The Return of Live Events: Why Concerts and Festivals Are Bigger Than Ever

The year 2019 dealt a big blow to human relations and interaction. Surviving the COVID-19 pandemic became a movement of living in the moment. After so many months and years of living as islands, people began to connect again, and even better. This is very important in the discussion of the resurgence of live events.

 Concerts and festivals, although very similar, vary in many ways. Around the 17th and 18th centuries, there were musical performances by artists, often renditions. Concerts were where people could gather to see such performances. A formal definition of "concert" by Britannica is a social institution for the public performance of music outside a dramatic or religious context. 

Concerts began during the Baroque period, an era of dominant Western classical music between the years 1600 and 1750. It was in the Classical period of Mozart and Beethoven that concerts were much patronized; however, the first charge for admission into a concert was at the first public concert by violinist John Bannister in 1672. Handel and Pepusch were also great performers at concerts.

Through each musical period up to the 20th century, musical composers performed at concerts, but it was after World War II that concerts began to evolve. This evolution exploded at the end of the 20th century in spite of the preference of classical music, orchestras, etc., to contemporary compositions.

With the aid of technological advancements, concerts in the 21st century have completely evolved into a different attention for a different kind of music. They have gone from just stages only to screens, increasing audience engagement while utilizing virtual reality and streaming platforms. Examples of famous concerts include Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres Tour, Beyoncé’s Formation World Tour, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, etc.