Hi Nick,
The best-fit straight line to the decline
intersects the flat line in the first few months of
2006,
and given that it took most of the pubs I am
familiar with some months to react to the new licensing,
I do not think I am wrong in pointing a
finger.
But yes indeed it is related to the decline in pubs
- I suspect a plot of this would be very similar. Trickier to produce,
though.
I agree people are not going to pubs as much, but
in my case that is because pubs that used to have
good music now do not. As you say landlords last no
time, and the music-friendly ones get chucked out by the
breweries.
I also do not charge a fee on KentFolk, but I do
not just put cover bands on unless I have checked them
out them myself, and the groups
I do put on KentFolk are now getting so
few gigs they often do not bother to tell me when they do
get a few.
Folk Clubs seem to be the main music these days,
and even the major SE venue the Lewes Arms Folk Club is having to move
pub.
No Chris Ashman is also looking for other causes,
and you may both be right, but when I get data I try and
find
the most significant cause, and when I get two
straight lines intersecting near what was intended to be the most
significant
change to the pub trade in decades, I believe this
is significant. Why and how it is causing pubs to close and music to
stop,
I do not know. Perhaps the timing
is chance, but I do not believe that, just not properly understood
causality.
Perhaps it was a side effect the legislation had on
the selling of cheap beer in the supermarkets.
But I believe, if we do not track the reason down
and git it fixed, that graph sugests we have only a year
before there will be little purpose
in having a web page for folk music in
Kent.
Oh too far for you, I know, but the (...) is looking for someone to set up an open stage on Sunday (not
last),
see the KentFolk News.
Your thoughts and comment appreciated. I will be
getting up someone's nose with that graph,
and I need to know the questions I need to have an
answer to.
cheers,
Beau
Hi Beau,
It appears to me that your graph
does NOT prove that the licensing act is the reason live music has
declined. The decline seems to start towards the end of
2006, a year after the Act was introduced. I suspect that the
reason for this is the general decline in pubs (30+ a week closing
according to the media). I would be suspicious of the Kent Gig
Guide figures. They list very few gigs at present, probably
because they charge a fee (unlike Mr Gig).
From my own
experience (for what it is worth!), there seem to be as many pubs
having live music as ever, BUT they keep changing hands so the
music keeps stopping for a while. The problem is that people don't
go to pubs like they used to, and therefore it is difficult to
make live music pay.
Regards
Nick
--- On
Sun, 28/12/08, Dr. Beau Webber
<J_dot_B_dot_W_dot_Webber_at_kent_dot_ac_dot_uk> wrote:
From:
Dr. Beau Webber <J_dot_B_dot_W_dot_Webber_at_kent_dot_ac_dot_uk> Subject: The
Licensing Act 2003 is destroying live music in Kent and East
Sussex. Date: Sunday, 28
December, 2008, 1:24 PM
Dear Nick,
I finally have hard numbers re the loss of
live-music, and the evidence is that the Licensing Act 2003 is
responsible.
If this email reaches you mangled, there is
a version on the web at :
Hope you are having a good
Christmas,
cheers,
Beau
We are losing music pubs and music-friendly Landlords
at a frightening rate - and the evidence is that the
Licensing Act 2003 is responsible. |
www.kentfolk.com
|
I have been saying we are losing music pubs and
music-friendly Landlords at a frightening rate for a while, but
now I have some hard numbers - and hard numbers they are to
swallow - but if all things remain equal (and they never do), we
could have no live music in Kent by 2012.
I have been doing the KentFolk web page since the year 2000,
and the fall off in gig numbers is very evident from my data -
but my research gets in the way some months, and that causes
scatter in the numbers, so for good figures I went to Chris
Ashman of www.kentgigs.com and asked if I could data-mine
his Gig Archives :
"Hi Beau, I would suggest that you should look at our
lists also in the light of the number of venues that are
prepared to pay to promote their events rather than expecting
bands to act like "rent a crowd". ...... We can say without
doubt this is the worst period we have seen for Kent bands since
we started supplying the media in 1981. "
So I pointed my programs at his gig archive, and this is the
graph I get; I plot the number of gigs per week in Kent and East
Sussex that are listed on www.kentgigs.com over the years
Summer 2004 to Christmas 2008 :
Are Kentish and East Sussex Live Music Gigs
Coming to an End ?
At first look we have a quite a lot of scatter, then we can
see that in fact some of the variation is a regular dip of some
20 or 30 gigs per week over the Christmas weeks, which makes
sense.
But the main feature is that a steady live-gig-rate of about
70 per week has been about halved. What has caused this ? - we
can line-up events on this time-graph with major events that
have recently happened :
- The Credit Crunch - starting late Summer 2008 into
Autumn - There is a definite dip, but surprisingly the graph
seems to have gone up again by Winter and the time of the
regular Christmas dip - perhaps people are in need of
compensation, and live music is a good option?
- The Smoking Ban - came into effect 1st July 2007 -
Possibly there is a slight dip, but I do not believe there is
any statistically significant change.
- The Licensing Act 2003 - came into force on 24
November 2005 - We see that what was a regular and fairly
steady live music gig-rate of about 70 per week has
turned within a month or two into a steady and apparently
uniform slide towards zero.
Now I am not one of those who found no merit in the Licensing
Act 2003 - I agree the licencing fee takes most of the possible
profit from the gigs I sometimes put on, but I do get a piece of
paper that makes the gig legal. However what is totally
unacceptable is that it would seem that for the publicans and
musicians the scheme is unworkable, such that if everything is
equal - and it won't be - we can expect no live music over the
Christmas weeks next year (2009) - down from a recent 40 to 50
gigs per week over the Christmas period - and before the end of
2011 live music gigs will be effectively over or too far away to
drive to.
There is an urgent need to get this data to those who can
make a difference, and also your real stories about publicans
who are being thrown out and musicians who are losing their
trade - this data is unequivocal :
-
The Licensing Act 2003 is destroying live music in one of the
most musically active counties in the UK.
|