attend concerts have significantly increased compared to before the pandemic. The results highlight that concert visitors show increased willingness to collectively experience, discover and escape after the COVID lockdown. Also, being there is of greater importance to young concert visitors (aged between 18 and 25 years old) after the lockdown compared to before the pandemic. Furthermore, a comparison of age groups shows that togetherness and being there are more important motivations to visit concerts for youths than for older visitors. These results may benefit industry professionals like pop venue directors, music marketeers and concert organizers, who can use these insights to gain a better overview of how the pandemic has affected demand, and to design concert programs and steer effective marketing communication. The increase in popular concert visitors’ motivations can be considered an indicator of the resilience of the live music industry, as it demonstrates a strong, even higher than before the pandemic, willingness to experience live music again.