News
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.
February 15th, 2023
POPLIVE researcher Rick Everts successfully defended his dissertation ‘Making a Living in Live Music‘ on Friday 17 February 2023 at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Within the POPLIVE project he studied early-career pop musicians in The Netherlands. Ahead of his PhD defence, Rick has been interviewed by Dutch news radio De Nieuws BV (Radio 1). The interview can be found here.
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January 10th, 2023
POPLIVE will be present at the annual conference and showcase festival Eurosonic Noorderslag. As part of the ESNScience track, Erik Hitters and Martijn Mulder will present their research on the Dutch live industry as a superstar economy. They will present analyses based on data on gigs and artist fees in the Netherlands and discuss the outcomes with industry panelists. The panel will take place Friday 20 January 1.30pm @ Oosterpoort Back 9.
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October 25th, 2022
To see a Bruce Springsteen concert in the Netherlands in 2023, the cheapest tickets cost €115. Nevertheless, when the ticket sell started there were more than 200,000 people queuing online. At the same time, however, many small and midsize venues are struggling to get their tickets sold in the post-Covid era. In their contribution to the 13th International Music Business Research Days in Vienna, POPLIVE researchers Erik Hitters and Martijn Mulder presented their study on the phenomenon described here: the superstar economy.
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September 15th, 2022
[for English see below]
Vrouwelijke en Nederlandse artiesten zijn aan een sterke opmars bezig in het Nederlandse festivallandschap. Bij meer dan een derde (34%) van alle muziekoptredens op de festivals stond een vrouwelijke artiest op het podium en dat aandeel was nog nooit zo hoog; in 2016 was het nog 18%. Nooit eerder stond er bij een groot Nederlandse festival bij meer dan de helft van de programmering een vrouwelijke artiest op het podium, in 2022 was dat wel het geval bij drie festivals: Best Kept Secret, Motel Mozaique en Welcome to the Village. Deze en andere resultaten over de line-ups van onze grootste festivals is te vinden in dit rapport.
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