News
March 20th, 2025
[English below]
Drie jaar na het loslaten van de beperkingen als gevolg van de coronapandemie lijkt de evenementensector voor meer en grotere uitdagingen te staan dan tijdens de lockdown. Hoewel de sector relatief goed uit die crisis kwam en al snel weer op (bijna) volle sterkte was, hangen
er in het post-coronatijdperk opnieuw donkere wolken boven de sector. Met name het laagdrempelige aanbod staat onder druk. POPLIVE onderzoeker Martijn Mulder schreef een artikel waarin hij pleit voor een aanpak specifiek gericht op dat deel van de sector, om te voorkomen dat (culturele) evenementen in de toekomst een luxeproduct worden. Het artikel is hier te vinden.
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December 11th, 2024
English below
In 2024 was dance veruit het meest geprogrammeerde genre op de toonaangevende Nederlandse popfestivals. Bijna een derde van al het muzikale aanbod kwam voor rekening van dj’s/producers, ruim 10% meer dan in 2016. Dit ging met name ten koste van het rockaanbod, waarvan het aandeel kelderde van 32% naar 19%. Rockmuziek is uit onder de Nederlandse popfestivalbezoeker.
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June 5th, 2024
Over the past decades, we have seen an increasing number of popular music programmes at higher music education institutions (HPME programmes). How do both students and teachers perceive such programmes and to what extent do they contribute to the career development of musicians? POPLIVE researcher Rick Everts published a research article on this topic, co-authored by Pauwke Berkers and Erik Hitters. In their study, they conclude that the main benefits that these programmes are perceived to offer concern the development of a set of necessary competences, the establishment of industry relationships and the acquisition of symbolic resources. In line with the ‘normative value’ perspective on professionalism, a norm of expertise is promoted, and in line with the ‘power struggle’ perspective, these symbolic resources help to foster a professional identity, both of which are believed to help students to stand out from musicians without forms of formal education entering the market.
The article can be found here.
February 9th, 2024
What is the value and impact of pop music and how can music policy futher improve the sector? At the Eurosonic 2024 conference, POPLIVE presented the answers to these questions during the meeting Meet the Music Sector, an invite-only panel with the culture spokespersons of the Dutch parliament and culture policy makers (Ministerie van OCW, Cultuurfondsen).
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November 15th, 2023
In a digitalising world, pop venues and festivals face the task of whether and how to adapt to this development. During the pandemic, some venues invested heavily in equipment to livestream performances, and during those years there were even voices that livestreams and holograms could eventually replace traditional live offerings. However, based on the POPLIVE publication ‘I was There!’, that view can be disputed. One of the main conclusions from this study is that physical copresence, being there, is the key element of concert experience, something that can not be perfectly simulated in a digital context. Therefore, the primary focus of venues and festivals in the post-pandemic era should not be at digitising their offerings.
Read the article “The value of being there” that was published in the magazine UNCOVER – The Future of Leisure here.
October 31st, 2023
From 1-3 November 2023, the 14th International Music Business Research Days took place at University of Agder in Kristainsand, Norway. Two POPLIVE researchers presented their recent work at the conference. This conference is commissioned by the International Music Business Research Association (IMBRA).
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July 10th, 2023
On July 7, 2023, POPLIVE researcher Martijn Mulder defended his PhD Thesis “I was There!” at Erasmus University Rotterdam. The goals of this study have been to map the live pop music practice in the 21st century, achieve an understanding of value creation within live music, and assess the feasibility of an ecology approach to live music. The book is built from a holistic (interdisciplinary, multi-epistemological) perspective on live music and approaches the subject from both what happens onstage, how that is organised backstage and how that is received and experienced frontstage. A digital copy of the Thesis can be downloaded here. An article about the study in Dutch newspaper Trouw can be found here.
June 30th, 2023
The Live Coaches is a podcast series in The Netherlands hosted by Vincent de Raad en Melanie Esther. They interview people from the pop music sector with the goal to help (emerging) artists to learn more about performing live. In the first episode of the second season, POPLIVE-researcher Martijn Mulder explores live performance in pop music from a scientific context. Based on his research on venues and festivals and on how the audience members construct their experience of the concert, he explorer how academic research can benefit the daily practice of doing gigs. The podcast can be found here and on Spotify.
June 15th, 2023
On Thursday July 6, 2023, POPLIVE organizes the mini-symposium “From Stage to Campus (and back). Pop music research in practice“. This symposium explores the value of academic research on pop music for the sector; how can pop music organizers, festivals, artists, policy-makers etc. benefit from scientific research projects and what are the most valuable future opportunities? Speakers at the symposium are Britt Swartjes, Daniel Nordgard, Frank Kimenai and Martijn Mulder. The symposium starts at 15.00h, ends with drinks around 17.15h and the entrance is free. For more info see below.
