text | Mouyu
The popularity of the concert market has continued from 2023 to the present, and there have been some "rebellion against Tiangang" phenomena.
For example: Let the fans sing to the singer in the audience.
html The number one news on Douyin’s entertainment list on May 6th was “This is the first time I’ve seen a rumor-refuting audience not lip-syncing” . The reason is that Phoenix Legend held two concerts in Changzhou and the Bird's Nest in Beijing. The Bird's Nest concert was considered to have a chorus that was not shocking enough and too quiet.In contrast, the Changzhou concert not only had loud and clear sounds, but even the waving of light sticks was uniform.
"The 60,000 Imperial Guards never fought against the 30,000 Changzhou Cavalry" is a hot topic, pointing to a new trend in concerts: More and more audiences come to concerts not just to hear singers sing.
The entertainment value provided by the concert is diversified.
But just in April, Xu Meijing took the initiative to hand the microphone to the band and the audience at a concert, but she was accused of being unprofessional. Is the "large-scale KTV" of
concerts a flash in the pan, or is it a signal of a new model? What is the core value of “letting fans come to the concert and sing by themselves”? Why would someone rush to the street? Is there a replicable methodology? How will it develop in the future? Mouyu talked to many concert lovers and entertainment industry practitioners to try to find the answer.
"Wu Bai is actually very dedicated"
"Wu Bai's concert is actually not as easy as online jokes say, he is very dedicated."
Hongling, who lives in Changsha, is a standard concert enthusiast. She is engaged in management work. Due to career pressure, I need to attend 3 to 4 concerts every year to release my mood.
She pointed out that in order to increase the topic, many jokes on the Internet deliberately highlight Wu Bai's role as the "lead singer" at the concert. It seems that he only needs to sit there, start the song, and wait for the audience to finish singing to collect the money.
But in fact, this kind of lively "chorus", "joke" or "comedy interaction" are all extra services provided by the singer in order to make the audience happy.
Hongling recalled that at last year’s Chongqing concert, Wu Bai not only sang to the full audience in order to liven up the atmosphere, but also ran around the audience to interact. "After the concert, due to strong requests from the audience, we encore three songs."
Similar encore performances are also common at Jay Chou concerts.
Previously, Jay Chou was fined 200,000 yuan for returning to sing "Qili Xiang" at the Shanghai Ferris Wheel Concert because fans were unwilling to leave; the Sydney stop of the 2023 World Tour Concert was extended by one hour, and he sang 58 songs, a record Record.
But this kind of reputation is not fixed. When he is "paddling", it will also make fans feel chilled. At Jay Chou's Singapore concert at the end of 2022, some netizens said, "The concert was only 2 hours in total, and there were also many musicians' performances, magic performances, and special effects performances. There were too many irrelevant parts. "Relevant complaints were posted, and a large number of fans expressed "disappointment."
In Hong Ling’s view, concerts are an entertainment project with a high unit price. The purpose of the audience’s willingness to spend money on tickets is very clear, that is, they want to have fun.
The singer is on stage now, both as an idol and as a server. Satisfying the emotional value of the audience has always been a requirement for concerts, but the methods are diverse. This year, "chorus" has become popular.
Most singers’ concert collapse is basically due to their failure to clarify their role as “server”.
html On April 20, Xu Meijing performed in Nanjing. The performance lasted nearly 2 hours, and Xu Meijing’s actual singing time added up to less than half an hour. This move caused dissatisfaction among fans, who collectively called on the organizer to "refund their tickets".
practitioner Zhou An believes that the user profile of Xu Meijing’s concert is very clear. They are all old fans who have not seen the singer for a long time. Naturally, they want to interact more with the idol during the concert. As a result, even the masterpieces were sung by others during the concert. , naturally unable to meet the audience's psychological expectations.
Zeng Yike's concert collapsed at the end of 2022, also because Zeng Yike performed a long DJ performance on the stage, while the singing performance that the audience expected was shorter. This gap led to audience dissatisfaction.
It is worth pointing out that there is always a flexible space in whether the audience's requirements are met or not at concerts. Whether it was Xu Meijing's music meeting or Zeng Yike's concert, there were discussions between the audience and the singer to "extend the time" or "sing a few more songs", but the final response was that Zeng Yike smiled and said nothing to Xu Meijing's manager. The arrogant attitude of replying to fans on the spot "You're dreaming" finally led to the intensification of conflicts.
In Hong Ling's view, Wu Bai is completely incomparable with Xu Meijing and Zeng Yike who fell over. "In , what the audience wants is the emotional value that is worth the ticket price. In , the latter two are completely ignored, leaving the audience with only sadness and no happiness. Overturning is inevitable."
But another concert enthusiast Jingjing also said, The audience does attend the concert to have fun, but the way is not necessarily a lively chorus, and each singer has a different way of pleasing the audience.
Jingjing is a fan of Eason Chan. During Eason Chan's concerts, audiences and singers generally resent the "savages" present (audiences who are overly enthusiastic, like to scream or make other violent reactions).
"I prefer to wait quietly for the lights to dim and get familiar with the moment of emotion when the song is sung." Qingqing said.
Concert planning is moving towards "bar-style"
Many viewers have discovered that as the concert market continues to boom from 2023 to 2024, concerts have gradually created differentiated features other than singers.
For example, some netizens concluded that the most passionate concerts suitable for chorus are: Wu Bai, Phoenix Legend, and Zhang Jie; the concerts that are most capable of making jokes and creating horse-grabbing plots are Joker Xue's concerts; Eason Chan and Jay Chou's concerts have a lot of chat and interaction , the atmosphere is more relaxed, and creative elements will be added to the stage design every time.
Zhou An, a practitioner who is deeply involved in the performing arts industry, pointed out that as the concert economy has gradually shifted from a boom to a mature industry in the past two years, it has become an inevitable trend for different concerts to be differentiated based on the characteristics of the singers.
"More than 70% of the audience attending the concert are not regular fans of a certain singer. Their core appeal when buying tickets is to make themselves happy. When it comes to pleasing themselves, everyone has different ways."
Zhou An believes that the differentiated nature of is the result of market segmentation as it grows larger.
In 2023, large-scale commercial performances will fully recover, and concerts and music festivals will grow explosively. The number of large-scale concerts and music festivals with more than 5,000 people will reach 3,100, a year-on-year increase of 97.23% in 2019, and box office revenue will be 17.796 billion yuan, an increase from 2019 348.98%. The audience of large-scale concerts and music festivals is mainly female, accounting for more than 60%, 65% and 67% respectively. Among the audience, the audience aged 25 and above accounted for 63%.
Although the concert market started in 2010, it has been divided into large-scale commercial concerts and small live performances by niche musicians based on scale. Depending on the medium, there are also different forms such as online and offline. But in terms of content, apart from the different representative songs of the singers, the previous concerts did not have much difference.
Currently, the formation of many concert-specific columns is mostly based on the continuous improvement of concert quality due to popular market feedback. For example, the content of the concert is no longer just music, but may also incorporate dance, drama, visual art and other elements to bring a richer artistic experience to the audience. The singer is not only responsible for singing, but also needs to take care of the lively atmosphere, request songs, tell stories and other empathy events.
Zhou An believes that many of the designs at current concerts copy the business elements of bars , "how to make the audience happy."
Previously, "super beautiful amateurs" frequently appeared on the "big screen interactive" of Xue Zhiqian's concerts. ” or “catching a horse internet celebrity”, people questioned the script.Zhou An said that it was not clear whether some of the snapshots taken at Xue Zhiqian's concerts were arranged, but it is true that some concerts arrange for the audience to ask questions or cheer for singing, with the purpose of creating a more lively atmosphere. "Essentially, this is the same concept as the bar atmosphere group."
The redefined concert
Back to the original question, from the concert to the "ktv chorus room with ten thousand people", the concert model allows the audience to sing by themselves Is it possible to become normalized in the future?
In discussions with many practitioners, Mou Entertainment believes that this matter is not a fantasy, because long before the "songless concert", there was already an "unmanned concert".
In October 2023, the movie "Taylor Swift Era Concert Tour" was released in North America. As a special "concert movie" movie type, Taylor Swift's team chose to blur "movie" and "singing" Publicize the boundaries between "will". For example, bypassing traditional Hollywood production companies, directly cooperating with theaters for distribution, giving up the full release period, simply using celebrity social platforms for promotion, and encouraging fans to break their movie-watching habits and sing along and record the screen in theaters.
's final box office results proved the success of this model. "Taylor Swift Era Tour" surpassed "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" with a box office of US$37 million on the day of pre-sale, becoming the first day of pre-sale in North America. Second place on the overall list, second only to "Avengers 4: Endgame". The final global box office of reached 267 million , of which the cumulative total box office in the mainland was 101 million, the box office in North America was 180 million, and the box office in the UK was 15.159 million. It broke 35 records and achieved 84 milestones.
By December, the new concert movie "Beyoncé" once again topped the charts with US$11.62 million on its first day, setting a record for the same period since 2003, with a global cumulative box office of US$42 million.
If a singer can record songs but not be present at a concert, then why can't he be present but not sing?
Zhou An believes that this is an era full of variables for the concert market, and concerts may be redefined on the grounds of "satisfying the audience."
"From a music point of view, this may be a bad thing. But if the concert is just defined as a new entertainment activity, it may be possible. "
He pointed out that the 2023 concert The lip-syncing incidents that frequently break out in the market are essentially the contradiction between the continued popularity of the market and the unsustainable status of singers. “If the audience comes here for entertainment and happiness, rather than to enjoy music, then there is nothing wrong with this model. On the contrary, it can reach the largest increase in the number of people and allow more people to enjoy the joy of contacting idols and participating in carnivals. , which will greatly alleviate the current shortage of concerts in the market. "
If this model is implemented, the only thing that needs to be considered is how to lower the ticket price to make this entertainment model more cost-effective.
