Concerts Get Smaller, Ottawa Builds New Venues

Popular Canadian performer Sarah McLachlan has postponed a tour that had a stop at the Canadian Tire Centre Nov. 8.

McLachlan needs more rest for her voice.

But the fact of the matter is that the music business has changed. It has become smaller.

On one of their last tours, entertainment giants Elton John and Billy Joel had to team up to fill big arenas. As individuals, neither could fill a large venue.

Society has lost its centre and concerts are a part of that. When promoters advertised for a large show, they could choose from newspapers, radio stations and television. Newspapers and radio stations are in the toilet. Television has massive competition from streaming and the 900-channel universe. Where does a promoter go to reach a big audience?

Beyond Taylor Swift, who can fill an arena save a venerable act such as the Rolling Stones if their fans can still walk up a flight of stairs to reach their seats?

Kids of another era had fewer sources from which to choose so acts were cross-market and cross-generational. Bands were measured by their spot on the top-10 list or how many time their videos were played on MuchMusic.

No more. The centre is not holding in so many areas of society including concerts. Our world has fragmented into its own little fragments of the internet. A big act can barely fill a nightclub now.

So what do we do in Ottawa? Well the National Capital Commission is to build a new concert venue not far from the National Arts Centre. The city rebuilds Lansdowne with its stadium and arena. The Ottawa Senators are pondering relocating on LeBreton Flats (and please note TSN that the power blackout at the Canadian Tire Centre recently was caused by a thunderstorm, not an aging arena. Announcers will do anything for a free new press box. Good grief.).

In a concert business that is shrinking due to demographics and changing interests, our governments still feel the concert business is circa 1985. The NCC, always the first on an unsuccessful and late idea, is out-to-lunch on a concert venue. Small acts can play Centrepointe or the Shenkman centre.

And the city? Well, nuff said.

Ottawa has a rapidly aging and big older demographic which prefers watching a hockey game on their big-screen televisions because the broadcast and picture detail is better than most seats at the arena. Why else would tv sports contracts be so large. Live crowds will become incidental to broadcast rights.

But Ottawa, where marketing is as foreign to the inhabitants as white-elephant stampedes, keeps building venues.

Nice buildings. Who is going to sit in them?

Someone should tell the night mayor.

Ken Gray

Taylor Swift can fill an arena.

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