Consumer spending driven by live music hit a record £6.68 billion in 2024 – a year-on-year increase of 9.5%, a new report has revealed.
But growth in employment in the music sector was substantially lower, rising just 2.2%.
LIVE’s Annual Report, published on 5 September, which incorporates analysis from 55,000 concerts, festivals and events, notes there was one gig every 137 seconds across the UK in 2024, generating consumer spending of £6.7bn, some £2bn more than in 2019.
Despite celebrating the benchmark achievement and the sector’s “remarkable recovery” from Covid, which decimated sales across the live music sector, the report finds this success contrasts with lagging growth in employment.
Moreover, although employment numbers are up 11.7% from 2019, with 234,000 people employed, year-on-year growth for 2024 was just 2.2%.
The report suggests this “substantially” lower increase could be due to a rise in the greater productivity of event staff, as well as in the hours people are working or efficiencies made by employers.
Figures show that around four in five (78.8%) jobs in live music are casual, with the number of insecurely employed staff rising slightly faster than that of permanent staff in 2024. This marks the continuation of a post-Covid trend, with casual staff numbers in 2024 significantly higher than they were in 2019, while permanent posts are now harder to find.
The shift, the report says, reflects the efforts of live music venues and others in the sector to recruit temporary, freelance, self-employed and agency staff, noting that “costs of employing staff will be another major challenge for live music businesses in 2025” with “many employers being forced to trim labour bills”.
Calls for festival tax relief
Looking at the key drivers behind the growth of the UK live music sector last year, which also outpaced a 4.8% rise in international recorded sales revenue, the report notes that high inflation played a factor, as did a constant stream of blockbuster tours led by Taylor Swift, as concerts accounted for 75.3% of live music spending, up two percentage points on 2023.
Stadia and arenas were the primary beneficiaries of the boom, but the report notes that conditions were more challenging for grassroots venues, where the headroom for ticket price increases is often lower and where higher costs have a more immediate impact on operators.
The biggest year-on-year difference in the market was the split between concerts and festivals.
The report found that festival spend rose by just 1.9% compared with a 12.2% jump in concert income.
The report speculates that the slowing growth in music festivals, some of which have struggled to sustain themselves, may be partly due to the glut of major artists’ arena shows drawing away market share, as consumers facing pressure on their spending opt to prioritise big single-day concerts over multi-day events.
Higher ticket prices for festivals, in the wake of spikes in the costs of labour, energy, and other overheads, are also to blame for the plateauing of festival spend, the report finds, with authors calling for the government to adopt LIVE’s proposal for a specific tax relief for festivals.
Reflecting on the contrasts of 2024, Jon Collins, chief executive of LIVE, said the UK’s live music sector had continued the post-lockdown trend of “strong performance for the biggest names at the biggest venues” while pressure built across the grassroots sub-sector “as venues closed, tours were cancelled or cut back, and festivals called time”.
“And yet, as the figures in this report show, we can be a driver of that growth in all regions, towns and cities across the country,” said Collins.
“Live music is a joyous experience and venues and festivals of all shapes and sizes, operated by world-class teams and showcasing world-class established and emerging talent, will continue to delight audiences for decades to come as long as industry and government protect and nurture the ecosystem.”