Dave Stasney: Interesting conversation recently with a local venue owner regarding original bands vs tribute/cover bands. The takeaway was pretty simple: some of these younger original metal bands are grinding hard right now like how many of us came up. They are selling their own tickets, bringing 300-400+ people out consistently, and some venues are writing $2-$3K+ checks to these bands. Ticket prices are often still lower than many staple tribute acts too, otherwise those payouts would likely be double.
As we have said for years now that the fear was that the “sit at home with Netflix,” instant gratification, workday exhaustion culture would just keep getting worse and slowly kill local scenes altogether. And it has taken a massive bite out on a lot of us, if not all of to different degrees.
But there is definitely a new uprising happening that I personally didn’t expect.
That said, IMO, this doesn’t mean for a second that tribute and cover bands are not losing footing… for now amyway. People still want nostalgia, singalongs, packed rooms, and a guaranteed fun night out. That lane is not going anywhere. But significantly younger people are still going out, too. Think of the deficit of time out many missed during covid lockdowns. These are the people born into a time when knowing what its like without a device is like. They still want connection, identity, scenes, and “their” bands. Go search local videos online. There are original bands pulling real crowds again.
The strongest original bands today are doing many of the same things successful tribute bands learned years ago:
- Branding matters
- Selling tickets matters
- A buzz matters
- Social media matters
- Community matters
- Treating it like a business matters
- The experience matters
This is very healthy for everybody. No real point to this… as some like to comment and ask me that. Just take it in or comment what you are seeing lately.
Wade Bolling: Good info and thanks for your insight. I like to see original music bands doing well since my cover band also has several original songs. (It’s been previously said that local tribute bands can make the most money, followed by cover bands, and then original music bands make the least). However, I don’t think it’s so much the “original music” aspect that’s drawing the crowd but the “younger” musicians drawing out their “younger” friends to come see them. Some of these young people may have more free time and are not married nor have kids or a house to take care of, so can spend more time with friends like I did at that age. Whereas us older musicians might have a harder time getting our like-age peers out of the house and away from their busy schedules. So that means that we of course have to make a bigger effort to attract more people since a smaller percentage typically go out to music venues on a regular basis.
Most of the music lovers I see on FB that post pictures and videos of local bands only seem to go to certain clubs and see certain bands even though there are hundreds of bands in the Denver Metro area that deserve a first look. But the better clubs typically stick with the bands and musicians that they know and don’t hire newer bands, so they just keep rotating the same 5 to 8 bands. It was much easier when I was previously in the part-time music biz than it is now.
So my point was that I feel that the large crowd draw has more to do with the age of the performers rather than the music being original, although Heavy Metal is also popular with the younger crowd so that also has an effect.
Barb Dye: I know people don’t like it but, really, it’s “the model” in California — the “Pay to Play” system. The deal is — the band buys 50 tickets which they sell for face value or more – $5 to $10. If they sell them, they get their money back and/or make money. But the venue now has 50 customers, each person has 49 people to party & mingle with, the venue makes money to cover their expenses including the soundperson, and the bar makes money. Everyone is happy! The biggest problem is — the band always has one member who won’t get out and sell even 5 tickets to their family!!!
