REBECCA BAIRD: Why 'use it or lose it' plea from indie music venues isn't working

If I was to rank my top three favourite feelings, the thud of a bass rumbling through my shoes and rattling my ribcage would be up there.

It would probably be second, in between the glee of being rocked by a calm sea and the relief of climbing into my own bed (fresh sheets of course) after a trip away.

Because there’s absolutely nothing like the sensation of hearing music live.

Whether it’s being experienced along with 70,000 screaming fans in an stadium, or 40 fellow shoe-shufflers in a sweatbox, the thrum of a good crowd can’t be beaten.

I was reminded of just how euphoric a gig can be last weekend, when I saw supernoving star Chappell Roan performing on the O2 Academy stage in Glasgow.

The energy in the room was electric; it was a proper Glasgow crowd, with everyone hollering the words, clapping, stamping and jumping along to her punchy, feelgood pop.

She gave us everything, and we gave her it back ten times over. It was magic, and I’ll remember it forever.

But like many people who attended that gig, I didn’t buy a single drink. I didn’t use the cloakroom, or even buy merch. Neither did anyone in the pocket of people surrounding me.

Does that make us all bad music fans?

‘Buy a drink’ plea left bad taste

I love live music and I want to support it, but times are tight. The tickets themselves, plus the cost of getting there, grabbing a bite to eat near the venue and getting home meant I didn’t have much left over to spend.

I certainly didn’t have the best part of a tenner to spend on a watery rum and Coke, served in a poky plastic cup.

Now, the O2 Academy will survive just fine without my purchase I’m sure, as part of a successful chain of venues.

But closer to home this week, the owner of independent Dundee venue Church, Jeff Chan, issued a dire warning to gig-goers that grassroots venues were going under.

And one solution, according to Chan, was for audience members to “buy a drink” at small local gigs to support the venue.

This left a bad taste in my mouth, and I couldn’t initially work out why.

Partly, it felt like being guilt-tripped into spending money I don’t have, which got my back up. Particularly when the only thing to spend that money on is alcohol, which I don’t always want, or gassy draft juice.

Small venues may be struggling too much to risk spending out on a better offering of drinks, but from where I’m standing – usually at the edge, near the back, peering through a gap between two tall people’s heads – you need to give gig-goers a good reason to leave their hard-won spots.

Perhaps some speciality local drinks at a reduced tasting price, coffee options or themed snacks, would entice folk to part with their pounds.

Or even a donation box/contactless beeper, where I can donate a quid or two without having to spend a fiver on a pint I don’t want.

Cost of living crowds are in it for the tunes

But it’s also the case that increasingly, music fans are at gigs for just that – the music.

Night out culture is drastically different to how it was even 10 years ago.

Cuts across the country to public transport mean that many people are driving to see shows, and drinking as an activity is becoming less and less popular among younger crowds.

At 19 I would “make a night of it” at a £15 gig, with maybe a meal out and some cocktails before a gig, plenty of bevvy at the show and then a trip to the pub after.

Nowadays I’m just not interested in spending upwards of £40 for a standard ticket, only to waste the entire show standing in a queue for the bar or, half an hour later, the bathroom.

So what can smaller venues do to make money, if all folk are there for is the music?

That’s a much harder question to answer, and perhaps requires a rethink of the whole industry’s infrastructure.

Industry-level support needed

Skyrocketing ticket prices haven’t stopped folk paying to see big arena tours, so the desire from music fans is provably there.

But, as Chan quite rightly said, we can’t grow these big-bill acts without small local places for them to cut their teeth in.

Is the answer a levy on stadium and arena tickets which is fed back to grassroots music venues, as the venue owner suggested?

Could major ticket distributers like Ticketmaster be forced to put their extortionate ‘handling fees’ to good use, and donate part of their profit to the venues which make these gigs possible?

Should local government be stepping in to save bricks-and-mortar spaces with subsidies, instead of posturing about ‘culture’ through futuristic projects?

Or do we as music fans just have to suck it up, stop being so tight and buy a crap drink?

I don’t know what the answer is, but wringing audiences for all they’re worth doesn’t seem like the right one.

Without us, there’s no show. So let’s look for profits in deeper pockets.