News
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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September 5th, 2022
On 19 September 2022 the Dutch annual conference for pop music venues and festivals took place at TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht. POPLIVE researchers Erik Hitters and Martijn Mulder contributed to this conference by organising a panel session in which they reflected on five years of POPLIVE research. They presented the most important findings of live music in the Netherlands before, during and after COVID, titled ‘Venues and Festivals at a tipping point. After, they discussed the outcomes with Berend Schans (director of the industry association VNPF) and Margriet van Kraats (Creative Director of TivoliVredenburg).
More information about POPLIVE’s contribution (in Dutch) can be found here.
The time table for the conference (in Dutch) can be found here.
September 5th, 2022
After two years without live music in the Netherlands, most COVID restrictions were lifted in spring 2022 and live concerts returned with a record number of concerts planned during the year. However, as live music is audience-centered, it is important to consider how the pandemic has affected demand for the live music industry. Commissioned by POPLIVE, Master student Kevin Belzer gained insights into how the pandemic has affected visitor motivations of popular live music attendees by answering the question: What is the effect of the COVID pandemic on the visitor motivations of pop concert attendees?
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