Steve & Stu answer listener's questions: Why do ticket prices vary so much at the same venue? Why are some songwriter credits missing on streaming platforms (and do they still get paid)?

0:03Steve:Hello and welcome to The Price of Music brought to you by Music Ally, the show that's fascinated by all the fun and games and finances of the music world, as explained each week by me, Steve Lamack, and him, Stuart Dredge, if you want an easy guide to what's happening in the music biz and how it all works and how the figures stack up. Here we are twice this week. I'll explain more later on. Also, our first episode is a slightly different one because there's one or two news stories which we've seen which are interesting, but we're going to hold over till next week because we're going to move straight to any other business this week as provided by yourselves.

0:41Steve:So this is the point where, well, if you have any questions for us about the workings of the industry or its complicated money trial, drop us a line, email address coming up shortly because we quite often do one of these specials where we pitch into the postbag and try and answer some of your inquiries. I think this one's for you, Stuart, this first one. This is from Richard Engler, who says, Hey, Stephen Stewart, I often check the credits section on tracks. A large percentage have either no or incomplete information when you look at the credits on Spotify. Does this mean that the credits aren't logged on Spotify's system?

1:23Steve:And if so, then where do the royalties go? I've seen it on covers numerous times. So a large amount of potential revenue either stays with Spotify or is distributed to the wrong people. Is that what happens? Does the money go to the black box like it does with some royalty distribution? I think this is one of those questions where there's probably a quick answer, but there's probably a much more in-depth answer, which has a dozen different layers to it. But thank you, Richard. If the credits are missed off, if they're not, the songwriters aren't listed beneath the track on Spotify. What happens then if we take it point by point?

2:10Steve:If there is a large percentage of songs that have no or incomplete information, does this mean it's not logged on Spotify's system? And in which case, do people not get paid?

2:22Stu:yeah so this is it got to the heart of one of the big big problems for the music industry um it's bigger than spotify you know only one platform it's a long time industry issue this is about metadata which is a word if you go to music industry conferences you'll hear this a lot we've got to sort out our metadata problems okay um so essentially yes to go back to start the beginning when a track's uploaded to spotify it's the person who uploads it so that's either a label or distributor who gives Spotify the credits info. So it's up to them. So music publishers don't upload songs to Spotify. Songwriters don't.

2:58Stu:So it's really up to whoever's uploaded the track. And so in the case of a label, they should put the publisher in and songwriters. If it's a distributor, it's down to the artist who's using a distributor to put it on. And like you say, often they don't. I mean, I've seen covers like the most famous Beatles and Bob Dylan tracks where they haven't put the songwriter credits in. If you look at the credits on Spotify, I think this is ridiculous. It's obviously a cover of that famous Beatles song. How can Spotify not know? Yeah. But all it's showing us is what's been uploaded with the data. So the problem here, and I will get to what happens.

3:31Stu:The problem here is it's about matching songs. So like the compositions to recordings, if that data hasn't been provided. So they're correct. The money, Spotify has the money. It wants to pay the money out. So there's no kind of sense of streaming services holding onto the cash here. but they don't know who to pay it to and there have been historically been lawsuits about this kind of thing about you know all the music on spotify that no one knew who the publisher was so it varies so in the in the us for example there's a body set up called the mechanical licensing collective the mlc and spotify and the other streaming services transferred all there and the phrase here is historical unmatched royalties so that is money that should have gone to publishers but they haven't been matched to the right the recordings and it was about just under$400 million a few years ago.

4:21Stu:This was the historical one that hadn't been paid out. And this organization started trying to match them. And you can actually go to the MLC's website. And if you search for historical match world, you can see exactly how much every service is paid. So Apple paid about$148 million. Spotify had$146 million. That's how much money they had that they just haven't been able to pay out. So that's that. In the US, that's what happens. They've tried to sort this out by setting up a body. It's also a part of the work that collecting societies do, trying to match recordings to works, to songs. And this is where you mentioned the phrase black box in the question.

4:57Stu:This is where you hear this phrase black box royalties, which is potentially royalties we don't know who to pay them to. And in the collecting societies world, sometimes those are then, after a certain period of time, whether it's like two, three years, they'll be shared out based on market share often. So if publisher X has 10 % of the publishing market, they'll get 10 % of that black box. And the controversy around that is, well, if a publisher's got that much of the market, it probably has all its data. It's more likely to have its data sorted than an independent publisher or songwriter. So the argument is maybe a lot more of these black box royalties are for independent publishers and songwriters than the big guys.

5:33Stu:But the big guys might be getting that money. So if you hear people arguing about the black box, that's often what they're arguing about, is whether it's fair to... How do you divide it up? So in a sense, yeah, this money just sits there. Whether this money is sitting within Spotify or whether it's within Collecting Society, it sits there, unable to be paid out, until someone either works out, okay, this song relates to that recording, so we can pay these many royalties out to those publishers. Or they just get to a certain time and they pay it out based on market share, for example. But this is one of the areas, actually, We talk about AI a lot in a negative context, don't we?

6:12Stu:About AI making music. But the people, we had a Music Alloy publishing summit recently. There was a big panel on AI and people were saying, actually, AI can be helpful here. AI technologies can help us scan all the data we get from a streaming service and try and match works to songs, to recordings. So there's a bunch of companies now saying, well, maybe we can use AI for this to kind of get to the heart of who wrote what song and to pay them. So we could see an improvement. We could see actually that kind of technology helping Spotify to pay out that money.

6:46Steve:Yeah. I mean, can you, if you find that one of your songs has been uploaded by the distributor, but the credits have failed to appear, can you rectify that situation? Or do you have to take it down and put it back up again?

7:02Stu:I think so. If you're the artist, you can, well, it depends on how your distributor works. But yeah, you would then say to people, this is the correct, this is the method that's missing, can you re-upload it? On Spotify's website, there's actually a whole service they have called Spotify for Publishing. So publishers can have an account with Spotify, which includes the ability to send their data to the company and say, these are the works we represent. Because that's the other thing. It's one thing knowing who wrote a song, but you also need to know, well, what publisher they signed to? And also important is the splits.

7:35so say four people have written a song um to pay out that money a streaming service needs to know well that songwriter has 40 that song gets 20 um and that is another minefield of again at this conference we had there was a big discussion about how that data sometimes isn't there like

7:52Stu:people might write a song in a room together and it gets released but they haven't agreed who gets 40 who gets 20 yeah um there was actually this talk at someone was away it wasn't about it It was about YouTube royalties. This guy from a company called Orphium, which collects YouTube royalties for musicians. He said as much as 30 to 40 % of the publishing royalties can get stuck in the system. So like tens of millions of dollars because the splits for a song don't add up. Like they've been told, oh, so-and-so's got 40%, so-and-so's got 30%, so-and-so's got 40%, and that's 110. And in that case, if you're a YouTuber, you go, well, I didn't know how to pay here.

8:26Stu:This is not right. So there's two strands of discussion here. So one strand is, okay, how do we match songs to recordings and pay the money out to the right people? And the other is actually people talking to songwriters and artists from the very first moment they're writing a song to think about this and to say, right, think about your metadata. Think about how the splits are. Write it down. Make sure that whenever you, whatever happens with this song, that the information goes with it on who wrote it and who their publishers are. and there's a lot of activity going on around that because that's that's the other kind of maybe the gap is that if you're a musician you're kind of writing a song and being creative you don't necessarily want to sit down with a notepad and thrash out who owns what share of it but it turns out if you do do that that that's like to stop you being in a situation where you're not getting paid for it later on because someone like youtube or spotify doesn't know who to pay yeah

9:21Steve:i mean i'm surprised having thought about and thinking about it now now you've explained it that there aren't any, you know, there aren't more historical lawsuits going on between songwriters who, you know, have gone back and said, no, actually, you know, I'm thinking of somebody like the police or somebody. No, no, I wrote. Actually, I wrote 40 % of message in a bottle or actually thinking about it. I wrote 90 % of can't stand reading you or whatever it is. Do you see what I mean? I mean, that's a minefield. I mean, there are enough court cases anyway amongst musicians, aren't there, who say, oh, actually, that's my song, and I should get paid for this.

10:01Steve:But, yeah, given the complications of this now.

10:05Stu:Well, also, I mean, we talk a lot about catalogs being sold, don't we? So when a song is uploaded, or a recording is uploaded to Spotify, one of the songwriters may be signed to a certain publisher, or may have, you know, five, ten years later, those rights may be earned by a different publisher or they may have sold them to an investment company or yeah so again it's a it's a really it's just a logistical minefield of complexity and so in a sense the the streaming services are rarely the villains here because they want to pay that money out there's really no benefit like if they're holding on to it it's just in an account being held on to they're not doing it they're not kind of using it no um they want to pay it out um but they don't want to pay out to the wrong people and that's the other thing i think is that um i saw a session recently at a conference and they were talking about one of the ways people try and commit fraud in music is by saying well those royalties are mine there's a famous case on youtube a couple years ago where a bunch of latin american artists i think including bad bunny or his songwriters like their world has been claimed by someone else who said yeah we we click so there's a lot of scope for kind of mistakes and problems but yeah when when you see when you speak yeah this is why you might go to spot and say who wrote who wrote this song knocking on heaven's door oh they don't know well i do but in that case it would be the person who uploaded it who didn't include that information okay uh thank you very much

11:32Steve:richard uh this is from matt in sudbury just down the road from where i grew up i used to go Matt, I used to go, it's not there anymore, but there used to be an outdoor swimming pool in Sudbury, which I used to go to in the 70s. Although more importantly, I bought my copy of Identity, the X-Ray Specs single at a record shop in Sudbury. Anyway, hi, Stephen Stewart. You've spoken a lot about how touring costs for artists have increased and the effect this is having on ticket prices. But I was wondering why ticket prices can vary so much at the same venue when costs are presumably the same. Maximo Park and Suede, for instance, have both put tours on sale today.

12:14Steve:Both bands are playing at Cambridge Corn Exchange next February. But a standing ticket for Maximo Park is£36.50 and for Suede, it's£45.50. so they're both five piece bands so presumably we'll have similar costs to put the tour on but also a quick Google says that the venue has a capacity of 1400 so doing the maths says Matt if they sell out that means Swede will be making an extra 12 ,600 pounds that night no criticism to either band adds Matt, I'm a fan of both and you're guaranteed a great show from both of them but I'd love to have your thoughts on where the extra 12 grand a night is going uh thank you matt in sudbury i mean i did think of emailing dids dids uh dids hammond uh which is a name you might remember dids was a member of cooper temple clause uh and then he was in dirty british dirty pretty things with carl but he's now one of swade's co-managers so put a final this where's where's the extra 12k going but might have been construed as being a bit rude uh anyway i mean to be honest i think it's i mean it's not the specific examples although we'll get to those in a second uh but i'm going to try and explain it uh matt in slightly broader terms and i will say this i mean prepare for this answer to be more complicated than you may have thought because simply because there are so many factors behind how ticket prices are set.

13:47Steve:And they're all quite interlinked to the point where when I was drafting an answer for this, I found myself going round and round in circles, but we'll give it a go. So, well, let's start with the two gigs you mentioned. So think about all the variables for a start amongst them. How much will, these are the questions that people are asking themselves that goes in the process of where do we set the ticket price? how much will an audience pay to see the band which i mean which is to say what are they what are they worth what's the market rate for them so think about that that's one question what where's the what's the biting point where where your ticket price makes as much money as you can while at the same time you're still confident that you'll sell out the gig that's that's the balancing act that you have to get right um which i mean will also take into account you know how much money the bands are looking to make themselves uh and what that what do they think they're worth as well because a band might think well we must be if they're worth 30 pounds surely we're better than them um we should be paying we should be charging 40 pounds um but yes think about think about where the where the price point the perfect price point is that's in the conversation and what's the paycheck for the band going to be at the end of a tour so they will then have a conversation and when i say they uh there'll be a conversation between the manager of the band and the agent and the promoter who all have you know views on what the ticket price should be while obviously at the same time the manager will be saying, you know, well, it's going to cost us this much to do the gig.

15:32Steve:And that's where you have to start taking a whole other raft of variables because just different bands will have different size crews for a start. Maximo Park might be, you know, going around with three people. Suede might have five. They'll be spending different amounts of money on the production of the show. I mean, I'm not saying Suede or Maximo Park will have confetti cannons or pyros, which obviously would add to the bill. But certainly, as I say, Suede might have a bigger crew. Suede might want to travel in a nicer, more expensive tour bus. Or one of the bands might be in a premier inn. One of them's in the Malmaison.

16:13Steve:You kind of don't know. But it's all that sort of stuff that will affect the cost to the band of going on tour. and as I say when it comes to crew are you going to take a guitar tech and a drum tech are you going to have a sound man and a lighting person or just the sound man are you are you happy to let the in-house lighting guy or person do do the lights for you and shave a little bit off your budget how many people are on that tour and if and if you know certainly the bottom level if your tour manager can drive and also double up as guitar tech you can save some money because that's one less person uh who's you know who's part of the the bill that you've got to pay um so when you hear stories particularly as bands starting out of managers going out on tour with their bands it's not just to make sure that they're behaving themselves it's probably because the manager of the band is doing some of the driving so they don't have to pay a driver so that's sort of cost how am i doing so far you're with me so far stewart i was with you until i got distracted by

17:16Stu:thinking of sweden the premier inn but yes that all makes sense so far yeah so so these are all

17:23Steve:the variables so there's so many different costs variables when it comes to totting up how much it's going to cost a band to go on tour right so as mentioned conversation then so the the the manager uh and the agents you know will have they'll have an idea of what the costs are going to be, what the ambition for the tour is, I guess. And then this will get discussed at a meeting of the main players, the promoter, the agent, and the band manager, possibly. For this, I contacted our secret agent who, I mean, for the uninitiated, our secret agent is a very experienced live agent who has worked with a lot of bands, big and small, so is well-placed to give us information on this.

18:11Steve:But they said when it comes to setting the ticket price, and I'll quote them, there are many ways to do this, but mainly it's decided between all parties, band, agent, promoter, when discussing the offer. Obviously, you will have an idea as an agent what is needed to pay for the band to go on tour with all their associated costs. So crew, transport, accommodation, etc. etc but it's obviously not just the band and their costs that needs to be covered by the ticket income it will be all the aspects of the show so to add to what you have to pay the band out of the ticket price to cover their costs you also have to take into account particularly if you're an outside promoter venue hire pa and lights brackets engineers um relevant staff insurance you've got to pay for the insurance uh there'll be the dressing room riders uh catering and the marketing of the gigs so think about all that as a till role as i say i mean if you're an in-house promoter you don't have to pay some of those costs but if you're an outside promoter if you're live nation or kilomanchara or aeg or whoever it is uh then you obviously you'll need to rent the venue as a starting point uh but those those are those are the costs um in fact our inside source went on to say uh the bigger the shows the bigger production costs hence the higher ticket prices still with us yeah you're now you've now got this glazed look of oh crikey how much of this is there

19:49Stu:yeah it's detailed but it's all very logical yeah i mean it's uh it makes sense to me carry on uh

19:54Steve:bigger gigs obviously more money to be made but also more risk to be taken by the promoter um You have to take that into account. And again, this is why it's so important to get the ticket price right. It's got to cover all the costs, but one wrong move, particularly on a big arena gig, and you are in so much trouble because if an artist gets over-ambitious or over-confident and attempts to play a venue that's too big for them, or the venue's the right size, but the ticket price is too high for the fans, then you don't sell out. And of course, then the promoter's in a world of pain. But anyway, coming back, Matt, to your example, back at the corn exchange in Cambridge, and in answer to the question, so it might not be that Swade have walked away with 12 grand more.

20:41Steve:It might be that their tour costs are 12 grand more, or that their fee after cost is possibly more than Maximo Park will be getting, particularly given Swade's current resurgence. They're probably worth a fair few bob now, I guess, in a fee. um and but the the one thing i did go and have a look um although it's obviously a higher price ticket the suede gigs already sold out well i think there are still tickets left for maxino park so um yeah a lot of variable costs to be taken into account um and i mean as much as i'd like to to go into other direct comparisons between ticket prices every tour is different i think that's the thing to take away from this matt every tour is different will cost a different amount of money to put on having said that you know you do get to a point where it's the certain bands i think playing similar size venues ticket prices sort of roughly start to match so if you look at maximo park their ticket price in london is um is 41 quid i think in london they're doing brixton um and our secret agent said 41 pounds that's a that's pretty much a standard ticket price for Brixton Academy for comparison.

22:01Steve:I think Blackstar standing tickets, 54. Everything, everything is also 41 pounds. Pendulum in the seats, that's 49. Newton Faulkner standing slightly cheaper, 38 pounds. So it's a complicated kind of equation, this. But you will find tickets sort of finding a level, which I guess is partly down to audience expectation really because you kind of look around and go yeah that's probably a 40 pound ticket because the other time I went to Brixton that was a 40 pound ticket and you're only going to know you're going to sit up and notice if your favorite band is suddenly charging 75 pounds when everyone else is charging 40 quid but that's this is the equation how much can we charge minus how much we need to spend plus how much do we want to earn equals ticket price.

22:55Steve:There you have it. Any live music touring professionals who have anything you'd like to add to this or indeed a much better way of explaining this than I possibly have just done.

23:07Stu:I think that was perfect. It was great.

23:09Steve:Does it make sense? Does that make sense to you?

23:11Stu:It does. And I think like you say, because we've talked something about bands struggling and it comes down to some of those costs you can't control. You can control how much pyro you have or don't have, but you can't control the cost of petrol hotel rooms and that so it makes sense then because then if your costs suddenly shoot up but you've already set the ticket price you're you're in trouble aren't you even if you have sold out

23:32Steve:a venue suddenly your costs can increase well yeah well if you've if you've organized your your yeah because you all have agreed a fee weren't you as the as the band the agent will have gone and negotiated on your behalf your fee and that's your fee but your fee yes we'll have to cover costs of yeah imagine arriving in town where there's a big event and you haven't realized that your gig is the same weekend as an international football match and you can't buy a hotel room for less than 100 pounds when it should have cost you 50 yeah that's that's one of the problems but you will you'll have your fee there'll be all the cost to you know obviously everyone else who's you know putting the gig on uh right down to um as our agent said you know marketing and everything so all this has to come out of a ticket price it's amazing how much how many different places your ticket money that you have paid the money you have spent on that ticket how many different places that money will will end up eventually i think that's that's the point um but it's yeah it's it's a complicated it's slightly more complicated than i thought it was going to be when I saw that question originally, Matt.

24:40Steve:But thank you very much. Priceofmusicpodcast at gmail.com is the email address for your own questions. Because I've banged on quite a long time with that one. I don't think we're going to get through another one in this episode. But we will hold on to the inquiries we've had so far. And we'll do another one of these sooner rather than later. So do keep your questions coming. As I say, it's thepriceofmusicpodcast at gmail.com. And can I just mention here that we have a bonus episode arriving for you later in the week, which will be my interview with Lord Kevin Brennan, who is leading the fan-led review into live and electronic music, collecting the thoughts of music fans in a survey, the results of which will then be presented to government.

25:38Steve:It's an amazing opportunity for us all to participate and try to shape the discussions around music at government level. We'll talk more about that on, I think it will be available on Friday, that episode, although Patreon super fans, you can hear it right now wherever you listen to our extra bit of the show. So where the locking would usually be, you can listen to that Kevin Brennan interview already. Right. Thank you very much for listening this week. We're here every Wednesday. As I always say, if you like what we're trying to do, please tell your friends or colleagues, leave us a review online or big us up on your socials.

26:21Steve:Alternatively, to become a super fan and support the show with a few bob, you'll find details of how you can sign up at patreon.com slash the price of music. thank you once again for your time nice to see you Stuart, see you next week look after yourselves everyone, bye for now