The current attempt to kill touring may be the last straw as artists realize how fukked they are on major labels. Multiple artists across multiple genres have recently fallen prey to a record label allowing some private equity bozo to book them an arena tour they can't fill, because "on paper" it's more profitable than the smaller venue tours. Those smaller venues were once the bread and butter for artists, who could simply live on the road for a year 6-12 months and make bank.
IMO it's always interesting to watch artists who are on the verge of being the next superstar, to see how their shyt is being handled. Right now that means watching Chappell Roan. She just added a bunch of tour dates in the Midwest, in between the various big festivals she's attending. A lot of her shows are amphitheaters, which are 5k-20k venues that artists used to tour before moving on to arenas. However the bulk of her tour was announced last year, before she blew up. Flip side SexyRed's upcoming tour (many dates of which are arenas) was announced after she "blew up" yet it looks like she's going to fail to sell it out. We'll know for sure in a couple weeks.
My point is that this shyt falls apart when a label decides that the things the small things are no longer important. Over a decade ago they decided A&Rs (and artist development) wasn't important. Now they're deciding building (or maintaining) fanbases through touring is no longer important. I think Roan's success is likely an exception to the rule, and instead of realizing that her touring small venues over the last year is a major reason she's blowing up, someone in a suite is looking at numbers that say "if we had put her in an arena in September 2023, her current tour would have made x more due to later sold out dates out weighing the earlier dates struggling..." No you retard, her tour would have been cancelled months ago if that was the case.
With all due respect you don't know the business. The record label boogeyman narrative I grew up on looks funny in the light when I began meeting some of the players in the game and learning about the business IRL.
It costs money to make people famous. It costs money to put out a record. (With no consideration on whether or not it's a hit). Whether it's radio DJs, ad platforms or social media influencers, palms had to get greased for the names of all your favorite artists to first get out there.
People call for artist development but would call an artist "industry plant" if it doesn't appear that they were yanked directly off the streets and put on stage. We call for artist development yet consume microwave artists and champion meme songs/artists. They call for investment in rappers who got attention for rapping about drills they did, only for them to get smoked shortly afterwards. When these things flop the labels and promoters take much bigger soul crushing losses than the artist.
I can't take threads like these seriously anymore because nikkas are disconnected from how much money goes into an artist on the front end that. Mfs want to recoup. It wasn't a guarantee back when music used to actually sell and they made money on publishing, it has to be hell now. Now we're in a landscape of ADHD fandom for microwave rappers and consumers who don't buy music. Dudes will get multimillion dollar advances to flex on their broke peers and have millions put in the street for them just to flop. Yet when they get sympathy when they hop on IG Live years later crying about record label devils blah blah.
Also touring is how the artists eat and that shyt is moreso handled by their managers. Dropping music isnt the be all end all, it's supposed to be stimulus to drum up demand for tour dates, that's how artists really eat. The call to do large venue tours vs small ones is made by promoters.
Most of the tone deaf big tour fails recently is the work of Livenation. They're ok with taking the losses because they're also playing the game of locking up talent into their touring contracts so other promoters can't get them and driving up the costs of artists to hurt them further. Most of the problems in the concert promotion space is semi related to Livenation.
Unless the contract is entitling the label to touring revenue (which is rare but happens more now) labels don't give a shyt about the tour except as a barometer of popularity.
Source: Several close friends in the industry, family members who are DJs and promoters
