United Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW) is launching a new campaign, Raise the Bar, to uplift venues who do right by artists and urge more to follow suit with four minimal requirements:
Venues can sign on to honor these terms, artists and organizations can sign on in support of the effort, and everyone is encouraged to contact their local venues using an email template provided. The idea is to build a database of venues that treat artists well.
Of course this means UMAW is also building a database - by omission, at least - of venues that don’t treat artists fairly in these basic ways. It doesn’t take a Nostradamus to see that many of these will be owned by two corporations, Live Nation and AEG. And depending on where you live, that may be most of the venues you are familiar with as a concertgoer - because these two gigantic companies have expanded even further since the COVID crisis, which forced many independents to close or to sell.
As I wrote in a post back in 2021,
According to the LA Times, “Of the nearly $22 billion in ticket revenue sold globally for live music events in 2019, Live Nation promoted about 60% of those shows, AEG handled roughly 30% and the other 10% were organized by indie promotion firms.” 90% of an industry controlled by only two players is a big problem.
The problem has only gotten worse. Live Nation in particular has a throttlehold on the industry so extreme, it has now been found guilty of anti-trust violations in federal court. The remedy stage of that verdict is in process, as 34 attorneys general consider how to restrict or even break up the company in order to rebuild competition in live music.
Meanwhile, independent venues are struggling in no small part because of the duopoly maintained by Live Nation and AEG in nearly all markets across the country. The independent venues and promoters of Portland, Maine recently won a remarkable victory in their city council to prevent Live Nation from muscling in, and they believe they may now be the biggest market left without Live Nation’s direct corporate presence. (Portland Maine’s population in the 2020 census was 68,408.)
The musicians and music workers of UMAW want to celebrate those venues whose good treatment of artists, positive contributions to local communities, and resistance to the punishing standards implemented by large corporations are keeping live music going for touring and local bands alike. Join this campaign!
Listening to: Classic Fevers and Chills by Ayami Suzuki and Rob Noyes
Cooking: trouble for monopolies