Music

Talent development and professionalisation in a changing industry

Talent development and professionalisation form an important basis for a resilient sector. Official educational institutions, including colleges, are increasingly focusing on competences needed in a constantly changing music industry. For example, Everts (2023) demonstrated that popular music programmes at colleges help young musicians by giving them the opportunity to learn relevant competences, build a network and learn strategies to deal with uncertainty within the industry. In the Netherlands, there are ten colleges offering vocational training in music. These include training courses for musicians, such as conservatories and music academies, and courses for music teachers, producers or therapists. The visualisation below shows that the total number of enrollments in these programmes has increased from 5780 students in 2018 to 5999 students in 2023. 6 of the 10 universities of applied sciences are located in the western part of the Netherlands: the number of enrollments is therefore structurally highest there, particularly in North and South Holland. There is also a focus on talent development from other professional organisations. For instance, between 2019 and 2022, the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam organised an annual summer school for their youth orchestra ‘Young’, bringing together more than 70 young musicians, each year, from all over Europe to work on their musical, social and personal skills (Trienekens et al. 2022).   

However, there are also other music education opportunities. As highlighted in the Research & Innovation Agenda for the Pop Music Sector (Zwaan et al. 2023), small venues, rehearsal spaces and guidance at local level play an important role in talent development for musicians. After all, they are a first point of contact in learning about music and further developing skills. The situation of music education at this level, however, is concerning. It appears that more and more music schools and broader arts education centres are having to close their doors due to cuts of cultural budget (van Santen 2023). Several organisations and individuals are also concerned about the internationalisation of music education more broadly (Beroepsverenigingenmuziek 2023). In contrast, research on music education in Friesland, Groningen, Drenthe, Overijssel, Gelderland and Flevoland concludes that there is no case of a ‘clearcut’ of culture: on the contrary, many music schools can still be found in these provinces (Kruis et al. 2023). So, while there has not yet been a clearcut according to this report, it does not rule out a decrease in the number of music schools: for this, measurements over several years are required. These music schools did change shape, according to this report: besides music schools and collectives, there are also many private providers. Indeed, there are other problems within music education in these provinces. For instance, there are serious concerns regarding the financial accessibility and attainability of services, as well as the recognition and appreciation of music teachers and the influx of new teachers. There are also initiatives to improve accessibility of services: for example, The Mobile Pop School in Groningen brings music education to children, young people and adults, and More Music in the Classroom is committed to ensuring primary school children in the Netherlands receive regular music education (Schrijen et al. 2020).

So, while there is an increasing focus on the role of music education in talent development and professionalisation, this mainly concerns the creators' side and education for musicians. However, as noted in the introduction to this page, there is a range of other professions within the music sector: they, too, must continuously learn new skills in an ever-changing industry. Think of producers, lighting and sound technicians, marketers, programmers, managers and bookers: the examples are numerous. Although there is an increasing number of courses offered at educational institutions for these groups, consider courses such as leisure and event management, many seem to learn their skills on the job. Apprenticeships, such as internships and voluntary work, are therefore frequent in the music industry. At VNPF venues in 2022, for instance, 313 people were interns, compared to 2054 employees on company payroll and 1434 self-employed, in the same year (VNPF 2023). Similarly, a research report on music managers in Europe found that 95 per cent of respondents learned skills by actively working in the music sector and 63 per cent learned from a mentor in the music sector (Calkins et al. 2024). Training in other fields (40 per cent), or in music management specifically (29 per cent), is much less popular. This indicates that formal forms of education may not be sufficient to provide a clear picture of talent development and professionalisation across the music industry.  

Working in the music sector and more attention to fair pay

Work in the music sector is generally described as insecure. Many workers work long hours, there is little job security, incomes tend to be low, and musicians often hold multiple jobs (Haynes et al. 2018). The overall increase in project-based employment is reflected in figures for work in the performing arts. The visualisation below shows that many people in the industry work as self-employed and that this has only increased since 2010. This applies especially to people working in the practice of performing arts. 

In recent years, fair pay has therefore risen high on the agenda of the entire cultural sector. In the music sector, there are concerns about low incomes, particularly for musicians. Orchestras, for instance, report lacking the resources to pay musicians fairly, and within pop music, artists are also often paid poorly (Jorritsma et al. 2023, Everts 2023). Vinkenburg and Clemens (2023, 2) concluded that pop musicians' income from live performances is “only one-third of the social minimum and only one-fourth of fair pay remuneration”. Moreover, they demonstrate that without additional (government) support, fair pay is unfeasible for most pop musicians. In 2024, the ‘ketentafel popmusici’ will therefore initiate a fair pay pilot for five pop venues, with the support of a private cultural fund (Kunstenbond 2023). Besides fair pay, other ways to improve the income situation of musicians are being explored, including trials with basic incomes (see theme Professional practice). A trial with basic income for musicians is also being explored in the Netherlands and Into The Great Wide Open supported seven artists through a Basic grant (Wijngaarden et al. 2022). Interestingly, most of the attention in research on fair pay and in these pilots seems to go to musicians or other creators, while income insecurity is an issue for a larger part of the sector. For example, a report on music managers in Europe showed that 40 per cent of respondents earn less than €9999 per year (Calkins et al. 2024).

Digital transformation of live music experiences

Digitalisation and technological developments gained momentum during the Covid pandemic, for example in the form of hybrid and entirely online concerts. However, after it became possible to attend live performances again in 2022, music venues largely stopped programming online activities. The number of hybrid activities fell by 80 per cent in 2022 compared to 2021, and the number of fully online activities even dropped by 89 per cent (Dee et al. 2022). This is not surprising: the importance of physical presence with others (so-called physical co-presence) was found to be one of the core elements in live music experiences (Mulder 2023, Vandenberg 2023). Nevertheless, there is a lot of focus on digitalisation, especially for formats that allow for more interaction, for example through Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and other Artificial Intelligence advances. For instance, Thunderboom Records is developing an Augmented Reality toolkit for venues in 2024 and is testing their technologies in a series of live concerts. At Effenaar Lab, the focus has been on understanding and acquiring new technologies in the music sector since 2018. Within the classical music sector, the potential of digitalisation for audience participation has also been under consideration for some time. For example, researchers previously experimented with a game to influence listening styles and attract younger audiences (Erdbrink et al. 2021). Other questions also arise regarding digitalisation. For example, the role of AI is a hotly debated topic within the pop music industry, with much attention being paid to ethical implications and fair practices regarding AI. At the 2024 edition of Eurosonic Noorderslag, sessions were organised on tools related to AI, EU policies and ethical and legal challenges in the AI ecosystem.

Accessibility to live music and ticketing

The rise in ticket prices is a long-term trend: research in the United States, for example, shows that ticket prices increased by 190 percent between 1996 and 2018, adjusted for inflation (Krueger 2019). The surge in ticket prices is partly explained by major changes in the source of revenue: where previously the recording industry was responsible for a large part of revenue, it is now the live music industry (Everts 2023). More recently, festival organisations have been forced to further increase prices due to inflation and rising artist and equipment costs (Respons 2023). In the Netherlands, less is known about the long-term development of ticket prices and how it relates to increases in other costs. Research by Respons into concerts and festivals with more than 3.000 visitors also shows a gradual increase in the average ticket price between 2018 and 2023 in the Netherlands. For example, from 2022 to 2023, the average ticket price of festivals increased by 11 per cent and that of concerts by 7 per cent (Respons 2024). How this applies to smaller concerts and festivals is still unclear.  

There is also a relatively new development occurring within price increases: namely dynamic pricing through platinum tickets. The price of tickets for popular concerts is thereby determined by supply and demand: if demand is high, the price of the platinum ticket also increases (Pisart 2023). In the past, profiteering, which refers to the resale of tickets for unauthorised profit, played a major role within discussions about ticket prices. Politicians, for instance, tried to curb profiteering and thus offer consumers more security (see e.g. motie Kwint). However, recent research shows that only 12 per cent of resold tickets for sports events, festivals and concerts are sold at a higher price (Koeman et al. 2023). Legal measures are therefore not yet considered necessary by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (Vrieze 2023b).

While rising ticket prices are embedded in industry- and society-wide developments, high prices have a clear downside in terms of accessibility to live music. For instance, Davies, Gouthro, Matthews and Richards (2023) demonstrate on data from the UK, that people living in poverty are mostly excluded from attending festivals due to the disproportionate increase in prices. In the Dutch context, there is still limited knowledge on the way in which rising ticket prices might affect the accessibility of live music, and thus who can and cannot attend concerts and festivals. Still, even in the Netherlands, many people expressed concerns about the accessibility of live music. Several festivals that were previously cost-free were forced to introduce ticket prices, and the prices for major festivals are constantly increasing. This is particularly worrying as there has been a decline in free music festivals in recent years (Respons 2024). There are also opposing efforts. For instance, in Eindhoven the music venues de Effenaar and ASML put accessibility of cultural events on the agenda: free tickets are made available at de Effenaar, and ASML remains a partner in the free city festival 'Hit the City' (Effenaar 2023). 

Inequality and safe working environments in the pop music industry

Several studies show that there is vertical segregation in subsectors of the pop music industry: this means that there are structural inequalities in who gets the best-paid or most prestigious positions within this subsector of the music industry (Berkers et al. 2016; Calkins et al. 2024; Dee et al. 2022; Koren 2023; Swartjes et al. 2023). Figures from the VNPF (Dee et al. 2022), for example, show that positions in the management of music venues, programming, and production and technology are mainly filled by men. At a European level, 2023 research also showed that women music managers tend to be in lower income categories than their male colleagues, even if they have the same level of experience, the same full- or part-time status, the same educational background and the same ethnicity (Calkins et al. 2024). The white male organisational cultures prevalent in the pop music industry were also noted in the music festival industry in Rotterdam (Swartjes et al. 2023) and the nightclub sector in Amsterdam (Koren 2023). These organisational cultures also appear to contribute to women being more likely to leave the sector, thus perpetuating inequality in the music industry (Swartjes et al. 2023). It is striking that several reports have generally collected too little data on ethnicity to draw conclusions (Calkins et al. 2024, Daru et al. 2023). Although more and more data is available on inequality in the music industry for the Dutch context, this mainly focuses on gender and the pop music industry.  

Inequalities also contribute to feelings of insecurity on the work and dance floor. In recent years, several reports of transgressive behaviour within the music industry have emerged, for example at the Amsterdam Conservatory of Music (Pointer 2023). Research on transgressive behaviour in the Dutch music industry from 2023 once again highlights the importance of attention to this issue (Daru et al. 2023). This study showed that half of the 980 respondents, all of whom work or have worked in the music industry, experienced intimidating or emotionally transgressive behaviour during their work. Other forms of transgressive behaviour were verbal/online sexual (31 per cent), physical sexual (20 per cent) and physical aggression (11 per cent). It also appears that women experience more transgressive behaviour than men, and that people with a migration background experience it more than those without a migration background (Ibid.). Various organisations and initiatives are therefore looking for ways to counter transgressive behaviour. For example, there is the Mores reporting point for music professionals, and the I set the tone campaign was launched in early 2024, in which various initiatives aim to discuss transgressive behaviour, raise awareness about it and work towards a safer working environment in the music industry.

Sustainability

An ecologically sustainable society is one of the greatest challenges of our time and the music sector is engaging in this effort. On the one hand, the music sector has a role to play in making its own practices more sustainable, such as addressing the impact of touring and audience travel, the printing of scores for symphony orchestras, the way music is distributed, the energy use at venues, the amount of waste produced at festivals and the impact of outdoor concerts on flora and fauna (Hoeven et al. 2023, Skovbon 2024). In recent years, several initiatives have been developed for this purpose, focusing mainly on pop music festivals. In the Netherlands, Green Events plays a major role. For example, they developed the Plastic Promise, which aims to replace 50 per cent of all disposables with reusable products or recycle them within three years. A variety of major Dutch music festivals also signed the Green Deal Circular Festivals, in which they pledge to jointly work towards circularity by 2025. For example, they are coming up with circular solutions in the areas of food and drink, water, energy, transport, mobility and the use of materials and plastics. Besides making its own practices more sustainable, the music industry may also play an important role in raising public awareness, in which different individuals and organisations increase public understanding of sustainable practices (Hoeven et al. 2023).