PRS Report that business is still booming at the top of the live industry

Recently announced stats from the PRS For Music reveal that top artists in the live sector including Kylie Minogue (pictured above), Bruce Springsteen and Madonna generated £403 million in touring revenues in the UK last year, which is up 30% on 2007 when £331 million was made.

PRS For Music licenses all the live performances in the UK and is able to track trends in consumer spending.

Commenting on the continued growth of the live industry in a statement, the PRS's Barney Hooper said: "It has already been noted that recorded music's share of consumers' disposable income is going down, while the share for live music is going up. The latest data from PRS data suggests that the longevity of the top acts is a factor in this”.

The value of revenue from live tours in the UK has increased steadily from £251m (2005), to £297m (2006), £311m (2007) and £403m (2008).

The collection society recently confirmed that they are currently planning on reviewing the current royalty rate for tour promoters, leading to speculation in the live industry that this will result in an attempt to compensate for the loss of mechanical royalties by increasing performance royalty fees in the live sector.

Have your say: This is encouraging news for the UK music industry but does such success and revenue trickle down to grass roots live music promotion on a much smaller scale? Does it demonstrate that there is increasing unshakeable value in the experiential value of a live show, as global recorded music sales plummet? Would it be a suitable solution for the PRS to effectively try and balance out the loss of mechanical royalties by increasing the royalty rate for concert promoters?