评论
打印
Is 2024 the year the music festival died? Sierra Nevada World Music Festival in northern California, KickOff Jam, a country music festival in Florida, Blue Ridge Rock Festival in Virginia - the list of recent cancellations just goes on and on.
2024年是音乐节消亡的一年吗？北加州的内华达山脉世界音乐节、佛罗里达州的乡村音乐节KickOff Jam、弗吉尼亚州的蓝岭摇滚音乐节——最近取消的音乐节名单不胜枚举。
Even big-name festivals that used to sell out in minutes struggled to sell tickets this year. Burning Man failed to sell out for the first time in over a decade.
即使是过去几分钟内就售罄的知名音乐节，今年也难以售出门票。火人节十多年来首次未能售罄。
Coachella, the most-attended annual music festival in North America, saw a decline of around 15% in ticket sales.
科切拉音乐节是北美参加人数最多的年度音乐节，门票销售额下降了约15%。
And it's not just America. By one count, over 60 music festivals were canceled in the U.K. this year alone.
而且不仅仅是美国。据统计，仅今年一年，英国就有60多个音乐节被取消。
In Australia, so many festivals were canceled that one newspaper there recently asked, are the nation's music festivals extinct?
在澳大利亚，取消的音乐节如此之多，以至于一家报纸最近问道，这个国家的音乐节是否已经灭绝了？
This is THE INDICATOR FROM PLANET MONEY. I'm Greg Rosalsky.
这里是THE INDICATOR FROM PLANET MONEY。我是Greg Rosalsky。
And I'm Wailin Wong. Today on the show, the music festival recession. What's behind it, and is it temporary or a permanent cultural shift?
我是Wailin Wong。今天节目的主题是音乐节衰退。这背后的原因是什么？这是暂时的还是永久的文化转变？
Phil Pirrone is a longtime musician who plays in a psychedelic rock band called JJUUJJUU.
Phil Pirrone是一位资深音乐家，他在一个名叫JJUUJJUU的迷幻摇滚乐队中演奏。
He grew up going to music and art festivals, like Lightning In A Bottle and Burning Man - places where you camp in makeshift communities, immersed in art, culture and music.
他从小就参加音乐和艺术节，比如加州“瓶中闪电”音乐节和火人节——人们在临时社区露营，沉浸在艺术、文化和音乐中。
There was something there that really inspired me, and I wanted to make a rock festival like that.
那里有一些东西真的激励了我，我想举办一个这样的摇滚音乐节。
And so, in 2012, when Phil was in his late 20s, he and his friends jumped at the chance to start a new music festival in the desert in Southern California. They called it Desert Daze.
2012年，当Phil快30岁时，他和他的朋友们抓住机会在南加州的沙漠中创办了一个新的音乐节。他们称之为Desert Daze。
We started the festival DIY with our family and friends. You know, the first year, we just kind of bootstrapped it.
我们和家人朋友一起开始了音乐节DIY。第一年，我们只是自力更生。
Desert Daze was part of this huge wave of new music festivals being created and expanded in the 2010s.
Desert Daze是2010年代创建和扩展的这一大波新音乐节的一部分。
And like the broader festival market, Desert Daze just got bigger and bigger, and they began attracting some big-name acts.
和更广泛的音乐节市场一样，Desert Daze音乐节的规模也越来越大，他们开始吸引一些大牌艺人。
We're talking, like, Tame Impala, Iggy Pop, Flaming Lips. One year, they even had Wu-Tang Clan playing their entire classic album "Enter The 36 Chambers."
我们说的是Tame Impala、伊基·波普、烈焰红唇合唱团。有一年，他们甚至邀请了武当帮演奏他们的整张经典专辑《Enter The 36 Chambers》。
Desert Daze festival also really upped their game with their venue. In 2018, Phil moved Desert Daze to this sort of paradise for a music festival - the Lake Perris State Recreation Area in Southern California.
Desert Daze音乐节也通过场地提升了他们的水平。2018年，Phil将Desert Daze音乐节搬到了这样一个音乐节天堂——南加州的佩里斯湖州立休闲区。
It's just so beautiful and vast, and there's no sense of the outside world at all. See the lake - the lake is huge, and you can swim in it.
这里太美了，太广阔了，完全感觉不到外面的世界。湖很大，你可以在里面游泳。
And there's this beautiful sandy beach and grass lawns and mountains in every direction, and it really does feel like you're transported somewhere magical.
四面八方都是美丽的沙滩、草坪和山脉，真的感觉自己被带到了一个神奇的地方。
Obviously, the pandemic was hard on festivals. That said, in 2022, consumers were flush with cash, and pent-up demand for social activities helped many festivals, including Desert Daze, come roaring back. Attendance was maybe better than ever.
显然，疫情对音乐节造成了沉重打击。话虽如此，2022年，消费者手头宽裕，被压抑的社交活动需求帮助许多音乐节（包括Desert Daze）卷土重来。出席人数可能比以往任何时候都多。
But then, in 2023, there began to be the rumblings of trouble. I think it's because everything costs more, you know? And as a touring artist, I understand this firsthand.
但随后，在2023 年，开始出现麻烦的迹象。我认为这是因为一切都变得更贵了，作为一名巡演艺术家，我对此深有体会。
It's very hard to make ends meet on the road, you know? The band's gas bill is double. Their hotel bill is double. Their personnel bill is double, you know?
在路上很难维持收支平衡？乐队的汽油费翻了一番。他们的酒店账单翻了一番。他们的人事费翻了一番。
Desert Daze was scheduled to take place at Lake Perris this coming weekend. It's an incredible lineup.
Desert Daze原定于本周末在佩里斯湖举行。这是一个令人难以置信的阵容：
You had Jack White. Thank you. You had Cigarettes After Sex. You had De La Soul. You had Danny Brown, Fleet Foxes. Like, I could keep going. We were very proud of it.
杰克·怀特，事后烟乐团，De La Soul，Danny Brown，Fleet Foxes。我们为此感到非常自豪。
But despite this incredible location and lineup, Desert Daze pretty quickly discovered that something was really off in the festival market this year.
但尽管拥有如此令人难以置信的地点和阵容，Desert Daze很快发现今年的音乐节市场确实有些不对劲。
To be completely honest, a lot of festivals are struggling to move tickets, and we experienced that right out the gate. We're like, oh, OK. Huh. What are we going to do?
说实话，很多音乐节都在努力销售门票，我们一开始就经历了这种情况。我们想，哦，好吧。我们该怎么办？
Facing softer demand, Desert Daze turned to the sort of classic economic playbook - they lowered prices to try and convince more people to buy tickets. It didn't go so smoothly.
面对疲软的需求，Desert Daze转向了经典的经济策略——他们降低价格以试图说服更多人购买门票。但进展并不顺利。
In hindsight, if I could redo it, I probably wouldn't have done some of those things, like roll out discounts after the fact, which, you know, I think made some of the early buyers upset, and rightfully so.
事后看来，如果我可以重来，我可能不会做其中的一些事情，比如事后推出折扣，我认为这让一些早期的买家感到不安，这是理所当然的。
You know, we just wanted to make it more accessible to more people. Ticket sales, however, remained disappointing, even with discounts. The writing was on the wall.
我们只是想让更多人更容易接受它。然而，即使打折，门票销售仍然令人失望。这是不祥之兆。
It just didn't look like enough sales were going to be there, so we made the hard decision to cancel.
看起来销售量不够，所以我们做出了取消音乐节的艰难决定。
Inflation hasn't just made it harder to book artists and put on a music festival due to cost-of-living increases and higher interest rates.
通货膨胀不仅使预定艺术家和举办音乐节变得更加困难，因为生活成本上涨和利率上升。
Many of the usual festivalgoers seem to be tightening their belts. We're seeing similar downturns in other leisure and travel sectors, but music festivals, especially smaller independent ones, seem to be getting hit harder.
许多常去音乐节的人似乎都在勒紧裤腰带。我们看到其他休闲和旅游行业也出现了类似的衰退，但音乐节，尤其是规模较小的独立音乐节，似乎受到的打击更大。
That said, there are some big-name festivals and concerts that have actually been doing pretty well this year. For example, the legendary Glastonbury Festival in the U.K. - that sold out pretty quickly.
话虽如此，今年还是有一些大牌音乐节和音乐会表现不错。例如，英国传奇的格拉斯顿伯里音乐节，门票很快就售罄了。
It's the race to the top. So in other words, it's become more of a winner-take-all market in this era of belt-tightening? One hundred and twenty percent.
这是一场争夺巅峰的竞赛。换句话说，在这个勒紧裤腰带的时代，它更像是一个赢家通吃的市场？百分之百。
That's Will Page. Will is the former chief economist of Spotify and the author of a book called "Tarzan Economics," which delves deep into the music industry.
这是威尔·佩奇（Will Page）。威尔是Spotify的前首席经济学家，也是《泰山经济学》一书的作者，该书深入探讨了音乐行业。
He believes that music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music, with all their algorithmic recommendations, have stunted our discovery of new music.
他认为，Spotify和Apple Music等音乐流媒体服务及其所有算法推荐都阻碍了我们发现新音乐。
All data comes from the past. So if I know Greg likes Pearl Jam and Seattle rock bands, I, the algorithm, will play Pearl Jam and Seattle rock bands to Greg.
所有数据都来自过去。所以如果算法知道Greg喜欢Pearl Jam和西雅图摇滚乐队，就会为Greg播放Pearl Jam和西雅图摇滚乐队。
I do actually like Pearl Jam and Seattle rock bands. But I don't know, maybe that's no surprise.
我确实喜欢Pearl Jam和西雅图摇滚乐队。但我不知道，也许这并不奇怪。
Anyways, historically, radio stations, MTV and, you know, music magazines and blogs may have exposed music listeners to a wider, more diverse range of new music.
无论如何，从历史上看，广播电台、MTV以及音乐杂志和博客可能让音乐听众接触到更广泛、更多样化的新音乐。
The algorithms of Spotify and Apple Music, though, Will argues - that could be changing that.
然而，威尔认为，Spotify和Apple Music的算法可能会改变这种情况。
So if I look at a multigenre festival poster and I see all these different bands of all these different styles, my gut reaction is, that's a playlist that's been created for somebody else. Therefore, I choose not to go.
如果我看到一张多流派音乐节的海报，看到各种不同风格的乐队，我的直觉反应是，这是一个为别人创建的播放列表。因此，我选择不去。
But perhaps the most compelling argument that Will makes for the festival downturn is this - Gen Z may have less enthusiasm for festivals than generations past.
但威尔对音乐节低迷提出的最有说服力的论点也许是——Z世代对音乐节的热情可能不如过去几代人。
Yeah, during the festival boom last decade, a leading explanation was that millennials preferred spending on experiences rather than things. They liked going places.
在过去十年的音乐节热潮中，一个主要的解释是千禧一代更喜欢花钱体验而不是购物。他们喜欢四处游玩。
They liked socializing. They liked drinking booze and doing drugs. They liked hooking up. Who among us? Never me. Who among us, Greg? Mom, if you're listening, that was not me.
他们喜欢社交，喜欢喝酒和嗑药，喜欢勾搭。我们当中谁？永远不会是我。我们当中谁，格雷格？妈妈，如果你在听，那不是我。
You're like, I stayed home, and I read books all day. I was preparing for my career as a podcast host.
我整天呆在家里看书。我在为我的播客主持人生涯做准备。
Anyway, research suggests that, actually, though, Gen Z may be different. It finds that they drink less alcohol. Overall they do fewer drugs.
无论如何，研究表明，实际上，Z世代可能有所不同。研究发现，他们饮酒量减少。总体而言，他们嗑药量减少。
They have less sex and fewer partners, and they're lonelier. Will believes this generational change is reducing demand for music festivals. And he points out it's not just smartphones and social media.
他们的性生活和伴侣减少，而且更加孤独。威尔认为，这种代际变化正在减少人们对音乐节的需求。他指出，这不仅仅是智能手机和社交媒体。
I do think there's something to this particular cohort where the wounds have yet - of the lockdown, the pandemic, have yet to heal.
我确实认为，这个特定群体的伤口——封锁、疫情——尚未愈合。
A bunch of kids missed out on bonding with peers during, like, freshman year or, like, other formative social outings.
一群孩子错过了与同龄人建立联系的机会，比如在大一或其他成长性社交活动中。
And remember, going to a festival is an intensely social activity. Will points to a survey in the U.K. which looked at why so many young people were not going to festivals.
请记住，参加音乐节是一项高度社交的活动。威尔指出，英国的一项调查研究了为什么这么多年轻人不去参加音乐节。
And one of the most popular responses we got from that audience was, I didn't think I had a friend I could go with. Ouch.
我们从观众那里得到的最受欢迎的回应之一是，我不认为我有可以一起去的朋友。
Oh, that is brutal. Meanwhile, many older millennials - that's me - we're not going to festivals like we used to. We've got little kids and work obligations.
这太残酷了。与此同时，许多年长的千禧一代——也就是我——不再像以前那样去参加音乐节了。我们有孩子，还有工作义务。
We're just tired. My knees hurt all the time - I can't be standing up. All of these changes are forcing festival promoters like Phil Pirrone to go back to the drawing board.
我们只是累了。我的膝盖一直疼——我站不起来了。所有这些变化都迫使像Phil Pirrone这样的节日推广者重新开始。
You know, I think the market has changed. I think the festival landscape and also the economy, the culture - all festivals - this goes for all festivals - need to open our doors to the next generation.
我认为市场已经改变了。我认为音乐节格局以及经济、文化都需要向下一代敞开大门，这适用于所有音乐节。
And we probably need to pay attention to what, you know, would appeal to them.
我们可能需要注意什么会吸引他们。
