The recently concluded musical summit in Nashville, Tennessee was a great success. The event featured speeches from leaders of the music industry who gathered to discuss the future of the musical world and the impacts of digitization on it. I grew up in a time when we had to pay around $12 dollars to pick a CD of my favorite band. Now we have moved to the stage where for a mere $10 dollars per month you can subscribe to an all you can hear music plan. So how does this change the revenues generated by the music industry and where it is headed? Answers for all this and more were discussed at this summit.
Here is a quick rundown on the important facts of the event.
1. The Day of Independent Record Houses is long gone
Record labels are slowly dying a fast death. They no longer attract new talents and are clinging desperately to their sole cash cows. New talents are looking to newer platforms, mostly online to launch themselves to fame. Streaming platforms have a great opportunity to limit exposure of artists and the process is bound to get optimized in the near future.
2. Artists are looking for alternative ways to make money
Streaming and downloading of music is not the only way by which artists make their money. The increasing popularity of music festivals provides a great way to generate revenue not only for the biggest names in the industry, but even for young and up-coming talents. Listening to your favorite artists live is gaining back popularity and this has led to the increase in tours and other ways to interact and perform before audiences. With globalization, local brands are getting more and more popular in other places out of their geographical zone.
We will continue the discussion of the future trends of the music industry in an upcoming post. Till then stay tuned and live music.