Why “digital won’t replace live” is the worst conversation in classical music
I was at a conference this year and heard an industry leader say something at the end of a talk on the future of classical music that is my number one pet peeve.
“Of course, digital will never replace live concerts”
I’ve heard countless variations of this, all said in a self-congratulatory tone as some incredibly profound point that pats us all on the back for doing something special. A mic drop moment to rapturous applause. And yet, it is totally reductive.
It is the worst conversation in classical music for two reasons:
Of course, digital won’t replace live, so it’s a pointless statement
It shuts down a significantly more important conversation
So, number one… of course digital won’t replace live!
Now, as someone who regularly talks about the power of digital for the classical music industry, it may be a surprise for me to agree with this.
But the thing is, it’s painfully obvious that digital won’t replace live. All you have to do is look at any live entertainment industry to see this. In these conversations, when we say digital we really mean broadcast, and looking at it in this context makes it clear that live will not be replaced.
Instead of their live events dying, those who have adopted the broadcast have become the most popular in our society. The NFL, Baseball, Glastonbury, Taylor Swift Era Tour, are all events that are broadcast relentlessly and yet have a thriving demand for audiences. In the U.K., the first football game was televised in 1946 and demand for live tickets is greater than ever. We know that broadcast doesn’t replace live,
Even in the world of classical music, we already know this. The first televised BBC Proms was in 1947. Since then, it has been broadcast more and more, and yet over 75 years later the live event hasn’t died.
The reason for this is that attending a live event and watching a broadcast of the same event are two totally different things and experiences, and as a result, it’s incredibly rare that this would be an either/or situation. So of course, the broadcast or digital wouldn’t replace the live as they run in parallel to each other.
But what bugs me most about repeating this “digital will never replace live” narrative as a profound point, is that it shuts down a significantly more important and interesting conversation that we really should be having.
“How can we use digital to support our live events and increase attendance?”
All of the examples I’ve previously used to demonstrate that broadcast and digital don’t replace live, also demonstrate the power of it to help their live events thrive. The Superbowl is the most watched NFL game of the year, a visual spectacle broadcast into homes that is quantifiably better to watch on a screen than it is in person. And yet, the success of broadcast has led to record ticket prices in 2024. How has the NFL done this?
Glastonbury music festival involves being covered in mud, queuing hours for portable toilets, and being too far away from the stage to see what going on. And despite a record number of viewers watching Elton John headline in 2023, the festival also had a record number of tickets sold. The 2022 festival was their first back after the pandemic which at the time set the record for tickets sold, at a time when classical ticket sales were still recovering. What could we learn from this incredible success story?
Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour is the epitome of a digital live event. I’ve already written about the incredible use of phones during concerts leading to fans uploading the equivalent of 462 days worth of video during one concert on one phone network. But as well as seeing user-created content, you can watch the Eras Tour on TV or streaming on Disney+ is an incredible spectacle available wherever you are from the comfort of your own home. And yet the demand for the live event has led to the economic impact of her Eras Tour on cities being so significant that she’s mentioned as a specific factor in a recent Fed report in the U.S.A.. How has Taylor managed to leverage her digital offering to get such demand for live tickets?
If we look at something smaller scale like Wrexham football club, their digital offering has been vital to their growth as an organisation and their live attendance. Wrexham’s turnover last year was about £10.5 million a year, which is similar to nearby orchestras (The Halle - £10.1m, CBSO, £11.7m). Their offering of a documentary on Disney+, games broadcast around the world, and increased social media output has led to them being able to connect to audiences around the world who would not have heard of Wrexham otherwise!
As a result, around 100 million households will have watched a Wrexham game last season, and that’s ignoring the Disney+ documentary. There are now international fans coming from all over the world to attend games. This has led to their average attendance more than doubling from 4,058 in 2019/20 to 9,973 in 2022/23, and their turnover increasing from 1.76m in 2020 to 10.5m in 2023. I certainly can’t think of an orchestra that has had such a radical transformation. Wrexham have identified that focussing on a creating a narrative and enabling audiences to connect to it digitally around the world can have significant benefits.
There is a direct correlation between the broadcast and digital offering, to the demand for live and additional revenue created. By studying more examples of the digital or broadcast output of live events we can identify what could work for us as an industry.
In today’s society its more important than ever to stay present in audience’s minds. We are bombarded with information on a daily basis. As economist Herbert Simon put it:
“Information consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”
Digital and broadcast provide an opportunity to maintain a connection when there is a poverty of attention, and if we are unable to generate attention then audiences may forget about us.
Sport is a wonderful example. There is a different event every week. As well as the broadcast of the event, there is an incredible amount of additional digital output. Social media content, podcasts, articles, news, analysis, replays. You can’t go a minute between matches without seeing something interesting about the sport that makes it impossible to forget the live event even makes it more significant.
How exciting would it be for our organisations to maintain the same level of interest with our audiences? Finding ways of meaningfully engaging with them in between concerts and increasing the interest in the live event by streaming it to audiences who wouldn’t normally come? We keep saying we want to bring classical music to more people, so why don’t we do it?
With the world changing more and more in the next decade, it’s time for us to get our heads out of the sand with digital and start having better conversations in order for us to thrive.
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