Mobile Phones Changing Live Music Shows

Mobile phones have already changed the digital music scene by giving yet another sales channels for singles and other content, and it looks like they’re likely to do the same thing for live concerts. Fans can now sign up to receive text messages about the concerts, vote for songs to be played, buy content, enter competitions, and possibly win the chance to play on stage as the band closes its set, notes the New York Times. One result is complaints from purists that phone-toting fans are ruining live shows, but these are at least matched by the vanguard of the music world who see real possibilities to improve the show with the technology — and lets face it, the kids want it and they tend to drive the popular music acts. Another result is yet another revenue stream for artists in the form of premium messages during the show — while the figure is still low (a hundred thousand over a tour is cited as an example) the potential is still enough to start squabbling over who gets the benefits, with concert promotors, sponsors and artists in discussions over who keeps the lions share of the money from the promotions…and more importantly, who gets the phone number registries that are generated. My vote from the standpoint of a member of the public is the artist should keep the registry if it’s their name used to get the numbers.

loading

Comments have been disabled for this post