Touring Used to Sell Records. Now Records Exist to Sell Touring. What Happens Next?

Making a Scene Presents - Touring Used to Sell Records. Now Records Exist to Sell Touring. What Happens Next? The old deal is dead For a long time, the bargain in music was pretty clear. You made records so people would care. Then you hit the road and turned that attention into ticket sales, merch money, and a bigger audience. Before streaming ate the center out of recorded music, albums were not just art. They were products with real cash value. Touring was promotion, and the record was the thing being promoted. Now that whole machine has flipped. In 2025, U.S. recorded music revenue hit a record $11.5 billion, with streaming making up 82% of the market, while global recorded music revenue reached $31.7 billion. On paper, that sounds like a healthy business. But those big numbers do not mean the average artist is healthy. They mostly mean the pipes are full. The question is who controls the pipes, who gets the margin, and who is left paying for the van, the hotel, the crew, the ads, and the gas. http://www.makingascene.org