• parricc@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Do you live outside of the United States or something? Or just not go to concerts? Live Nation owns almost all of the small venues too. They’ve bought nearly everything out, and the few remaining independent venues are on life support. And if you’re a local band, good luck. 20 years ago, venues would pay you to play. But now you have to pay them like $200 just for the privilege of playing at a small venue with a 350 person capacity. In my city less than 20 years ago, I remember being able to walk downtown in the music district on any day of the week, and there would be over a dozen venues right next to each other all playing something different. It could be a Tuesday night. Music was everywhere, and tickets were $6-20. But there was also tons of free stuff. But after the venues all got bought out, that all stopped. There’s not enough big money in music 7 days every week. A lot of venues now only have shows as little as twice a month. And then they’ll want to charge $70+.

    Why shouldn’t we be outraged? Music culture is being destroyed. Your “stop going to shows” solution isn’t a solution. Nobody is going to concerts several times in a week anymore. What there once was has been destroyed. Live Nation needs to die.

    • boonhet@sopuli.xyz
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      1 day ago

      Do you live outside of the United States or something

      Uh… Most people do, luckily

      Why shouldn’t we be outraged? Music culture is being destroyed. Your “stop going to shows” solution isn’t a solution. Nobody is going to concerts several times in a week anymore.

      Well clearly a lot of people are still going to a lot of concerts unfortunately. Maybe if your country ever gets a more sane government, there will finally be an anti-trust case against LN. But honestly that is so unlikely, y’all are just gonna have to start shooting more CEOs. Maybe someone will do this guy next.

      Edit: So apparently there IS an ongoing anti-trust lawsuit that started in 2024, but now all he needs is to pay Trump the usual fee, so idk how it’s going to end up.

      • parricc@lemmy.world
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        16 hours ago

        Outside of the US, stuff is at least not as bleak. It’s a bit harder to destroy things that have been established for so long. Like in New Orleans, things had been established for a long time and it took a natural disaster (Katrina) to destroy the independent venues. But there are no protections against late stage capitalism in the US. Often, taxes alone will destroy independent venues. And yeah, I don’t have any hope in the US government doing anything to help. It would sooner call all music a form of terrorism and make it illegal.

    • itztalal@lemmings.world
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      1 day ago

      I was just in a hotel last night and a local band was performing for free.

      Can you believe that? I didn’t have to pay anything, I wasn’t even a guest!

      But let’s be honest, going to shows for most people is so that they can say they went to the show. It’s part of the culture of consumption and exclusivity where you need to spend money in order to be part of the conversation.