By Erin Caine
Elm Staff Writer
In this age of high-tech convenience—an age where companies attempt to out-do each other in consumer accessibility—you can see your favorite artists live in concert without ever leaving your couch. Naturally, the topic of “live shows versus online streaming” is a point of contention, some insist on the one-of-a-kind atmosphere and community inherent to live shows while others praise the convenience (and the low cost) of watching them from the comfort of one’s living room.
Live concerts certainly have their drawbacks when it comes to overall convenience. Tickets are expensive, for one thing. If you’re a student or working, it’s hard to make time to go in the first place. The venues are usually far away from where you live. The floor space of popular shows has people packed in elbow-to-elbow and fellow fans around you can be pretty obnoxious (or just smell really, really bad.) At the end of the concert, as people stream out through the doors en masse, you leave the venue feeling dazed, confused, and unable to hear quite right for a while. So what’s the mass appeal? By no means is it a suffering industry. According to Peter Kafka of ABC News, “The concert business has never been bigger.” Fan loyalty may play a part in concert attendance and live show preference, as fans, eager to express their devotion to their favorite artist, are more than willing to pay to support them, whether it’s seeing them live or picking up merchandise after the show.
Paul Resnikoff of Digital Music News speculated that one of the biggest advantages of a live gig is simply its scarcity. “In the end,” he says, “a concert can’t be instantly copied and duplicated, and neither can the social, in-person aspects that come with it.” Concert attendance is an intimate and distinct experience, unable to be adequately felt through a computer screen.
However, the advantages of online streaming may outweigh that heady, individualistic atmosphere of a live gig. Accessibility is a major advantage. Just about anyone who owns a computer can access live shows streaming online. More to the point, not everyone has the time or resources to make it out to a venue; in this aspect, live concert attendance seems inaccessible (especially, say, to a flat-broke college student without a car).
Online streaming as an industry has yet to really take off due to, as Fusion’s Kelsey McKinney explains, music licensing being “such a mess of red tape and legal documents.” She adds, “It can be very difficult to work out the rights that explain who can stream the concert for how long and where and to how many people.” But despite such hurdles, digital streaming may be the future of how we experience live music. There are many music fans who, along with the practical benefits of online shows, simply prefer a more private and relaxed environment. Technology in the coming years (such as virtual-reality gear) may also bring the at-home experience closer to the feel of a real concert venue.
Whatever your personal preference, the music industry—speaking broadly, the great American entertainment juggernaut, itself—is always rapidly changing. While it is uncertain now whether one listening format may end up eclipsing the other in the years to come, the future of music seems poised to evolve remarkably either way.