It's Not An Easy Road

Groundins

By: Charles H.E. Campbell

The customary summer tours for Reggae and Dancehall artistes are now over. The general trend which began from the spring, intensified during the mid to late summer. From talking to a number of industry sources, the information reaching me confirms that the global recession is adversely affecting concert tours and festivals in Europe, North, South and Central America, the Caribbean and Asia. What is more, this applies to all categories of artistes, from the most popular and internationally famous, to the young emerging acts.

There is a well known but false perception that I hear constantly from lay persons. They say that the entertainment industry is inure to troughs in the economic cycle. While this may have been so in the past, during the current recession, nothing could be further from the truth.

The industry is impacted on three main levels. Firstly, since the start of the year, there has been a significantly lower percentage of carry through on queries. This means, that after the initial contact by a promoter or his booking agent, to the management of the artist or musician, it has become much more difficult to convert that interest into a firm offer. Consequently, the number of offers for concerts, tours and festivals, have also fallen sharply. On the third level, this has led to fewer confirmed dates. Many promoters even pay the mandatory, non-refundable deposit and after having further checked their market place, and the viability of the concert or tour, they write off the deposit and cancel the contract with the artiste.

This was the worst summer we have seen in 5 or 6 years. In fact, maybe the last time we experienced such fallout was between 1995 and 1997. Many festivals were cancelled or drastically downsized. Some events that were normally staged or planned for 4000-seater amphitheatres or stadiums were or have been moved to smaller venues like 400 to 700 capacity nightclubs. In an effort to reduce their overheads, promoters in their negotiations to fulfil artistes’ production rider requirements, are demanding that artistes’ cut their travel party.

Many concert tours, have been cut short by weeks, as well as suffered from cancelled dates throughout. Therefore, in order to sustain their performance careers, some top artistes who have traditionally frowned on performing to tracks, have now had to resort to this means for their musical accompaniment. This is yet another blow to many of our senior musicians and touring bands, who under normal circumstances, are exclusively contracted to specific artistes. The unfriendly economic environment has found them short or out of work, and many are shopping around for temporary jobs to supplement their income.

In the last ten years or so, our industry standards and practices have improved enormously; however, this organisational level that has been achieved is being dangerously compromised on the altar of expediency. Artistes, who traditionally rely on one booking agency to conduct all their affairs, have suddenly put themselves on the roster of numerous agencies and persons. Although, this is quite understandable in some cases, objectively, this practice is a step backwards, organisationally, and is in the long run, unsustainable because it creates confusion in the market place and will make major foreign promoters shy away from doing business with certain of our top acts because they are never sure who really has the authority to speak on their behalf in this area of their career. We have been down this road before. This is one of the weaknesses that ultimately prejudiced Dennis Brown’s career.

In this scenario, what is even more perplexing is that some of our more popular and experienced artistes are virtually shooting themselves in the foot, by refusing to reduce their performance fees in keeping with the shrinking global market and lower demand. Happily for our industry, however, the smarter ones have compromised, taken a pay-cut and continued touring. During this summer also, many musicians toured for per diems only. They had to sacrifice and save out of these meagre earnings so that they would be able to take something home. It nuh pretty out deh. The situation is so delicately poised that I have deliberately refrained from giving specific examples or identifying any of the artistes and musicians affected, for fear of further prejudicing anyone’s career. “It’s not an easy road, Yuh see the glamour and the glitter and yuh tink a bed a roses.” (Buju Banton) Who feels it knows.

Email: che.campbell@gmail.com
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