The majority of the German concert business operates solely in the domestic market and there are only a very few agencies and promoters doing business abroad. International Booking Department (IBD) is one of the very few German agencies that books tours throughout Europe. Sabine Waltz, together with her business partner Andrea Scholz, has run the Munich based agency (IBD) for over 15 years. Their artist roster includes acts like Dub Syndicate, Wire, UK Subs and Zodiac Mindwarp amongst others.

According to Waltz, IBD tours and concerts on the German concert market do not achieve the same results as gained abroad. The reasons for this should be of interest to promoters both in and outside of Germany. IBD are, so far, the only agency that we know of to raise the issues referred to in this interview, so it may be too early to regard this as a developing trend. Vip News will double check to see if other companies are affected by similar developments.

Vip News: What do you think are the reasons for this situation?

Waltz: One major factor is that after the Euro exchange the average ticket price for a regular club show in Germany went up to between €12 and €15, before it was 13-18 DM, this means we are talking about rises of 100 % or more at a time when we have a difficult economic situation in Germany. Also we definitely have too many bands and shows, more than in other countries, I am talking about small to mid size independent acts and in these days kids no longer take chances attending these types of concerts, they only go and see bands they know. They are not like us when we were this age and went out to shows more often, even if we had no clue about the artists. These days the audience is less flexible; they do not have the money, and high ticket prices are definitely not going to help. By the way, some costs went up when the Euro arrived, but many expenses went down, Hotel costs for instance.

Vip News: Have particular acts suffered from these problems?

Waltz: Laibach is a good example; the pre-sale average in Germany was between 50 and 70 tickets, abroad it would have been between 200 and 350. This is not normal, Germany used to be one of the biggest market for Laibach. The average attendance for the Fuzztones for instance in Germany should have been 100 visitor per show, outside of Germany 400, even without a new record release. I can go on and on, it's pretty much the same for every band. Besides that, German promoters are sort of 'tired of booking'; they complain much more and most of them are not willing to pay a guarantee anymore. They try to cut the costs down as much as possible, I don't blame them, but maybe everyone should start to think about why and start to change things. Germany suffers from a lack of flexibility, not only on the political but in general, this has always has been a typical 'German problem'.

Vip News: Would you say that ticket prices are more or less equal in Europe now?

Waltz: No they are not, ticket prices outside of Germany have always been lower, they certainly went up a little bit since the Euro, but at the most 30 %, not like the 100% and more in Germany.

Vip News: What kind of consequences do you expect this will have for the German concert market?

Waltz: Well, I can see less bands touring over here; I personally book 80 % of my shows outside of Germany now, I'd rather do 3 shows instead of 15 like a few years ago; I can't put the effort into doing 10 door deals in Germany when I have the opportunity to do 10 shows abroad for good money and better results. Check this out, this year you could still get a ticket for the Rolling Stones for €20 at ebay, a few years ago people had to pay two or three times more on the black market, because the show was sold out, but not this time.

Vip News: How does this affect your business and what kind of measures are you taking to compensate for this development?

Waltz: IBD is a European booking agency; we don't have any negative effects. As I said, we will do more and more shows outside of Germany until things change. You simply cannot make money in Germany anymore, Spain for instance has grown up a lot over the last two years, Scandinavia was always good, France is catching up, as is Portugal. We do business all over Europe and North America and we can live without Germany for a few years or however long it takes, I hope it will change soon but in the meantime I cannot sit around and wait, we all have to move on.

Vip News: Do the corporate concert companies like CTS Eventim or DEAG have an impact to your business?

This year we had acts playing at Roskilde, All Tomorrows Party, De Benicassim and Pukkel Pop just to name a few. We did great business with international festivals, but we had no performance on German festivals. CTS & DEAG certainly run the market, but so does Clear Channel in Sweden or Belgium and IBD has no problems at all getting acts on their festivals. We have a very good and long term relationship with bookers in various countries and they at least still book smaller acts they and their audience will like, without having to have connections to Agents and Labels. CTS or DEAG might have an impact on our festival business in Germany only, but I am able to survive without this, as I am not going to play games just to have Wire on anSouthside early stage for no money.

Vip News: It seem like that the club circuit abroad is in better shape than in Germany. Could this be because clubs in Holland, France or Switzerland benefit from subsidies?

Waltz: Not really. Subsidies are getting cut down everywhere. Certainly clubs abroad still 'at least' do get some subsidies, but not very much and not all of them. The music scene is simply in a better shape, they are not doing such a large amount of shows and they are less expensive compared to Germany. Please bare in mind, that an average ticket price for a club show is between €8 and 10; this makes a big difference. Certainly major cities like London, Paris or Stockholm also suffer from the 'overkill syndrome' like Berlin and Hamburg, but still in Hamburg you may have 6 shows on one day; Stockholm does not even have that many clubs...