00:00Cancellations, rescheduling leading to cancellations and more cancellations.
00:07It would seem that 2024, the news that someone has had to cancel a show has become a regular
00:12occurrence, with some citing burnout, while others flat out admitting they cannot afford
00:17to tour.
00:18And it also kind of feels that the cases of burnout come during huge tours, which from
00:23experience comes from a place of keeping things financially solvent.
00:29So how did we end up at a point where musicians are finding it hard to tour in the United
00:33Kingdom?
00:34Well, according to recording artist Ells Bailey, currently on her own tour throughout November
00:382024, perhaps Brexit had a bigger impact on the concert economy locally than imagined.
00:46I started right at the bottom, grassroots, no idea what I was doing, no idea that there
00:52was a blues scene, no idea that there was an Americana scene like here in the UK, and
00:59I would just do like what everyone does, like email, you know, a thousand venues and a few
01:06of them would get back to you and you just start those building blocks.
01:10But I, I definitely think that stuff is a lot harder now, like, I was lucky because
01:20I could, I'd borrow a van and I could just like bundle the band in the van and get out
01:26on the road that way.
01:28I would go to Europe a lot, like right from my touring career, I got straight into Europe.
01:34Even if it was just playing like small shows out there, but they paid much better than
01:40the shows over here in the UK.
01:42So I'd take that money that I made in Europe and I'd invest that into going on tour here
01:48in the UK or going on a support tour where I wasn't getting paid, but I could pay for
01:54the band because I'd done some Europe stuff.
01:58Compared to when Els first hit the road, forging her fan-based friendships and becoming part
02:03of the Americana and roots community in the United Kingdom, the musician thinks even with
02:08the assistance of promoters or managers that it's becoming increasingly difficult for smaller
02:14or grassroots musicians to tour the United Kingdom.
02:18The cost of touring, like there is no, there's no way of sort of saying that it's not gone up.
02:26It is, everything has gone up and in that, you know, so should musician fees have got
02:32to go up to meet the rising cost of living.
02:38So for me it's important that even though maybe the cost of touring is going higher,
02:46I need to make sure that I'm investing more in the people that are around me because everything
02:53else for them has gone up as well.
02:55But it's not just the overheads that bars and venues have to contend with that's also
03:00pushing smaller musicians to be, well, a little bit more reluctant to hit the road these days.
03:06She believes that despite the media shining a light on the plight of smaller venues and
03:10musicians, they themselves could and should be held accountable also for music's seemingly
03:17diminishing returns on a bass level.
03:19I got quite depressed the other day, I was listening to lots of stuff on the BBC talking
03:27like about how people go and watch music and then obviously about these rising costs and
03:32about artists missing out cities because they just can't afford to go to those cities anymore.
03:39And I was there just like, okay, this is getting a lot of talk on places like the
03:46BBC and yet the BBC and other gatekeepers of the industry are cutting out on ways that
03:53unsigned and grassroots artists can get heard.
03:56There's a lot less opportunities from the gatekeepers of the industry.
04:01So we're talking about venues closing and people not selling enough tickets.
04:09Gatekeepers of the industry can help with that, they can give artists opportunities
04:14and if they're not doing that, then, you know, what are people going to do?
04:20Like they're giving this, that, so I was just there like, half the BBC introducings in the
04:26countries have now disappeared.
04:29These were the lifeblood of like the early getting played on radio and then maybe going
04:35up to getting played on Radio 2 or Radio 1.
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