Pink Plays Stadiums

You know, in the wake of her recent smash hit...

SHE DOESN'T HAVE ONE!

Let's see, her last big single "Trustfall"... Actually, that's not her last single, there have been some since, but "Trustfall" made it all the way to #82 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. Which means if you're a fan of Top Forty, you didn't hear it.

However, diving a bit deeper, the track did do better in niche formats, it was #15 on AC, #5 on Adult Top 40, #3 on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs and #20 on Mainstream Top 40. How many charts are there? I don't know, but if you can't make it on one of them, you're not in the business.

Or maybe you are.

Let's see, in 2022... Pink put out two solo singles. One made it all the way to #99 on the Hot 100, the other one didn't even chart at all.

2021? Her one solo single made it to #74.

2020? No solo singles, but one with Keith Urban, which made it all the way up to #52 on the Hot 100, made it to #10 on the Country Airplay chart, but even that ain't so great.

2019? One solo single that made it to #49 on the Hot 100.

2018? Three singles, one made it to #90 and two didn't even chart.

2017? One song at #13.

Pink's last number one solo track was back in 2010, with "Raise Your Glass."

Yes, Pink has done features/duets that have done better, but not all of them.

And yes, there's been airplay in other formats, but...

I've got nothing against Pink, other than the fact that she does that damn acrobatic act every damn show, she's likable. But STADIUMS?

Looking at the above numbers... If it were the past, promoters would be worried about booking her in arenas. Or would proffer a low guarantee, fearful she wouldn't sell out. But today? STADIUMS!

Chances are you haven't even been exposed to Pink's recent music. She got the party started back in 2001, and I'd be stunned if you didn't know that ubiquitous single, which was all over music television. But now music television is dead. Video is on demand online, and if you don't want to see it, you never have to. And the power of terrestrial radio? The brain dead, not the active listener, they're all on streaming services. And it's the active listener who buys concert tickets. And the bottom line is Pink does have enough active listeners to sell stadiums, and that's utterly amazing!

Stadium gigs had their heyday in the seventies. Oh, there were some in the eighties, but no one could sell that many tickets. Except for the Stones, Springsteen at the height of "Born in the U.S.A." Everybody else? It was unfathomable.

And then came the devastation of the internet. Everybody scaled down. The belief was that music was turning into a theatre business, or small arenas. Tickets would sell, and there'd be more acts on the road, but the good old days were gone. But today makes the good old days look like a sideshow!

Hit acts? Stars? They're getting less of the listening audience than ever before. That's right, star plays on streaming services are losing market share. You'd think their business would go down, but just the opposite.

Sure Pink has a long career, but when you think of the stadium acts of yore, do you put her in the same category?

And Kenny Chesney started the modern day stadium paradigm, but he always brings insurance, other hit acts, to sell tickets.

But Pink? She's got Sheryl Crow, who made her bones in the last century, and the well-known acts the Script and KidCutUp. Yes, Pink believes she needs no insurance. Sure, she's got to fill out the bill, but doesn't need anyone else to sell tickets. She can do it all by herself.

Taylor Swift? Biggest tour of the year. How many people actually saw it? Bottom line? Never has an act this big been this small. And she's the biggest one out there!

Morgan Wallen sells out stadiums and he only has a couple of albums. Unheard of in the days of yore.

Welcome to the niche-ification of the music business. Nothing is ubiquitous, you're not competing against everybody else, but yourself. People have the mindshare and the dollars for you, if they're interested. Getting them interested might be a heavy lift, but if you do, they'll lay out dough.

Turns out in a crazy, alienated world, people are more tribal than ever, they need someone to believe in. Ergo Taylor Swift. You might not care, but those who went to the show believe it was a religious experience. You didn't go to the show, didn't see the movie, and are unaware of "Cruel Summer," yet you read the news... Well, who is even reading the news? But if you do, you'd think that Swift was the Stones, when she's not. Nor the Beatles. And I could make a critical judgment of her music, but that's not the point. Swift has a diehard core audience. And it's large, but it's not everybody.

And everybody has the same iPhone, especially amongst the younger demo, Android is a joke in the U.S., because of peer pressure, if nothing else, you don't want to proffer a green bubble. (And if you do you'd better be a techie with a good reason to go Android, because otherwise you're going to be seen as cheap. Yes, your smartphone is more of an indicator of your personality and wealth than your house or car.) But if you go to the show, you can have a unique experience. One that only you can testify about. And no matter how much is on hard drive, the act does speak to the audience, you feel a one to one connection.

And then there's all those PEOPLE! Normally you're glued to your device. You're in contact, but it's all virtual. At the show you have physical contact, it's exciting. And you get to memorialize the event via photos. In the old days, maybe you saved a ticket stub, but even if you tried you often misplaced it. But a photo? It's sitting in the cloud, ready to be shown years down the line, as you wax rhapsodic about the show you went to years before.

The demand is through the roof. Will it sustain? I"m sure there will be ups and downs. And nothing juices the business like new hit acts. But what music provides you can't get anywhere else, nowhere. In a world of similarity, concerts provide unique.

So if you're not number one? Don't let it bother you. No one can reach everybody. The key is to reach somebody. And if you've got a tight bond, they'll come to see you live.

All the old paradigms, poof, they're gone! Yes, you were in the public's mind because of continued radio play, continued video play, but now both of those things... Once again, music is an on demand item. How do you create this demand and sustain it?

That's your job. That's what you need to be doing online. Don't play to the "Times," don't worry about getting on late night TV or "Entertainment Tonight" (is that still on)? Most of what you do won't be seen by many. But those you do reach? They're your army. They're your apostles. They will spread the word if you make them believe enough, if you bond them to you.

Stadiums? The joke is it's 50,000 people in a metropolitan area of millions. It's one baseball game. When the team sells out do they do carthweels in the press, does everybody know about it? No. And baseball lost the plot anyway, it became niche because it couldn't see the future and adjust for it. Following the dollars, it lost the younger generation.

And baseball can survive quite well as a niche endeavor, but you can miss the World Series, have no idea who played, and be quite satisfied.

And if baseball is niche, think about music! The sky's the limit, you too can sell out stadiums, if you play long and hard enough. Sure, Pink had the benefit of all those hits decades ago. But today, if you connect with the audience, your fans have the music at their fingertips, they can drill it into their brains to their heart's content. Everybody knows every word at a Zach Bryan show. Unheard of in the past. Because most people didn't own the records. They knew the hits. But today everybody can go deep.

Do you know any Zach Bryan songs? Probably not. This ain't the music business of yore. It's less about finding your place in the landscape, being aware of what is going on in the rest of the world than focusing on your own little niche, your world.

So are you excited to see Pink in a stadium? Which is a lousy experience, anyway? Probably not. But the point is someone is. Fewer than a million. That's right, Pink is doing 17 cities. So 17 x 50,000 (and not every stadium holds that many) is 850,000. In a country of 331.9 million. A drop in the bucket. But enough to keep Pink flying private.

Think small, because it's really big.

You live in your own vertical. Forget the competition, stay the course.


--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1

If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25

To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25