ABSTRACT
While the relationships between venues, artists, promoters, and other musical and industry practitioners are central to any live music “ecology,” they do not exist in a vacuum. The actions and decisions of policymakers are also crucial factors in the health, or otherwise, of local and national live music provision. The state, whether through local or national government, can act promotionally or repressively, or points in between—often simultaneously, and rarely consistently. This chapter examines the tensions across interventionist and deregulatory tendencies in policy that affects live music, as technological affordances and shifting industry dynamics have pulled live music closer to the center of legislative priorities. The particularities of live music lead to tensions between local and national priorities, such as over licensing, and between broadly laissez-faire governments and the drive toward consumer protection, such as over ticketing. With increasing calls for regulation and statutory bodies to protect venues, the consumption of live music is framed in terms of both its economic contribution and its innate social and cultural value. The examples in this chapter highlight these countervailing pulls in the regulation of live music, and the emerging challenges for policymakers and researchers alike.
