Idolator

If part of this free concert experiment involves not paying the bands, forget it. Even when people still bought CDs, only the biggest bands made much money off them; the real money's always been in touring, especially for rock acts.

If we're moving towards a business model in which CDs are seen as loss-leading promotional items, a way of getting a band's name into the public consciousness in order to sell concert tickets, then what are the free concert tickets promoting? CD sales? Error.

The only way summer concerts will be free in the future is if corporate sponsors will pony up enough money to pay for the production costs and the bands.

I would hope that "production costs" to be paid for through sponsorship deals would include payment to the band, otherwise Djorn is completely right: "Hey, great! Free publicity to get people to download our songs for free! Yay, revenue stream!"

Does anyone remember the commercial where rock band stops their set to do an ad for-- an insurance company, I think it was. Is Slipknot going to have to express their love for Microsoft products from the stage?

Seriously, have you ever been to a free concert? It attracts teh absolute worst crowds-- people who don't know the bands, don't give a shit about seeing them, etc. Free concerts are cool if you are a fan and only fans go, but overall, my experiences with free concerts have been TERRIBLE.

on a bit of a tangent, but: i can't think of any other industry in which people simply feel they have a right to receive goods for free. and not even necessary, life-sustaining goods at that — when it comes down to it, music is a luxury. does everyone have the right to free Nikes? free DKNY? where does this idea come from, that people have a right to free records?

i agree that majors are wasteful, have done a lot to betray consumer trust, overheads are way too high and that retail price on CDs is way higher than it ought to be. but the emergent mindset, esp. among the under-25 set, is that "i have the right to have this album for free." you do? why, exactly?

I don't think anyone sees it as a "right". They just see it as "Hey technology now allows me to stop paying for music, and that shit was way overprived anyway, so, hell yeah I'm going to do it!"

Halfwit said it best - you're in a band and you're thinking "Great - let's go play and not get paid just to promote our music so the kids can go home and download it for free".

All of a sudden becoming a rock star doesn't seem like such a wonderful dream come true anymore.

Remember when music was...worth something to most people?

There's a lot here to unpack that I don't have the time right now to address, but I think there's a fundamental error in assuming that because something is 'free' (quotes intentional) means it lacks value. The comparison I'm about to make is hardly one to one, but do the books you check out and not pay for from a library lack the ability to inspire, enthrall, engage because you don't have to pay for them?

books at a library are eventually returned, though.

.....Frankly, I loved the "free" concerts my school used to put on for students back in my college days. "Free," of course meaning with a student ID, and the funds for the concert came out of various fees you were paying, but still...

.....We had some pretty amazing acts like Mother's Finest, Joan Jett, Blackfoot, Molly Hatchet, 38 Special, and Robin Trower while I was in school!

.....In those days, free concerts aside, the price of an LP (this is what albums were called) and a concert ticket were pretty similar, and less than $10. These days, a CD costs $18, and probably half of it is filler material. Try even seeing a decent bar band these days for $18...

.....The totally free model of Ozzfest will probably not ever take off, but I'd think that some way to cap concert tickets at $25 or less would go a long way towards attracting better crowds. As it is now, major concerts in my town have a hard time selling tickets, unless it's an old act such as The Eagles or Barbara Streisand, that caters to wealthy Boomers who don't mind shelling out a hundred bucks or two for a ticket.

library analogy doesnt work because:

- the people responsible for writing the books are still getting paid (in fact, bulk library purchases are a big part of the reason the publishing industry stays in business).

- the people responsible for getting the books into your hands are still getting paid.

- eventually those books - especially the good ones - will have to be replaced.

i'm not talking about enthralling, i'm talking pure capitalism.

@maura: I speak from experience that this is not always the case. ;-)

DIdn't Ozzfest have a pay-to-play policy the first few years, for the smaller bands? So if you look at it that way, this is an improvement--they're breaking even!