Now that the Grammys have come and gone we can all go out and buy Adele’s 21, Foo Fighters’ Wasting Light, Skrillex’ Scary Monsters, Taylor Swift’s Speak Now, Bon Iver’s Bon Iver, Tony Bennett’s Duets II, The Civil Wars’ Barton Hollow, Alison Krauss’ Paper Airplane, Corea, Clarke & White’s Forever and maybe even Kanye West’s Twisted Fantasy since they all won multiple awards.
A decade after Steve Jobs reinvented the record business with the iPod, downloads have overtaken physical sales in the U.S. Another survey shows that iPods and MP3 players are no longer being replaced, now that phones can hold entire record collections. Speaking of records, though only accounting for 1.2% of all sales, vinyl sales reached a record 3.9M, up 36%, and three-quarters were rock albums. My new favorite track is BB King’s “Keep it Coming” with Heavy D from 1997’s Deuces Wild duet album.
A new auction of TV-band spectrum, recommended by the FCC and approved by Congress, won’t have an immediate impact on available UHF spectrum, but five or 10 years from now, perfectly good wireless equipment will once again be required to be retired. We don’t know exactly which TV channels they’ll take away, or even if they’ll get all 20 the FCC says are needed. What is fairly certain is that at least the next 10 channels, TV 42 to 51, are likely to be sold off. I wonder how hard they were lobbying for that in Congress in an election year?
There’s a popular old chestnut in production: “Good, Fast and Cheap: pick two,” meaning that speed and quality come at a cost. I heard a new one from Oscar-nominated film (Original Screenplay) Margin Call. Jeremy Irons, who plays John Tuld, says “there are three ways to make a living in this business: be first, be smarter, or cheat.” It’s a modern business ethic that seems too common these days.
Oil prices have risen from $36 per barrel in late 2008 to $110 today, not just driven by supply and demand, but by speculation. Congress mandates the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to ensure that oil prices reflect the market rather than excessive speculation, but there’s no limit to futures contracts traders can hold or the margin debt accumulated to purchase those futures. After bankers destroyed the U.S. housing market, they simply returned to a market that’s easily manipulated: energy.
Gasoline has been steadily rising four cents a gallon every week. Citizens of other countries pay twice what we do, and even Canadians pay $1 more per gallon. With the price headed towards $5, a lot of Americans are getting upset, but many still drive 20 mpg cars and pickups. Cars typically drive 10,000 miles annually, which translates to 500 gallons, so an increase of $1 per gallon costs another $42 a month. We pay more for our iPhone’s data plan. A 45 mpg Prius costs only $18 more per month for $5 gas. Either way, it’s not going to keep music lovers from going to festivals and arenas for concerts.
Last year, Live Nation de-emphasized its less profitable shed venues and focused on higher-margin arena events, allowing them to “only” lose $83M on $5.4B last year instead of the $229M they lost in 2010 on sales of $5.1B. Like that old commercial on TV: “We lose money on every sale! How do we do it? Volume!” I suspect bookkeeping plays a role as well.
The lesson for tours is “Go big or go home,” keeping demand high for arena-sized productions this year. Bruce, Madonna, Van Halen, RHCP, Waters, Coldplay, Black Keys, Nickelback, Radiohead, Diamond, Lady A., Blake, Jimmy, Tim and Kenny. Meanwhile it looks good for festivals: Coachella — now two weekends — NOLA Jazz Fest, Wanee, Bonnaroo, Beale Street, Sasquatch, Hangout, Newport, and the list goes on.
Indiana’s State Labor board investigated the State Fair stage collapse. They not only fined Mid-America Sound, they also handed IATSE Local 30 a fine.
I’m reminded of a recent pileup of 12 cars and seven semis here in Florida on Interstate 75 in the early morning fog south of Gainesville in which 10 people were killed and 18 injured. The surprising thing is that four years before, four people were killed and 38 injured on Interstate 4 between Orlando and Tampa in a 40-car pileup in the fog.
Can you imagine fining the United Auto Workers for that pileup? Driving a vehicle in zero visibility is as wrong as holding an outdoor concert in spite of a severe weather warning. The Indiana State Fair announced that they’ll move all their major entertainment indoors, and therefore won’t be subject to the Indiana’s new regulations.
Indiana has written new outdoor stage regulations in a classic case of what my grandfather would have called “locking the barn after the horses are stolen.” These state laws will ultimately be superceded by new regulations that will be put into place next year, since neither of the two agencies investigating the collapse have made determinations as to cause or blame as of yet.
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels signed legislation this month making Indiana the 23rd right-to-work state, the first new one in over a decade. If you ask touring crews whether they feel safer with IATSE or non-union labor, most will pick IA, which has pretty thorough stagecraft instruction, and advanced training for riggers. Whether IATSE or Rhino builds it, a 70-mph gust beats a truss roof every time. 545 people were killed by tornadoes last year, the most since 1936 and third worst on record.
