Switzerland
LIKE
Despite the fear of impending doom, even the controversial lifting of a currency cap has done little to dent Switzerland’s live music business. Adam Woods talks to some of the professionals who make sure the Swiss industry continues to prosper.
CLOCKWORK IT’S PROBABLY NATURAL that a market that has had it so good for so long should be prone to a few nagging anxieties. In enviably healthy Switzerland, where the long summer throngs with large, largely prosperous festivals – more per capita than any other country in the world, it is said – the live industry appears to share a certain unease: surely something has to go wrong soon? In fact, something did, midway through January, when the Swiss Central Bank abandoned its currency cap against the Euro, sending the Swiss franc soaring and creating a variety of results, depending on whether you happened to be sitting on a pile of Euros, or not, at that moment. “We had a solid stock of Euros before they took a plunge so I can’t say we were very happy about the decision,” says Dany Hassenstein at the country’s largest festival, Paléo. “The Swiss National Bank’s decision took us by surprise, but we are back to where we were a few years ago, with more volatile exchange rates.” Even for those who weren’t immediately and irritatingly exposed, the removal of the currency cap had two key impacts – a good one and a bad one. “The artist fees in Euros became 15-20% lower – thanks for that,” says Johannes Vogel of jazz, world and soul promoter AllBlues. “But since then it’s been getting even more difficult to get any sponsorship.” It wasn’t the worst thing ever to happen to an economy, but in the placid surroundings of Switzerland, it was a dramatic way to start the year. No one, however, seriously expects such concerns to derail the year’s entertainments. 2014 was the best year on record for the Swiss live business. Members of the Swiss Music Promoters Association
(SMPA) drew nearly five million visitors (an increase of 1.7%) to 1,600 musical events of various kinds, generating CHF320million (€305m), an increase of CHF10m (€9.5m), with 3.2m tickets sold. SMPA members account for roughly 80% of tickets sold in the country, so the numbers in full may be around a fifth higher. And while most promoters admit to reservations about the volume of events and the distorting power of the festival season, business goes on. For festival organisers, the perennial nagging misgivings – about a finite talent pool, regrettable ticket prices, the danger of market saturation – are set aside each year as the entire market races to one-up itself somehow. For all other promoters, there is the question of how to maximise the year from early September to late May, and whether to gamble in the summer on headline shows that will run straight up against the world’s busiest festival season. Needless to say, in a market full of huge packages of talent, headline shows become a harder sell. “In Switzerland, the festival scene is apparently stronger than ever, due to the fact that it is good value for fans who have the opportunity to see a lot of new bands for the price of a bit more than a single show,” says Opus One’s Vincent Sager. “According to SMPA figures, 2014 was better than any other year before in terms of the number of events promoted. But the quantity of events is growing faster than the overall demand for tickets. We feel concerned about the risk of a This is a preview of some content from the latest issue of bubble effect, which would badly affect our industry.” IQ Magazine. To get instant access to the magazine’s comprehensive There are those anxieties. be a features, research, news, analysis Nonetheless, and comment, it youwould will need stretch to suggest Switzerland, the back of a record to subscribe. For that more informationonabout subscribing to year, is a live market with anything much IQ Magazine, simply click this more box. serious than a few first-world problems.
Kraftklub performed at Open Air St Gallen Festival 2015 on 28 June © Daniel Gassner
IQ Magazine July 2015
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