The past year after COVID-19 everything should be back to normal? Of course, that is not what is going on. Covid put everything on hold, the world developed and changed anyway and now we must adapt to the new world. With that some things that were obvious before COVID-19 are not so obvious today.

One question that the live sector has been struggling with is the returning of the audience. We can see a big change in the behavior of the audience. Suddenly events that before went very well, don’t go at all. People are buying tickets later and later making it hard to plan for organizers. Also, the behavior has changed on the audience, they are more demanding.

So is this all Covid, no it’s just part of it. What we see is a new generation coming in. The generation that we talk about has not been taught how to behave in live events. The truth is more that it’s not enough to just put up a big artist on a stage and think you can sell tickets. Instead, it’s more to fulfill the audience’s different needs to have an experience of the whole event.

The past week I was invited to NRW KULTUR International in the part Nordrhein-Westfalen in Germany. This is the heartland of all European touring and good festivals so the discussions around this topic were very high. The interesting part is that NRW KULTUR not only lets us meet German people from the music industry they also collect ten international people with great backgrounds in the music industry. This time around we had people from the Netherlands, Spain, Canada, Italy, Brazil, and Kenya and you got pretty clear that the problem we have is not a local problem we deal with the same problems all around the world.

The interesting part of the whole trip was that NRW KULTUR got us to meet festivals that had already started to experiment with new solutions and different ways to handle the needs of the new audience. First, I got to meet C/O Pop again, I got lucky to visit C/O Pop thanks to NRW KULTUR 2022, and that we a great experience, and already then, they had started to change how they did the festival. Now we got a great report back from them after the 2023: s edition and they had some interesting information to give. Instead of going for really big headliners, they had settled for almost just new artists. Also, a higher percentage of local artists. Proving that yes of course big artists draw an audience, but now we are talking Talyor Swift size or artists that are top twenty in the world that have a price range way too big for a festival like this. Instead, they had put a lot of happenings into the program that activated the audience. Here you had all from a course in twerking to see an art exhibition, in the schedule it was amazing to see how much you could experience during C/O Pop. Suddenly there were a lot of things to experience and see. And that really paid off, they sold out all their tickets and the bigger main part to the really hard-to-reach age group 20 to 25. We have seen before that the old style of festivals still sell tickets but mainly to much older audiences over 55 years old, mainly because the festival is a tradition. With an age group like that, though you are moving backward, they will stop going because of age, and also, they are influenced by the new trends and will start choosing new events if we find a new formula for festivals that works.

My guess also part of the experience and discover phase is that the audience wants to discover new acts, but they need an environment to make that discovery. This a problem that C/O pop has tackled very well.

Then we went off to Essen to Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex. A big old coal mine that now is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Here they had developed to have a Techno festival in the old factory area. The same though was that they did it to get the audience to discover new things. The Stone Techno Festival got its name because the festival is a joint venture with geologists to make people more interested in minerals and building stones of the world. Sounds farfetched but it worked like a charm. They created a sample bank of sounds that Mineral makes and then got famous DJs to make music with the sounds. Then they played in the old factory and on the site, they had different discovery tents for the visitors to learn more about minerals in a fun way. The whole festival had a huge stone lighted in the middle.

The hard part was that this is a UNESCO site, so you are not allowed to change anything. Not even just put in a nail to hold something up. With that came that the festival just has a certain capacity and probably just will have that capacity. On the other hand, now, it has spread so fast t6aht is such a cool place that the tickets go very quickly. Same here it’s more of an experience and the music is a part of it.

At the same time, we were on a trip looking at these great festivals that are evolving, some of the big festivals were releasing their names. I wasn’t even tempted to go on the big ones. That is not the experience it’s just a big stage with artists. Even if there is an artist, I really like it’s too expensive. Also, since most of these festivals have the same lineup, it just doesn’t make it exclusive enough to be a good experience. If I as an almost fifty years old guy feel that I can just imagine what a 20-year-old would feel. It’s a new time it’s all about giving the audience an experience. You just don’t do that by just putting a famous artist on a stage, it’s so much more. If you want inspiration though I urge you to investigate the North Rhine-Westphalia area where they have already started to experiment and probably will be leading the future in live music and festivals.