Entertain Me London, for I am Bored.
Words by Clémence Rebourg
London, we have sinned. We are bored. We have failed to find joy in the infinite supply of entertainment and distractions, which yet sometimes is still raised like a torn-out flag when asked why one would persist to live in such an expensive city. “Yes but the Theatre!” “Yes but the gigs.” “Oh but the parties.” “The creative people!!” “The culture!”
I have been thinking a lot about the importance - symbolic, spatial, emotional - of ennui in large cities. When everything and anything is accessible at your fingertips, including and especially culture, the only thing that will drag people out is the feeling that they get something they could not get anywhere else and that feeling is an “out of body experience”, something indescribable. Cities’ appeal still lives on the promise that they are where you will find this. The magic of the interstices. The extra spice of serendipitous encounters, in cities of millions where everything can happen. We ask so much of our cities, and so much of our culture. The way we want our partners to be our best friends, lovers, coaches and running buddies, not only do we expect a full-sensory blow- out of every single cultural event we attend, but we demand that they provide it. Too much of everything made us despondent and stuffed with culture beyond our understanding, lazily hoping for the respite of something, anything, happening to us that will shake us back in the joy of beauty, yet we seem incapable of mustering the energy of curiosity to find and grasp it ourselves.
That is something marketers may have understood and started to exploit but not alongside creating genuinely life-affirming, transformative and innovative events... I know of at least three musical venues in London who have started selling packages, promising fans “immersive experiences” of their favourite bands (that used to be called a meet-and-greet), collect unique merch (why do we need 20 different tee shirts?) and autographs (that’s a signing). Slapping the word immersive on the poster of a concert does not make it true nor does it change the reality of what is offered: a band is going to play their music to an audience. You are in a room and people are playing music. It’s great! I love concerts! Why would it need to be anything more?
There’s a dire need for struggling artists and venues to attract people to live music shows. Cultural practices are changing (COVID-19, the attention economy, rising costs of living and plummeting costs of access to culture are among a smorgasbord of factors we can think of), and the competition is fearless. When more prominent artists cope by putting on marathon shows (3+ hour shows justify hyper-inflated prices, which fans cannot afford anymore - see the case of Beyoncé, who’s been struggling to sell tickets), smaller or emerging acts have to resort to other solutions. Rachel Chinouriri - who recently opened for Sabrina Carpenter on her UK tour(!) - very openly spoke about the costs associated with touring, which she says made her lose her money. In what people could cynically call an “immersive” experience of a band, Kate Nash also made headlines when she spoke about joining Only Fans in light of her financial struggles after touring. When selling records stopped being a substantive source of revenue for artists, they had to turn to gigs and tours. However, a concert is not enough anymore, it needs to be an event. You need more out of it. The promise of uniqueness and specialness.
Some bands have started giving it a bit more thought and care: special scents for Rizzle Kicks, choir in the audience for Alabaster DePlume and, famously, a full-blown theatrical experience for the Sault show at Drumsheds which cost millions to produce, including secret entrances, exhibitions, walkable set designs and more. I am made quite ambivalent about this, as on the one hand, I cannot be anything but admirative of the quality of the work produced, the care and detail put in every show, the endearing and impressive nerdiness of it all.But on the other, the overwhelming number of cases where this does not spur from a real desire to make the show better, makes me cynical of all of them. Rather than demonstrating real creative thinking, it’s a marketer’s ploy to sell more tickets and generate more clicks, without any consideration or respect, for the artist or their audience. The cynical swan song of an industry grasping at the straws to produce something truly different, innovative, new, something good.
However, we need to acknowledge that this is a dialectic, one that as an audience, we’re happy to be an acting part in. At the risk of being crude, are we so far up the ass of our own existential boredom that we need to be sold a premium for what is given to us by the mere gorgeous human experience of seeing music together? We accept being sold these packages because paying for it seems like a graspable validation of what we’ve experienced. ‘I can put a price and therefore acquire the certitude that this will be worth it.’ Buying the reassurance that you will feel something is a good enough palliative to this oh-so-modern source of anxiety that is FOMO. Sometimes, it is even aspirational. “Next time I will be a VIP, I will have the collectable, I will take home the unique hoodie, I will make that viral TikTok.”
Our collective case of too-much-of-everything induced ennui means that we fail to engage with cultural events enough to access a real artistic wonderment. The life changing kind that may have been the original drive for us to go to gigs, plays, shows. Beauty. Awe. Emotions that stay with you and enhance your life. So what is the solution? For venues, artists, and audiences?
For Venues, it is time to rethink their role as a propeller of new talent. As anchors of wonder in their neighbourhoods and cities. We can hope for programming that thinks beyond the venue-for-hire model, one that thinks of narratives and ambitions to build itself on the long run with consistency and purpose, and if “immersive” experiences fit into that, then great. It means addressing the needs and servicing your local communities, knowing your audience, and partnering with other institutions and cultural creators to offer an engaged programme, one that will make your venue a place of memorable, formative instants of joy. It means being imaginative in their business model too. The artistic coherence, ethos, and exigence of places like the ICA, Café Oto and more recently the Cause is to be highlighted. For the most financially healthy venues, considering having an in-house creative studio to work on fashioning these special experiences can also be profitable commercially in the long run and creatively exciting, if they are staffed with passionate, knowledgeable and uncynical people. Then only it might achieve what they promise in “immersive experiences”.
For Artists, and we need to acknowledge the reality and difficulties they face when dealing with costs, labels, and the ever-growing need to engage in everything other than thinking of their creative output, it might come down to trusting their fans and trusting their work. Do not sheepishly bet on a gimmick. As a programmer I know put it, “you need to be undeniable.” Do something grand and wonderful, be generous on stage, and your audience will follow you.
For fans and audiences, it is somehow more of an existential choice: daring to choose to give in to the emotion as it is offered, rather than resorting to nicely wrapped price-tagged packages, is not easily done when we are made to think that we should collect experiences like precious gemstones. It also means trusting your own curiosity, accepting to not like something, to lose time, to be bored. It means supporting smaller venues. It means being wrong sometimes. If you are going to a concert, it is to connect with people around you, to music that speaks to you. Give in to this feeling of human connection, of pure collective joy and rapture.
Trust it, let it enfold you. I promise it’s worth it.