 When I stepped into running a live performance venue for the first time, I thought I understood the fundamentals. I had spent years as a performing artist. I believed deeply in the intrinsic value of music for connection, expression, and community. I assumed that if you programmed great work and built strong relationships, the rest would follow. What I didn’t fully understand yet was the business model. Over time, one realization kept coming into focus: Live music isn’t the product. Attention is. Venues are tasked with turning that attention into something that can actually sustain the organization. Once I saw that clearly, it changed how I understood nearly every decision we were making. The bar is the business model Like many venues, one of our most important revenue sources wasn’t ticket sales. It was the bar. Ticket revenue was largely passed through to artists or promoters. Our portion, typically 20 to 30 percent, had to cover front of house staffing, overhead, and supplies. By the time those costs were accounted for, margins were extremely thin. The bar, on the other hand, was the only place where we could reliably generate profit. That revenue didn’t just support the bar itself. It subsidized everything else, including discounted rentals, community programming, and the broader nonprofit mission. This isn’t unique. It’s how many venues survive. But experiencing it firsthand was clarifying. It meant that the financial sustainability of a night wasn’t just about attendance. It was also about what people did once they got there. At the same time, this model is becoming more uncertain. As drinking habits shift, relying on alcohol sales as the primary margin raises real questions about long-term viability. When music becomes a loss leader As someone who came from the artist side, this was the hardest shift to internalize. In practice, the music, the very reason people gathered, often functioned as a loss leader. Its role was to bring people through the door. From there, the economics took over. We had to think not only about artistic quality, but also about audience behavior:
These are not questions most artists want to prioritize. They weren’t questions I wanted to prioritize either. But when you are responsible for keeping the doors open, and for the livelihoods tied to them, you don’t have the luxury of ignoring them. That tension between artistic values and financial reality is constant. It shapes more decisions than most people realize. Pricing is psychological, not rational Another surprise was how sensitive ticket sales were to pricing, especially how tickets were presented. As a nonprofit venue, we aimed to keep prices accessible. Most shows were priced at $25 or under, including fees. But when regulations shifted to require all-in pricing (which shows full price, plus fees, upfront), something subtle but significant changed. A ticket that might have been listed as $20 plus fees was now shown as $26 total. Same ticket. Same cost. Different perception. And that difference mattered. Crossing that psychological threshold had a noticeable impact on purchasing behavior. It was a clear reminder that audience decisions are not purely rational. They are shaped by framing, context, and expectation. The collapse of advance planning When I first started, it was common to see ticket sales come in four to six weeks ahead of a show. Within a year and a half, that window had shrunk dramatically. Most sales were happening in the final two weeks, many in the last few days. From an audience perspective, this makes sense. People are busier, more distracted, and less inclined to commit far in advance. From an operational perspective, it creates real risk. We still had to make decisions about staffing, marketing spend, and whether a show was financially viable, often without clear data until the last minute. In some cases, that uncertainty led to cancellations simply because we could not afford to take the loss. Those were never easy decisions. But they were necessary. You are always competing with something else One of the most humbling realizations was how many things we were competing with on any given night. Not just other venues or events, but also:
Even the weather had a measurable impact. As soon as the sunny season began, attendance dropped, and that shift lasted for months. We weren’t just programming shows. We were competing within an entire ecosystem of attention and choice. Over time, it became clear that we could not position ourselves as just a place to hear music. We had to be a place to gather, to have an experience worth choosing over everything else. What changed for me Over time, I stopped thinking of our role as simply presenting performances. We were competing for attention and trying to convert that attention into enough revenue to sustain the organization, while also serving the nonprofit mission. The music was essential. It was the reason people came. But it was not, on its own, the economic engine. That realization shifted how I see the broader live music ecosystem. If venues rely on indirect revenue streams to survive, that shapes everything:
It also raises bigger questions. If attention is the real currency, who controls it? If the economics do not directly support the art, what does that mean for artists? If this is the system we are operating in, what would it take to build something more sustainable? Why public investment matters Experiencing this firsthand also changed how I think about public funding. If both earned revenue and grants are inherently unstable, and venues are operating within an attention-driven economy, then public investment becomes even more critical. While it is often distributed in limited and competitive ways, at a system level it functions as core infrastructure that helps stabilize an otherwise volatile environment. Without it, the burden of sustaining cultural spaces shifts even more heavily onto individuals and organizations, often through personal financial risk, debt, or unsustainable labor. Public funding alone does not solve for stability, but it plays a necessary role in reducing volatility and making the broader ecosystem viable at all. That said, how funding is structured matters just as much as how much is available. Currently, most grants are short-term, project-based, and highly competitive. While well-intentioned, they can unintentionally reinforce the same instability they are meant to address. Organizations are left planning year to year, with limited ability to build reserves, invest in infrastructure, or take creative risks. A more effective approach is multi-year operating support that builds organizational capacity. This provides a more stable foundation, so leaders can implement infrastructure, systems, and staffing, that allows them to do their work more efficiently and effectively. The next step would be to expand access to include the full range of cultural producers who contribute to the ecosystem. The goal is not just to fund activity, but to create the conditions for long-term sustainability. Looking ahead I don’t have simple answers to these challenges. But I do think we need to be more honest about how the system actually works, especially if we want a future where live music and the people who create it can thrive. Because right now, we are asking the art to carry a business model that was never designed to support it. And that is a tension worth paying attention to. If you work in the music industry, I’d be curious what has surprised you most in your experience.
As Co-Chair of MusicOregon’s Music Advocacy Council, I’ll be joining a statewide listening tour May 16–23, 2026. We’re hosting free, two-hour gatherings across Oregon for musicians, venue operators, and others across the ecosystem. These are conversation-first spaces. No presentations, no set agenda. Just listening. What we hear will help shape MusicOregon’s programming and advocacy over the next two years. Find a stop near you and RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/musicoregon-listening-tour-4837857 |
AuthorCheri Jamison is an arts and nonprofit consultant who helps cultural organizations, creative leaders, and community partners strengthen organizational health, funding readiness, and long-term sustainability. Categories
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