The post-COVID live music scene: There’s some good news and some bad news

Live music has come roaring back since pandemic restrictions were lifted. But there are also some dark clouds.

For almost two years, COVID-19 saw to it that there was no live music. Tours stopped, roadies lost their gigs, venues suffered, and support staff were laid off. But once COVID restrictions were lifted, the industry came back to life, albeit with a non-insignificant degree of difficulty.

For example, Sum 41’s Deryck Whibley told me that when they returned to the road, they had to do it old-school in a van because no tour buses were available. Most had been parked for nearly two years and weren’t roadworthy yet. Supply and demand jacked the prices of any rental agency that did have buses available and those were taken by acts who could afford it. Sum’s buses ended up going to Metallica.

There were other problems. Many roadies who were thrown out of work left the industry and didn’t want to come back. Finding enough sound and light equipment to rent was hard. Many venues didn’t survive the lockdowns and had permanently shut their doors.

But this summer has seen a return to The Before Times. Concerts and festivals have been packed. And even as Taylor Swift and Beyonce are getting the most attention for hoovering up hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in box office revenue, other acts are doing well.

On his current tour, Drake is playing in front of as many as 34,000 people a night and recently became the first rapper to earn over US$5 million for a single show. Ed Sheeran’s BC Place gig on Sept. 2 attracted 65,601 people, breaking a 2009 record held by U2 set during their 360 Tour. The Weeknd broke attendance records in London by bringing in over 160,000 people over two nights. A swing through Australia saw 120,000 join him for two nights in Brisbane, close to 250,000 over three nights in Sydney, and somewhere north of 150,000 for two shows in Melbourne.

My home market, Toronto, has seen incredible demand over the summer with acts routinely backing 17,000 people into Live Nation’s Budweiser Stage. And woe to anyone trying to get around downtown on a night there’s a concert at Scotiabank Arena, especially when the Blue Jays have a home stand at Rogers Centre.

Live Nation and AEG, the world’s largest concert promoters, are seeing record revenues. One estimate says that live music revenue in Canada will hit somewhere around $1.3 billion with a projected annual growth rate of over three per cent. The average spend by a Canadian concertgoer is approaching $200.

So all’s good, right? Mostly, but …