The Live Music Scene…

Dear Music Lovers of Edinburgh (& beyond),

Those of you who’ve read my blog before (if you haven’t and you’re interested, you can view it here), may have noticed that I travel quite a lot for live music. This is not because I like travelling. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had some good times on our road trips but we make these journeys mostly out of necessity. Why? Because the live music scene can be a tough gig. Over the last 2-3 years, more and more bands that we love aren’t even making it north of the border. And it’s not because they don’t want to. Scottish crowds are world re-knowned for their sheer up-for-it-ness.

The problem? Well, a combination of things. A lack of decent sized venues (not helped by the recent closure of Edinburgh’s Picture House, soon to be turned into just what we don’t need – a superpub), a cost effective way to promote/publicise your event (in a sea of other similar sized events) and MOST OF ALL, enough participants willing to spend their hard-earned cash (especially at the moment) on a night at your event.

Touring is one of the only ways that artists can make any money these days but it can be an expensive business and most are probably happy if they manage to break even. Often, paying the extra travel/accommodation/venue costs means that they can’t justify coming this far north. But with the help of like-minded people like you (if you’re still reading, I have to assume that you’re interested, right?!), the wonder of the web/social networking and not forgetting good old word-of-mouth, I think we could change that.