While the live music sector is still seemingly in good health on a global level, the Italian music industry has announced a fall in the amount of money being spent there on gigs and concerts.
Italian collecting society SIAE reports that the amount of money spent by Italians on live music in the first half of 2006 was down 12.6% on that spent in the same period the previous year. SIAE also monitors ticket sales in other parts of the entertainment industry, and reports that there tickets sales are up - cinema sales were up 14.4%, theatre sales up 29.4% and art exhibitions up 20.3%. Concerts and dancing were the only sectors to register a decline.
That means that of the billion euros generated in entertainment based ticket revenues in the first half of 2006 only 7% was from live music. 31% was from cinema, 23% from dancing, 16% from theatre and 14% from sporting events.