The marketing of concerts in London 1672–1749
Journal of Historical Research in Marketing
ISSN: 1755-750X
Article publication date: 3 September 2020
Issue publication date: 24 November 2020
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the nature of the marketing of concerts 1672–1749 examining innovations in the promotion and commodification of music, which are witness to the early development of music as a business.
Design/methodology/approach
The study takes as its basis 4,356 advertisements for concerts in newspapers published in London between 1672 and 1749.
Findings
Musicians instigated a range of marketing strategies in an effort to attract a concert audience, which foreground those found in more recent and current arts marketing practice. They promoted regular concerts with a clear sense of programme planning to appeal to their audience, held a variety of different types of concerts and made use of a variety of pricing strategies. Concerts were held at an increasing number and range of venues with complementary ticket-selling locations.
Originality/value
Whilst there is some literature investigating concert-giving in this period from a musicological perspective (James, 1987; Johnstone, 1997; McVeigh, 2001; Weber, 2001; 2004b; 2004c; Wollenberg, 1981–1982; 2001; Wollenberg and McVeigh, 2004), what research there is that uses marketing as a window onto the musical culture of concert-giving in this period lacks detail (McGuinness, 1988; 2004a; 2004b; McGuinness and Diack Johnstone, 1990; Ogden et al., 2011). This paper illustrates how the development of public commercial concerts made of music a commodity offered to and demanded by a new breed of cultural consumers. Music, thus, participated in the commercialisation of leisure in late 17th- and 18th-century England and laid the foundations of its own development as a business.
Keywords
Citation
Harbor, C. (2020), "The marketing of concerts in London 1672–1749", Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 449-471. https://doi.org/10.1108/JHRM-08-2019-0027
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited