The Biz

Scientific protocol calls for lots of testing before a product is finally assembled. However, in the highly subjective and opinionated realm of loudspeakers, testing has become not so much an afterthought as an after-the-fact proposition in some instances. The transducer and cabinet assembly of each component in a line array are subjected to plenty of testing as each element is developed and connected, but the dynamic and incrementally minute nature of the line array itself tends to get its final checks in situ, flying above the crowd.

The most trenchant clues to the state of the industry are often seen from the most oblique angles. Manufacturers of flight and road cases for the touring sound business are getting hit by many of the same economic forces as the rest of the live sound industry, mostly in the form of higher costs of materials, stemming from a combination of products such as foam padding, which some case makers report as having doubled in the last year, to increases due to the cost of shipping both materials and finished goods. “The cost of the metals and the foam has gone sky high,” says Mark DeHart, president of Rock Hard Road Cases in Albany, Ore. “All of the aluminum and casters are up, as are the foam costs.”

When the iconic Bleecker Street music venue, the Village Gate, was at its peak in the 1960s and ‘70s, the sound system was decidedly monaural, though plenty suitable for the eclectic array of musicians, from folky Dave Van Ronk to fusion prophets Dreams, who trod its stage. But when the Village Gate came out of retirement this year, under the rubric Le Poisson Rouge, its programs may have been just a eclectic as ever, from jazz to classical to rock, but its sound system had to face the reality of modern expectations. It had to go surround.

Have you noticed the music in your elevator getting better lately? Installed sound, in general, has taken leaps forward in terms of quality and management in the last few years. At the InfoComm show in June, the purveyors of installed sound systems gave plenty of praise to the live sound sector for raising the sonic bar across the board. They cited how the enhanced emphasis on touring in the music business has raised expectations of consumers for better audio in all aspects of their lives.

 A Custom Fit In an Off-the-Rack Arena

”Boutique” microphones have become the new talismans of audio in a scaled-down digital universe. People don’t look at the console first like they used to when entering a recording studio. Today, they want to look in the mic cabinet. Increasingly, however, they’re starting to look in the road case, too. The number of ribbon and high-end condenser microphones showing up on stage is on the rise, suggesting that some boutique manufacturers, facing an increasingly crowded group of companies selling to a studio market with a narrowing top end, are looking to the live sound market for growth and branding opportunities.

Of the top 10 music touring acts on Pollstar’s chart as of late April, two date back to the 1970s (the Eagles, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band); two more hit their peaks in the 1980s (Metallica, Van Halen); the 1990s are represented by the Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam, Counting Crows, Radiohead and the Stone Temple Pilots.

Live Nation’s annual report came out earlier this year and from the looks of it, Madonna done good. The world’s largest live concert producer increased its revenues by 12.8 percent to $4.2 billion, a year-over-year increase of $473.3 million. Live Nation’s adjusted OIBDAN (operating income before depreciation and amortization, non-cash compensation expense) was $180.9 million, an increase of 15.9 percent, as a result of improved results in North American and international music and global theatre tours and productions. Operating income was $82.1 million, an increase of $49 million, or 148.0 percent.

The old adage is that when the economy’s down, entertainment is up. Dave Shadoan, president of SR provider Sound Image, has been a firm believer in that throughout his career. But this year, even he wonders how well it will hold up.

A friend of mine, an FOH mixer, just had a nasty dustup with the IRS, so although I hate to narrowcast, the column this month is aimed at self-employed FOH mixers. It’s too easy to lose sight of tax issues in the everyday grind of touring or marketing yourself, but the consequences of pay-ing attention are both financially and emotionally draining. It’s March, so there’s still time to review some of the key changes to the federal tax code for the 2007 filing.

It used to be that if you wanted a good ol’ roll-in-the-mud with music over a long weekend, you needed to catch a flight to Europe. America, the country that brought you Woodstock and Farm Aid, quickly ceded the title of home of the multi-day music festival to the Old Country.

In early November, a few days after Local One of the technical and stagehand union IATSE had gone out on strike against Broadway shows, I was standing at the FOH position in the Hilton Theatre on West 43rd Street, a half block from Times Square. The Hilton is home to the musical version of Mel Brook’s film, Young Frankenstein, and was one of the few shows still running, as the Hilton Theatre’s union contract had been established separately from most of the others.

When Celine Dion began a five-year performance residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas in 2002, it certainly didn’t seem like a signal that the touring concert business was about to undergo any major changes. Dion’s is a talent perhaps best suited to a home theatre rather than sequential one-night stands. And she certainly seemed to make the right real estate deal: Her 700 shows in the past five years generated more than $500 million, according to the Wall Street Journal, with Elton John pulling in pro rata numbers for his interim Caesars stints when Dion took breaks.