Some important facts about the Music Season

[mahavishnu]

The following blurb by V. Sriram appeared in the Hindu.
http://www.thehindu.com/arts/music/article2758683.ece

Given all the hoopla about the Season, a study on how many people it actually caters to would be interesting. Assuming that the top 20 Sabhas account for 80 per cent of the crowd, each has a seating capacity of 1,000 on an average, and all of them are catering to packed houses, the number would be around 20,000. A miniscule figure indeed.

The festival has acquired a larger-than-life presence among music lovers worldwide. A lot of it might be based on myth.

There is a lot of talk about federal funding for the music festival (including a major appeal made by the person that presided over the Sadas at the academy today). But the total number of people that it serves as per the report above is infinitesmally small. The number gets even smaller since may be only 10% of the concerts play to full houses. While I do not see anything alarming about to happen or a sad end to any to the music season in the foreseeable future, not many have given serious thought to how sustainable this operation is. If economics had anything to do with it, the whole operation would have imploded a long time ago (profitable organizations like the MMA might be an exception).

I am starting this thread to get a sense for what drives the music festival. Is it just sponsorships? What do the corporate sponsors get out of it other than goodwill? How long can this system self-sustain?

[vasanthakokilam]

I wrote this post a few days back prompted by some discussions about why so few people attended the free concerts in anna nagar: http://www.rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic. ... 87#p213187

It is miniscule indeed. My model was based on different sets of assumptions and focused on creating a baseline for non-season numbers, with an unspecified kicker/multiplier for season and festival seasons.

[bilahari]

Do artistes get paid a reduced sum for season concerts?

Overseas, much of the income comes from, (a) membership fees (say, US$100 for an annual membership), (b) private sponsorship of concerts, and (c) ticket revenue from concerts.

About (a), I know that an annual membership is an important source of revenue, but it seems that not many sabhas aside from the MA offer season tickets/ membership. This may perhaps be a good plan for sabhas serving a niche population (say, rasikas in Triplicane or Velachery or Madipakam or Nungambakkam or wherever) rather than one of the multitude of Mylapore sabhas.

I do not want to open a can of worms here about the perceived quality of music, but organisers in two countries I know have often told me that a sabha or organisation can only afford to host a Parassala Ponnammal if a Sudha Ragunathan (or Aruna or Nithyashree or L Subramaniam or any big name) also performs in that festival or season.

Are there also government grants supporting classical arts in India like in Singapore?

Again, I do not really know all the nuances of organising and sponsoring CM, so please feel free to correct me. These are just some scattered thoughts.

But I must say that I have always been acutely aware of exactly how limited and "small" the season is despite the numerous concert listings for each day.

One of the important questions is how we can open the art beyond the basically Brahmin population. I have always been struck by how CM is widely perceived to be only for "nambaDavA".

[VK RAMAN]

How to get to the vast population irrespective of caste will be carnaticize all movie songs with the help of ILayaraja and or AR Rahman who have a large following. These two and similar other personalities be made joint partners of CM concerts in Chennai and see how the fan base increases and the consequent box office for all the subhas.

[mahavishnu]

VK, very prophetic. You anticipated this discussion in your earlier post

The simple economics of how the system works still eludes me. How is such an operation sustainable given the numbers you and V.Sriram project (leave alone being profitable)? Of course, I am making the assumption that for a system to be economically viable, organizations will have to net a profit or at least have a zero balance after investing in infrastructure upkeep and maintenance.

I don't think gate collections could be the basis for running a sabha. Annual memberships help; so the big sabhas such as MMA, NGS, KGS etc are able to get by with this guaranteed capital. But what about the smaller sabhas?

Sponsorships add a good bit more, but what is in it for the sponsors? Nalli is not going to get more people flocking to his store because of these sponsorships. In some other parts of the world, like Bilahari says, there are government grants for cultural organizations. To the best of my knowledge, none of the Chennai sabhas get any support from the government, state or central.

Some sabhas have educational missions that generate money and add value to their base. Good efforts all of them, but none of them can sustain an entire organization even if all the staff are volunteers.

The business model seems to be to get some big name artistes to bring in the big bucks and this is used to keep the art and other programs afloat. But how much money can these big name artistes bring during the season?

But all this could be just an armchair discussion.

A very clever little bird tells me (little bird, you know who you are) that the whole multi-sabha operation could be a large, money laundering affair for the sponsors, sabha organizations and partners. ] This, I am inclined to believe, although I am not one for conspiracy theories.

[rajumds]

I had posted earlier about sponsorship in this thread.. http://www.rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=18070


The very profile of the sponsors reveals that music season is not a big ticket event and serious advertisers see no point in putting their money. In fact many of the sponsors don't need advertising (B2B industries) but do so because of other reasons / compulsions. Even though the point made by Mahavishnu in the last post looks a little far fetched, I do feel that most of the sponsors , participate for reasons other than advertisements.
The season has no brand value. Unless the sabhas start cooperating and coordinating, this model may fail after a in few years.

It would be interesting to get the views of Mrs.Radha Bhaskar in this topic.

[devan]

for sabhas the money comes from sponsors and gate collection.regarding gatecollections only eight aristes concerts are housefull concerts.the artistes according to me are arunasairam ranjanigayathri tmkrishna sanjay sudha jaisree nitysree and abishek.the money earned from these artistes are paid to other artistes.but this artistes are the most humiliated and criticised artistes in this so called i know everything and you do not anything forum.biting the hand that gives you the food.this is my very very humble opinion.

[anonymityatlast]

sanjay ... most humiliated and criticised

:^) :^)

[clmweb]

It has not been uncommon for artistes even in the prime time concerts to receive paltry token sums as there are only a few who have the luxury or courage of conviction to decline performance opportunities. The "season" is a sham in many ways. If our professional artistes start acting like their counterparts elsewhere, we would see a very different picture!

It doesn't really cost much to hold a Carnatic concert. The real pinch will be felt if auditorium rentals catch up with marriage hall rentals or a guild or union is created to mandate minimum wages. I'm not betting any money on these (especially the latter) happening.

-Karthik

[anandasangeetham]

we have left out one more revenue source...THE CANTEEN....

on the brahminical point....these days there is very widespread appreciation from all communities...it was very evident from the crowd at Chennayil thiruvaiyaru...and what is more...most o the rasikas seem knowledgeable too.....maybe the performers are mostly "nambadava"....that may be due to an inbuilt culture mandate of this community.....i have also seen many non brahmin(may be a large can of worms opened here) artists convert to Brahminical way of talking and conversing.....why? to get more acclamatised and accpeted in the "inner circle" ..may be yes may be no...amnot sure.....but on the rasika front I think it is changing and there are a lot more non brahmin rasikas.....this also raises another very pertinent question. there is a school run by the Tamil Isai Sangam where there are a lot of people (mostly from non brahmin community...again I dont know why) getting trained in vocal, veena, violin, percussion etc ...but in the last 2 decades or so I have not seen any artiste graduated from there performing.......i also heard that most of them find a way to the film music industry or end up as music teachers in govt schools....

[tsvs58]

Among the kutcheris I attended, Sikkil Mala's flute recital at Music Academy on 31st stood out for the sampradaya, unwavering traditional rendition. The selection of compositions were classic...from the brisk Lalgudi's varnam in Nalinakanthi to the concluding touching Maitreem Bhajatha the concert was well prepared thematic and beautifully rendered. Not a soul moved during the presentation. It was a lovely carnatic classical music experience. Mala richly deserves accolades; but most importantly deserves better accompaniments. The female ghatam player was not upto the high standards of Mala. The violin was at best average. The experienced flautist that she is, she quickly toned down to the comfort zone of the accompanying artistes!. What a pity.

[srikant1987]

tsvs58, though you may have found the accompanists less than Mala mami-class, you should have found out their names at least.

I would guess the ghaTam accompaniment was by Smt Sukanya Ramgopal. Indeed, I too was not very impressed by her accompaniment on the few occassions I've listened to her.

[Nick H]

Membership of many of these organisations seems to be like joining an exclusive club. I enquired for one sabha, and was told it was not possible. I happened to meet someone VIP who said, sure, one phone call to a VVIP and life membership could certainly be arranged ... I had some imaginings as to how much that would cost, and declined his offer to help.

Actually, I think that membership may be an economic liability. Members do not buy tickets, but they do fill seats, possibly paying less than general public pay for a small proportion of concerts. Thus, it is understandable that the books may be closed.

I don't suppose anybody keeps any tally of the number of organisations and the number of concerts during each season. The fact that it has no fixed beginning or end would make this almost impossible anyway, with some organisations choosing November or February to escape the intense Dec/Jan competition.

The true state of Chennai carnatic music can probably be better seen out of season. I know there is the lowest ebb in April/May, which is the time that almost Chennaite would rather be somewhere else: a great blessing for those few who get, and live by, foreign tours! But... In looking, at least, at The Hindu listings, am I mistaken that the column was, on average, much reduced in 2011 compared to 2010 and previous years. Reduced sponsorship?

We enjoy an absurd amount of free entertainment (don't throw things at me for using that word: I do so to put it in intercultural/international context). We take it for granted; we even demand it! Where else in the world do you find a small community enjoying its music, drama, or other artform, on a regular basis for free?. It seems to be agreed that there is no real economic benefit to the sponsors. There may be other benefits, and these, for some of those sponsors, include philanthropy and their own wish to support the music they love. But life, year by year, gets harder, and when the economy bites, it bites deep and hard.

There is a model that works, and that may continue to work longer than the sponsorship model. This is the model set up by S.V. Krishnan, where half the building brings in income that supports the concert hall. What foresight!

[vasanthakokilam]

A rough calculation shows that the estimate for potential annual gate collection has an upper bound of around 100-150 lakhs of rupees. This is the potential market size of the CM population in Chennai for the entire year. I am not sure if sabhas collect this much money in total. Is this number anywhere close to reality? Can someone else model it based on their own assumptions and see what numbers they arrive at?

This is not a lot of money since this can barely support around 50 artists ( accompanists included ) on the average ( some will get more, others much less ). I guess majority of them earn their livelihood through teaching and out of station concerts.

[anandasangeetham]

an junior accompanying artist gets paid around 500 per concert during non season times...may be same or little less during season times(more supply than the demand)...most musicians make money only through foreign concert/education/tours and marriage concerts where they charge upwards of 50000(even for a very junior artiste) to couple of lakhs and this again is only for the main artist..the accompanists still struggle till they achieve a level of a senior artiste where they can demand their due share....some artists go the film music directors for part time performances..(Ghatam karthick, umahankar, selvaganesh, ganesh kumaresh,embar kannan,and many of the youngsters)

if the above economics is only for the season most of the organisations make ends meet with sponsorship only. agreed that there is no brand value creation but if you see the no of the sponsors you will undestrand the picture....way too many sponsors with just a single or two banners...their aim ? not to create brand value but to be part of the "music season" and this at a very small amount of sponsorship...instead of getting one big sponsor who may need to spend 10 lakhs (say) for a season they will get 100 for 10000 each...win win situation....

but on the whole year economy model most of the sabhas do not operate at all and hence no income/expense....the bigger ones rent out the hall for company AGMs, school annual days, company get togethers and other social get togethers..(NGS,MA, Kamaraj Hall, german hall) etc.

not to digress the tamil drama scene is much bleaker....no sponsors.... and no gate collections...so the drama troupes have taken a different strategy....i know of couple of troupes who do this meticulously.....they get couple of company brands and promote them in the drama ...through dialogue...or a narration...or a scene backdrop...props etc... itself....for example in one of crazys drama one artist will say....seekram poi kulichutu vada..medimix soap podu..romba fresha irukum..(please go take a bath and come..use medimix soap..it is very fresh..)thus the sponsor gets the ad and the troupe gets paid for it...

but above all it is the love for the art(music, dance, drama) which keeps the artists going and not the monetary part.....as for the sabhas the major capital eexpenditure is always through philonthropical mode..almost all the major industrial houses donate for this.

[Enna_Solven]

Distance lends enchantment to the view. I thought only our local (outside India) sabhas have financial issues and need city/state support; but Chennai sabhas/artists are doing well because I see references to these thousands of concerts in December and people lining up at 5am to buy tickets. Sad.

[rajeshnat]

Distance lends enchantment to the view. I thought only our local (outside India) sabhas have financial issues and need city/state support; but Chennai sabhas/artists are doing well because I see references to these thousands of concerts in December and people lining up at 5am to buy tickets. Sad.

Enna Solven
I can write much more , Apart from some extra ordinary crowd puller like Smt Aruna Sayeeram, the reason why people line up at 5AM is many corporates /big and small vips with nexus to musicians/ few fan clubs etc buy lot of tickets before hand and there is a big distribution ring . Very very few people who wants to buy tickets especially to hear their favorite artist singing that day , line up that early as the no of tickets sold is very very less. As such ticket sales is many a times not directly proportional to the actual attendance .

I have seen one year before (in 2010 season)right before my eyes about 200 tickets were bought (each priced 200 bucks) in one shot from a big leading sabha for a musician who is performing in the evening, where the ticket agent counted 40,000 bucks .I asked bit later the ticket agent, if the person who bought those 200 tickets is going to give this to 200 people within another 2 and half hours(I went at 4pm for the previous concert) , the ticketing agent laughed and said the buyer will distribute atleast more than half the portion of that and in that portion quite a few many turn up.

[csuresh]

Rajesh,
I also had similar experience this year at a Mylapore based sabha when i went to buy my ticket for the concert of leading singer.
When some body enquired about the availability of higher denomination ticket the counter sales person told the required denomination ticket was fully bought by the artist.
In the evning when i stood in the Q to enter the hall i could see the sishya of the artist distributing the tickets to few rasikas in the main gate.

[Nick H]

I'm a bit lost on this one: why is the "struggling artist" buying tickets to give away? Or are you talking about artists who, financially, do not need the fee, and are more interested in filling the audience. But aren't they the ones who are likely to be getting both a big fee and a big audience?

Whenever I start to think I know how these things work, I fall over a big pile of confusion, and realise I know nothing!

Oh well.... that's as it is with the music itsel...

[sridhar_ranga]

Hey it may be a ploy by a rival musician: buy the tickets in bulk & throw them in a well, and make the poor fellow perform to empty galleries ]

[Nick H]

[rajeshnat]

The thumb rule: 3-25-3. 3% of the population is the CM live concert going target audience. Out of that 25% hear about concerts on a given day and out of that 3% show up. That audience is then shared by the concerts of that day, the popular ones getting more of the average share and less popular ones getting less.

VK
When you say, 3% are you saying 3% of Chennai Population on Dec (both transient and permenant) as the base to start with. I would like u to clarify this point again.

[vasanthakokilam]

Rajesh: It is 3% of Chennai resident population and not visitors. The visitors to the season, of course, will be trending close to 100% on that measure.

Also, the 3% number is the baseline: a non-December, a non-festival ( Ramanavami etc. ) time frame.

[vasanthakokilam]

the ticketing agent laughed and said the buyer will distribute atleast more than half the portion of that and in that portion quite a few many turn up.

Rajesh, I am a bit confused. Do they distribute more than half ( or about half ) and only a few people show up?

[rajeshnat]

the ticketing agent laughed and said the buyer will distribute atleast more than half the portion of that and in that portion quite a few many turn up.
......
Rajesh, I am a bit confused. Do they distribute more than half ( or about half ) and only a few people show up?

Vk
Sorry these are one of this literal tamil to english phrase translation ? I will say that in thamizh roughly what was conveyed , you translate into english "vAnginavar pAdikku mela vAngina ticketa distribute paNNiduvar , athila konjam neraya pEr vaRuvA"

[rajeshnat]

Rajesh: It is 3% of Chennai resident population and not visitors. The visitors to the season, of course, will be trending close to 100% on that measure.

Also, the 3% number is the baseline: a non-December, a non-festival ( Ramanavami etc. ) time frame.

Vk
That is a good assumption , VK . I am always interested in knowing at least a rough count of how much are resident chennaites and how much are Visitors. Infact I would like to know within visitors how many are NRI travellers and how many are outside of madras(within india).

For supposition sake if we have a cloud ash scenario in a year in december where none of the flights move from Europe/America to India , will we have a fairly ok crowd , i think in those scenarios the big sabhas (academy,NGS,BGS etal) will be hit more than the sabhas like IFA,NCA , nAdainbam,ShanmughapriyA etc(which generally has a steady crowd).

Also one of the years if Jaya tv does not beam their telecast coinciding during season , we can also get some real facts . Lots of those who perform in jaya tv are at a tremendous advantage. Once Vidushi Charumathi ramachandran said 100 kutcheris in many sabhas in few years = 1 java tv concert. We just dont know because of Jaya Tv broadcast is it helping or hurting sabha patronage? I think it is a case of hurting, there are few old timer sabha officials who are furious about that.

Overall I definitely think the rasikas crowd is increasing when I compare (2002 to 2006) vs (2007 to 2011), which is definitely good for all of us, but still it is a trickle .

Personally to really make it appreciably grow from trickle , we need one great movie like shankarabharanam or sindhubhairavi . There is a very old 1981 anandavikatan that my periappa gave me , where the sabha and patronage dwindled a lot in late 70's and then when the movie shankarAbharanam came it just was a great harvest in the year 1980 to 1982. They were also sharing actual ticket sales data of few sabhas in those years . I guess those days in late 70's and early 80's there was more truth and conscience with every patron and I atleast believe then the journalist were not rigging to report results. Now that would be almost impossible to get for various reasons ?.

Is Director Manirathnam reading this forum?

[nri]

Very engaging analysis. Interestingly Prince Rama Varma says in his interviews that Shankarabharanam was one early reason for him to pursue CM.

Just recalled a family chat … long ago, when ARR had recently won the first National award.

We were comparing Ilayaraja and ARR – Both contributed very positively to Tamil film music. The question was what difference did they bring to Tamil film industry?

Ilayaraja diverted the attention of Tamilians (South Indians) who were drifting towards Hindi film music back to Tamil film music.

ARR diverted the attention of North Indians who were listening only to Hindi film music towards Tamil film music.

Let Mani or Shankar be the director. I have two thoughts too often.

1. How about a fully CM themed film score from ARR? We had one Sindhubhairavi from IR, and not a single one from ARR.

2. Do any of the performing CM artists make a difference to Carnatic music, perhaps in a similar manner of what Ilayaraja or ARR have done to Tamil film music?

And pet peeve at Tamil audience: Malayalam film music even today has lot more scores based on classical music and I have sub-zero awareness about Telugu and Kannada (film) music.

Am I out of topic? shoot me, if I got overwhelmed.

[VK RAMAN]

"Malayalam film music even today has lot more scores based on classical music" - this is reflected in all faiths using CM ragas in their faith based songs. Every block in each town in Kerala has one musician and or instrumental artist teaching. People of castes other than brahmins and religions other than Hindu teach CM music. It seems the Mecca of Carnatic music would not accept Kerala as a pattern to follow

[vasanthakokilam]

VKR, I have heard that mentioned by you in the past and also by others. It will be very interesting if someone writes an article about the CM scene in Kerala, past and present, from both the cultural and economic perspective. It is quite fascinating to know that the situation is quite different in Kerala. Someone told me that back in the fifties and sixties, Tamil Nadu rural areas ( at least a few districts including Tanjore district ) had quite a few music teachers teaching privately and many rural schools having music teachers as well.

Now, digging into the depths of my brain, around the time I was getting into elementary school, the school music teacher thing was going away. I recall one regular teacher who knew some music was also the music teacher!! One song that I remember the teacher teaching the elder kids is sakala kalA vANiyE ( Kedaram ). I will have to cross-check with someone else, this is quite a faint remembrance. I have this weird relationship to this song which I speculate goes back to that early child hood. We are now talking memories from when I was 5 or 6 years old. I was never put into any music related stuff where as one of my close friends was. He probably learned music from that same teacher privately or from his mom. I think he used to sing this song on occasion and got a lot of attention and that probably caused a cultural divide between my friend and I It is either this, or this song was one of the songs that this teacher knew well and taught to all the kids and I was averse to that song due to such over use. Later on in life, this song and I reconciled and now I am big fan

[nri]

Fully agree with VK Raman - particularly the last two sentences.
Perhaps it is because of how the city is addressed - Call it Mecca of CM, the place got fanatically blind-folded
why not call it, say the "Cosmopolitan Thiruvaiyaru".
http://ramavarma.yolasite.com/ is one of the more communicative links to start knowing the Kerala model.

[srikant1987]

I think the Age of the Cinema is fading away, and Age of the TV is picking up.

I wonder whether the various "music" channels, such as MTV, VTV, maybe Southern Spice have greatly increased the listenership of Rock, Metal and various similar genres of music here. They mix those genres withmusic from Indian cinema, which might get non-Rock people to browse into what they show every so often. Carnatic music may have a bigger barrier to break even if it comes to get a larger place in the TV. Many people, especially youngsters (!) think CM is simply not the kind of music they ought to be listening to.

The general format of having a "VJ" chitchatting with someone over the phone, them requesting a number which will later be played, seems to have some viewership ... at least they have been getting enough phone calls to keep running their show. Another format is to have an interview with phone calls, interspersed with some music clips. Indeed, a caller can request a song specifically in this case. It will be better if the interviewer and the artiste sit on a mat during the programme, which will especially help instrumentalists like violinists and vaiNikas to fulfill those requests without much interruption.