I utterly understand the argument about having to trawl through 150 average tunes to find the good stuff, but surely it's a case of adapting the way you hunt for music? For instance, I tend to listen to member mixes on here. By and large they are representative of a far broader range of music, as opposed to say listening to an artists mix which will probably be heavily focused on their own music and the label(s) they represent. Obviously that has it's perks but you can end up in a cycle of very similar music.
With regard to label nights, building brands is increasingly important I imagine due to the ability of your average punter to source music illicitly. Drop in revenues from the actual physical product means the best way to make money off the back of the music is to host events that incorporate the artists on that roster. Thus the need for strong branding to ensure those events sell as many tickets as possible. I could be hugely misguided but I feel that is probably one of the bigger contributing factors.
In a way the diversity in terms of label nights on any one night has probably contributed to the downfall of large scale independent nights. When you have to compete with say a critical night at fabric or the ilk, as a promoter you would understandably worry about investing a lot of money in a broad and impressive line up when you know you could have a lot of your target audience at varying competing nights. If independent nights book labels as well I imagine it's cheaper to get say 3 artists from one label than 3 from 3 different labels. Economies of scale and all that.
I suspect in some way as well the branding of nights is important to the customers too. Just like wearing beats headphones. Anyone with ears can tell they definitely aren't the best on the market, but people buy them because it's the done thing. Likewise, people will go to certain events as they are viewed as cool ones to go to (I'm talking in a broader sense here, not just about DNB).
To summarise. The way music is consumed has changed, and that means the varying scenes have to adept to keep going. Currently stronger branding and focus on those brands / labels is how it's currently working.
With regard to label nights, building brands is increasingly important I imagine due to the ability of your average punter to source music illicitly. Drop in revenues from the actual physical product means the best way to make money off the back of the music is to host events that incorporate the artists on that roster. Thus the need for strong branding to ensure those events sell as many tickets as possible. I could be hugely misguided but I feel that is probably one of the bigger contributing factors.
In a way the diversity in terms of label nights on any one night has probably contributed to the downfall of large scale independent nights. When you have to compete with say a critical night at fabric or the ilk, as a promoter you would understandably worry about investing a lot of money in a broad and impressive line up when you know you could have a lot of your target audience at varying competing nights. If independent nights book labels as well I imagine it's cheaper to get say 3 artists from one label than 3 from 3 different labels. Economies of scale and all that.
I suspect in some way as well the branding of nights is important to the customers too. Just like wearing beats headphones. Anyone with ears can tell they definitely aren't the best on the market, but people buy them because it's the done thing. Likewise, people will go to certain events as they are viewed as cool ones to go to (I'm talking in a broader sense here, not just about DNB).
To summarise. The way music is consumed has changed, and that means the varying scenes have to adept to keep going. Currently stronger branding and focus on those brands / labels is how it's currently working.
