Raanan suggests concerts should go from hypocrisy to opportunity:
I do get the argument that someone holding up their phone for 2 hours is a distraction to the other concert goers – so I think some common sense rules would be good. Like only take photos at the beginning or end of a song, and step into the aisle to take a longer video clip.
But I’d go even further. Why don’t live concerts have a professional photographer walking around who can take great shots for sale later. And why not offer a live audio or video recording of the concert?
After the concert all I saw for sale were CDs (!) and t-shirts. What if they had for sale a USB with raw HD video of the show plus high quality MP3s and online access too? I would be tempted to drop $40-$60 for that.
Embracing the concert recording idea and doing it at a higher quality sounds like a good move. The concert photos and videos could also be sold online for those who weren’t able to make it to the concert.
There may be a fear that selling recordings of the concert will reduce ticket sales. Perhaps, but with people recoding it any way with their mobile devices you can either lead and profit from the trend or watch it happen from the side lines.
Reminds me of the news paper industry during the 1990s.
2 replies on “Live Concert Opportunities”
Pearl Jam has offered/sold recordings of all their live shows (‘bootlegs’) for many years, and they’re still selling out arenas. And I’ve purchased over 20 of those recordings and will still shell out $200+ every single time they come to town. Every artist in the world should be doing this.
I brought it up mostly to pre-empt the argument. I suspect many bands would continue to do fine selling concert tickets and the recordings afterwards.