The decline in live music attendance in the US continued in the first half of 2005, according to new figures from live sector magazine Pollstar. Following a growth in attendance at live music events in recent years, a decline had been expected as an increasingly saturated market and ever increasing ticket prices put off music fans from attending gigs by all but their favourite artists. As a result US concert attendances fell by almost 12% in the first half of the year, and this despite some attempts to control spiraling ticket prices. Overall revenues were down 17.2%.
Pollstar's editor-in-chief Gary Bongiovanni reckons the live sector's problems came from spiraling artist fees caused by promoters aggressively competing with each other in order to work with the most prestigious bands. But he says the industry is now addressing that problem: "We had record revenues last year, yet the promoters - the people who are in the business - were losing their shirts because they were paying their artists so much money they couldn't make a profit. The upward spiral of ticket prices finally caught up with us... that forced the artists to take less money."
The magazine also published details of the most successful tours in terms of box office takings. U2 came top with tour takings of $48.5m. They were followed by Celine Dion ($43.9m), Kenny Chesney ($35m), Elton John ($31.7m) and The Eagles ($28m).