I’ve been playing gigs for 19 years, it’s one of the most important things in my life. Through playing live music I get to share this invisible thread of a connection that is the closest thing to magic I can imagine.
Live music empowers me and the grassroots of the culture I love so much is genuinely in crisis. Last year, I saw countless posts from bands and artists cancelling tours or even breaking up because they simply cannot afford to do it anymore.
It’s not news to say that the music business has been built on unethical practises, deals have been exploiting artists for decades. Both artist and fan have been excluded from the conversation. The terms and conditions of how we experience the thing that we love most has been hidden from us and those terms and conditions are not fair.
I experienced this financial pinch that is affecting the whole industry recently.
The costs of recording, releasing and touring a record in the same year no longer make financial sense. I saw artists posting that even if they were to drive the van themselves, they could not financially make touring work.
I did it by playing festivals all summer, saving up a nest egg and putting all of that money into touring. Even that didn’t end up being enough. I started an OnlyFans account in November and am now selling pictures of my arse online to subsidise touring losses.
Admittedly my show costs are considered reasonably high because there are a few things I won’t compromise on.
One is safety, I won’t cut costs when it comes to traveling safely. Two is ethics, I don’t want to underpay my band and crew. I hear about both of these things happening frequently. Three is I want to to put on a high quality show for my fans. For me that involves playing with a human band, putting up a backdrop with my name on it at the back of the stage and bringing a lighting and sound engineer. It’s not pyrotechnics but it all costs money.
Personally I think these are reasonable desires seeing as I’m 19 years into my career, I’ve had hit records, won a Brit Award, get millions of yearly streams and thousands of fans purchase my tickets.
These financial losses aren’t coming from a place of delusion or negligence, this is evidence of a broken system. And all of it made me wonder, if I cannot make it work, how is anybody that has less than I do making it work?
My industry is attempting to close the doors on access to a music career if you don’t already have privilege and I cringe at how much both fans and artist are being taken advantage of because of how much they love music. Meanwhile, Live Nation had a gross revenue of 23.16 billion last year, stadium ticket prices are shockingly high and the shareholders of streamers continue to cash out in the millions.
We hear from artists a lot, but we rarely get to hear from fans.
As we all know by now data is power. The Music Fans’ Voice survey is the first of it’s kind, a comprehensive and in depth annual music fan survey that will help shape the future of UK live music.
Filing in this survey is important because it leaves a permanent record of your opinion and if there’s a record, action must be taken. It’s like why you send an email or write a letter of complaint over making a phone call. Put it on record and something has to be done about it.
It takes just 15 minutes of your time and if you’re a fan of live music this survey is the most direct way of getting your voice heard and raising any concerns you might have about the state of our industry.
Music fans, if you want things to be better and I know you do, I cannot emphasise enough how important it is to fill out this survey and get your voice heard.
It’s an exciting time because in all this chaos there is an opportunity for change. You don’t storm the castle when it’s calm, you do it when it’s all about to go arse over tit and there’s a higher chance you’ll be part of the rebuilding.
Speaking of arse over tit, you can find me at onlyfans.com/katenash or Kentish Town Forum on April 9th.
Fill out the survey at musicfansvoice.uk
