If your business is booking shows, you’re in the midst of a serious bull market: According to Pollstar, 2018 concert revenue hit a record-setting $10.4 billion, and the year’s top 10 grossing tours surpassed $2 billion.
This growth in live music is part of a larger overall trend: The “experience economy” is positively booming, particularly among millennials. In other words, three out of four millennials would rather spend money on a live experience or event than on more stuff. (Hello, Marie Kondo!)
This means that if you own or manage a venue or theater, a wealth of opportunity awaits you. Here are three burgeoning live experiences that will expand your booking calendar’s purview beyond the classic live show.
1. Live YouTube and podcast events
The next generation of house-name celebrities won’t come from TV, music, or movies. They’ll come from YouTube.
YouTube stars are now big business: VidCon, an annual convention dedicated to YouTubers and the fans that love them, experienced 1,200% growth between 2009, its inaugural year, and 2015. In 2019, VidCon will celebrate its tenth anniversary.
Rest assured there’s a YouTuber dedicated to covering any topic you could possibly imagine. The most popular online stars are increasingly taking their cachet offline, pulling massive crowds to their events.
Similarly, podcasts are another growing genre that is increasingly moving into offline realms. One in four Americans listen to podcasts, and listeners tend to be millennials. And because successful podcasts tend to be either personality- or storytelling-driven, they’re ideally suited to live events.
Ian Orth, Creative Marketing Director at Texas-based independent promoter Margin Walker Presents, has focused on YouTubers and podcasters as an essential part of their 2019-2020 agenda. “We’ve had a fantastic track record and seen big growth with both live YouTube and live podcast events,” he says.
2. Storytelling events
What happens when you mix one part public speaking, one part live storytelling, one part educational Q&A, and one part networking mixer?
You get something akin to new kinds of storytelling events popping up all over the country, like The Moth. They started as a storytelling collective in New York City; today, they produce dozens of events annually at venues nationwide, all dedicated to live storytelling.
Or take Speechless, which takes the notion of the “5-minute presentation” and blends it with improv, comedy, and alcohol. Hijinks ensue. Someone might even learn something in the process, too.
Because they encourage audience participation — The Moth’s StorySLAM events invite anyone with a good story to try their hand behind the mic for five minutes — they engage customer bases beyond your typical show-goer. And because a bit of liquid courage never hurt anyone speaking in front of a crowd, they’re great for bar sales, too.
3. Wellness, sports entertainment, and so much more
What do yoga, backyard wrestling, and live music have in common? Seemingly nothing, except that combinations of the above have become smash hits at venues around the country.
Consider deep house yoga, a burgeoning type of event hosted at nightclubs in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and beyond. It’s just what it sounds like: a guided yoga class set to a deep house soundtrack from a live DJ.
This unique mixture allows clubs to book programming on weeknights — always a tricky proposition — while providing a glimpse of the nightclub experience to audiences outside their usual fans.
Another example is Hoodslam, an Oakland, CA-based independent wrestling league that’s as much DIY theater as it is wrestling. (Live bands sometimes perform, too.) It’s proven such a success that Hoodslam is booked multiple Fridays per month into 2019. Party World Rasslin’ in Austin, TX has followed a similar formula to smashing success.
You don’t have to stop there: Brainstorm other activities (roller-skating — or even speed-dating?) that would pair well with a musical accompaniment and you’ll get people talking. Build it, and they will come.
Find your booking niche
Looking for further insight into cutting-edge event trends — and how to market directly to audiences hungry for them? Read Find Your Tribe: Your Guide to Marketing Niche Events.
