Oasis-style megagiants could be disappearing

The long-awaited return of Noel and Liam Gallagher comes at a supersonic timeThe £400m in sales and associated revenue the Mancunian brothers are set to generate by reforming iconic 90s British band Oasis in 2025 puts them in a similar league to Taylor Swift, who last year embarked on the first ever billion-dollar tour. Given the changes to the industry brought about by the streaming music era, it stands to reason that music will be captured through live performances – but the superstar fad may not last forever.

In the US, inflation-adjusted sales fell from $27bn in 1999 to $17bn in 2023 as consumers increasingly paid a flat fee to companies like Spotify to stream what they wanted rather than buy physical records. This has fuelled rapid growth in the live market. Live Nation Entertainment, a US ticketing group, has seen its sales nearly double since 2019, and Goldman Sachs estimates that the $35bn in global live music revenue expected in 2024 could top $50bn by 2030. Rather than making the bulk of their revenue from record sales, big-name artists now make 50% to 70% of their revenue from ticket sales, 20% from recorded music sales and 10% each from merchandise and sponsorships, according to MIDIA Research.

But there are only so many truly mainstream artists. The prime of their careers, enjoyed by artists like Swift, Beyoncé, Coldplay and even Oasis, is having become world famous before streaming took off a decade ago. That can also guarantee a solid cohort of fans in their 40s, married with children, who were the key audience in the 1990s or early 2000s, and who now have the most disposable income. Younger listeners, who may be the children of the first group, tend to be interested in music from 20 or 30 years ago, but no more.

British rock band Oasis announced three additional UK dates on August 29 for their reunion tour next year. The band said they were adding the extra shows due to “unprecedented demand” following pre-sale ticket registration. They will now play 17 dates next summer.

The University of Birmingham estimates that the initial 14 dates could bring in £400m in ticket sales and other additional income, with brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher potentially earning £50m each, it said. The Guardian on August 27th.

The flip side is that the creation of the next megastars is not being encouraged: smaller acts just starting out are being hurt as ticket spending goes to the inflated top end of the market. Algorithm-driven streaming leads to more fragmented audiences, and the shelf life of big hits is shorter. With listenership not keeping pace with the supply of new artists on streaming and podcasts, artists may have to accept even less money for distribution of their work.

Today’s mega-concerts by superstars, coupled with the appeal of multi-artist festivals, will help live performance revenues rise this decade. And it’s entirely possible that in the remainder of the 2020s a rock and roll star so appealing that he or she can sell out Wembley Stadium for days in a row will emerge. In the 2040s, however, the current crop of artists who aspire to make epic money through Oasis-style cultural pieces – say, Olivia Rodrigo – are likely to have a tougher time of it. While the re-emergence of Oasis in 2025 will be a cash cow, the phenomenon in general could increasingly fade away.

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