One of the things that got me to stop focusing on performing in 2016 was this shift from 15 minute sets to 10 minute sets everywhere.
It got to a point where I started getting in trouble with local promoters because they’d tell me 3 songs and I’d do like 15 minutes. Then I found out 3 songs meant only 10 minutes. Given the rock inspired nature of my older catalogue, very little was under 3 minutes in length.
To this day I sometimes catch myself overthinking when a song is super short. As enough time has passed, my preferences evolved to stop caring so much. That is until it’s time for the live show.
The live show isn’t about the studio or the song performance. It’s about curating an experience that’s dope enough to sell tickets to. It’s its own beast in and of itself.
But while rappers, or the promoters, love short sets, the fans really don’t seem to like it.
Imagine a scenario where homie is pitching you a rap show
You got someone who hits you up and is a close buddy, or an acquaintance, not important.
They start telling you about this show they are performing at. It’s very exciting and it would mean the world for you to come support them. So you choose to go support your homie.
You spend about an hour of your time travelling. You pay the 20$ cover charge and buy a few drinks. You sit there waiting for a show to start that will probably start late, in a room that is empty because half the performers still haven’t arrived.
Finally the show gets going and you wait patiently through a sea of music you never heard. Some of it’s actually dope and you are surprised. Some of it may be trash. Either way everyone is just doing 2 songs then getting off.
It’s quick paced and you are finding it hard to remember what you just saw.
Finally your boy gets on stage and 8 minutes later they are done. Now they are celebrating in post show glory and the barrage of names doing small sets continues. Your friend has performed, you lose interest and go home.
The next time you get asked you want to be supportive but it feels like a whole lot to go out and watch the only person you care about on the lineup do 10 minutes.
So the next time around you don’t go.
Some people are there for the culture, most are their for the person they came to see
In a beautiful world we could throw a genre name on a flyer and it would signal to the world it was a fire event.
In real life people look at the flyers and see a bunch of names they don’t recognize. While hearing new music in a live environment is fun for some of us, gambling on artists is not everyone’s idea of a good time. A lot of people are literally only there to see the one person they are trying to support.
When they are fans of the person they are trying to support it gets doubly worse for it to be such a short set. People really do some cost analysis that takes into account time entertained for the cost. Video gamers have that shit down to a science.
If someone wants to see me perform, they want to get a good performance. From my experience anything under 15 minutes is very hard to sell. Stuff above 30 minutes is new territory but I like that 25-30 minute set length. I get to cycle through a bunch of songs and the people spending money to see me perform get to actually see me perform.
I want to give my fans the best show I can. This includes all the theatrics, rants and speeches I can get up to. Sometimes that stuff can eat 5 minutes of a set.
The more time I have to play with, the more I can curate an experience that the people paying to see me can remember.
In general, for better or for worse, we remember the longer sets we see.
A lot of the short set strategy is based on sales tactics not user experience
The decision to shorten set length usually comes down to money.
On a traditional level, a bunch of artists used to do snippets of songs on a mixtape. Run through a bunch of 90 second cuts. Then be like come cop the album in the back, in real time.
Fair enough, that makes sense. It also ties into a whole bunch of Caribbean performance culture I don’t fully get.
The thing is most of these modern showcases and things with short sets aren’t about that. They are about trying to fill a room because people can’t sell no tickets. When you have like 8-12 rappers, and each one brings 3-4 people, the room is full enough the bar isn’t mad at the promoter.
I’m fully cognizant that if I’m doing a 30 minute set and there are 4-5 people on the lineup, we all need to bring like 10 folk just to hit the same number. Still I feel like if we created a well marketed experience focused on hyping up those 4-5 people, we could achieve that goal a lot easier than seeing a bunch of flash in the pan performance.
Anyway a lot of people use the really short rapper set format and I don’t think it really makes that much sense.
Maybe we should aim to level up our live games.
Live Long and Prosper Everyone
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