WHAT a fantastic feeling, if a tad overwhelming, it was to be back promoting live music again at Glasgow’s iconic Barrowland Ballroom.
Last Friday’s sold-out performance from the brilliant US Kentucky fried, foot-stomping, metal rockers Black Stone Cherry was just what I needed and the perfect tonic to blow away the Covid cobwebs and banish, for a couple of hours at least, 19 months of revolving lockdown blues and the never-ending depressing barrage of discordant and disproportionate Scottish Government restrictions, including their new piece of damaging nonsense – vaccine passports.
As awesome and as rock thumping as this sell-out show was, there was a worrying high number of no-shows, 352 punters to be exact.
A very concerning 18.5% of ticket holders, avid fans who had rushed out the traps to secure a brief at a not inconsiderable £32.50 plus booking fee a pop had, for unknown reasons, though I suspect fear and confusion over entry requirements played its part, decided to stay at home and miss their heroes' blistering set and the pounding rhythms of the world’s greatest drummer, John Fred Young.
No shows are a massive problem that at present is currently afflicting the whole of Scotland’s barely beating live music industry, with many venues reporting a rate of anywhere between twenty and forty per cent.
In one extreme case I recently came across, the no-show rate was a staggering 50% which left the promoter bamboozled, the band disheartened and the venue spitting teeth as they had fully staffed up expecting a sell-out show with their tills ringing, and instead got a dejected half-empty hall and were forced to send many of their staff home.
This problem is not unique to Scotland, not by any means. Nor is every show affected, but you would be a brave soul to bet on which shows will become the next victim of this unpredictable malady, as there is no discernible pattern. A problem that promoters and venue owners are having to face every other day.
When England lifted its Covid restrictions for club and gigs back in June, the no-show rate was initially very similar to Scotland’s current high rate of non-attendees but dropped significantly, from a worrying high bar of 40% to the less concerning and economically viable average of around 9%.
A wee bit to go yet before the pre-pandemic average of between 0.5 and 3% is achieved but with the removal of mandatory mask wearing and social distancing in all hospitality settings, along with the UK Government’s refusal to be driven by fear over rising infection rates and instead applying some common sense over rapidly falling mortality rates and hospital admissions, they put the introduction of vaccine passports into cold storage.
The result is that England’s live music industry and night-time economy is once again thriving, with people of all ages and differing musical tastes rushing to buy tickets and flocking back to gigs and venues. They might have to adhere to track and trace or show proof of a negative lateral flow test before being admitted but these are tried and tested public health measures that almost everybody is happy to accept.
The differences north of the border couldn’t be starker. In Scotland, the unrelenting negative messaging and fear peddling from the Holyrood doom-mongers continues unabated. The Orwellian Scottish Government refuses to listen to any of the advice or proposals given by its hospitality bodies, lift any of its remaining economically-damaging restrictions and, despite howls of protest from opposition parties, economic forums, including the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, its £1bn live music industry and all of its beleaguered hospitality bodies, decided in their arrogance that they know best and have marched down the precipitous, iniquitous, discriminatory path of vaccine passports and the creation of a two-tier society.
An alarming piece of economic self-harm from a government who never tire of telling us that they’ve Scotland’s best interests at heart, when it's abundantly clear that they’ve never had one to begin with and are only interested in self-preservation.
Live music alive and kicking? More like a floundering landed fish and with the introduction of vaccine passports, no-shows might soon mean just that: No Shows.
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