The Audience Indie Left Behind

Things happen as you get older, one of them is that you don't always know about everything as it happens, another is that you don't have as much time. Those two things are closely related. So, it was 2007 before I got around to reading uTOpia Volume II: The State of the Arts: Living With Culture In Toronto (Coach House Books, 2006). It was an excellent book on the whole but one of my favorite essays was 'The Family That Rocks Together Stays Together' by Liz Forsberg (online version not available).

Ms. Forsberg wrote about her time as an indie rocker and the transition to parenthood, how touring or even going to shows were more difficult if not impossible now. Her idea was to have more family friendly, bring the kids, daytime indie shows. Which, I think, is brilliant.

Once you have kids and a job and lose your youthful ability to get by on 4 hours sleep a night it all becomes much more difficult. It's not that you don't want to go see bands, or that you're not interested in new music it's that you can't do alot of 10 pm - 2 am shows at the Horseshoe anymore. Even if you do make it to some shows, you discover after a few years that it's not really your peer group anymore and more and more people stop going at all. It's not that these people have lost interest in indie culture, it's that indie culture has lost interest in them.

It's not just 'old' people either. As Natalia Yanchak pointed out recently: many university bars are closing because their patrons have lost interest in booze, they are hanging out in coffee shops and juice bars now and while I lament the decline in university drinking (I was completely in shock when I first read it.) It is probably better for them, at least physically.

So, all of you indie musicians out there and promoters and booking agents - I think you are missing a substantial portion of your potential audience and the portion you are missing has more money than the portion you are hitting. Whoever decided that indie culture starts at 10 pm was either still in school or lived in their parents basement. Remember the original 'indie kids' are in their 40s and 50s now. If you haven't read it already have a look at "Up With Grups" from New York magazine, while I don't think the author is dead on the money, it does back up what I'm saying.

So who says you can't have a show during the day? What if instead of 10 pm to 2 am you had a show that went from noon to 4 on a saturday or sunday? What if people could bring their kids? The people who go to your nighttime shows could still come (provided they were up by noon) and the new faces would have more money - they wouldn't care as much about being on 'the list' the $5-10 cover isn't as big a deal. They would happily buy your CD, possibly your last 2 or 3 CDs, maybe even a Dears coffee mug. Their kids who danced with wild, completely unselfconscious abandon might even be interested not only a t-shirt but the Hidden Cameras action figures or the Bicycles lunch box.

Before anyone asks, yes I know there are festivals, Hillside etc., but even that all day, or two day commitment is more time than the people I'm talking about really have - again you are back to (for the most part anyway) the teens and twenty somethings who come to your evening shows.

Now I should point out that this is not a completely new concept. I was talking about the Liz Forsberg article with Lidia Vila from Toronto Indie and she pointed me toward ALL CAPS - which is a step in the right direction. They actually have a show today. It's a combination art/craft show and concert and the bands start at 7 - not quite what I'm talking about but certainly closer and more reasonable than the bands starting at 10.

I'm not saying that the night time shows should be done away with, far from it. I still love going when I can manage it. All I'm saying is that if indie musicians (and other performers) are having a hard time making ends meet that there is a large, relatively untapped audience out there. If all of your shows are on week nights and you take the stage at midnight there are a large number of potential fans, fans with larger incomes, that won't be able to make your shows - ever. If you add some day shows to your next tour you'll be surprised at the variety of people who show up (including some of the people who will be at your night show) at that audience that you now have to build 'one fan at a time' could grow exponentially.