Gig venues losing tour dates

Recent figures show the number of gigs at major UK venues has dropped significantly in the past year.

The number of gigs taking place in big UK venues has almost halved in the last year according to Tixdaq.

One of the major factors causing the decline, is the opening up of new markets in South East Asia and Eastern Europe. More and more artists are flooding to these new markets, taking part in several gigs in these areas on one trip. The music festival in Manila is just one example of this new market. Bands like The Maine, This Century and The Pretty Reckless have all played at the festival this year and the bands keep going back for shows.

A problem with UK venues according to AEG Live are the size of UK venues. "It's facilities - it's as simple as that. In Murrayfield, it's 55,000 people in a city the size of Edinburgh.

"How many groups can sell 55,000? As a band or as a punter you don't want to be there with 20,000. It's miserable."

It's true bands never want to see a load of empty seats, especially those still growing as bands or artists.

One of the UK's leading rock bands, You Me At Six just played their biggest headline show ever on Saturday (8/12/12) at Wembley Arena. The reason for doing so was that it was their final night of their Sinners Never Sleep album cycle and the last that we'll hear of the band until 2014. It was this that helped the concert to sell out. Its doubtful that we'd be seeing them play a venue the size of Wembley Arena every show, despite them becoming one of the UK's biggest rock bands of the moment.

For a lot of artists it seems that they prefer to play small gigs. British rock band, Young Guns, played the Festival Republic tent and Reading and Leeds in the summer and in a number of interviews said they preferred playing to an overflowing tent than their opening set on the main stage in 2010.

Reading and Leeds Best Bits

Some of the best performances from Reading 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqAMFTpqQDk&feature=related muse

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lleP4Uf10wU my chemical romance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0vDBnlzTNE 30 seconds to mars

Reading and Leeds

After watching Reading and Leeds highlights on BBC I was so gutted I couldn't be there. Muse looked incredible and I definately have to go see them live at some point. My Chemical Romance were also good.

30 Seconds To Mars were amazing and I've realsied what an amazing band they are. I've always liked them, but seeing them at Reading made me think "wow these guys are good". Despite being on tour for almost two years, frontman Jared Leto still managed to sound ace.