Tuning In: A data-driven exploration of the Ottawa music scene

By: Aidan Morris

• Releases and Creative Products
• Shows
• Music Scenes and Communities

Have you been in any of these situations: talking with your bandmates about the next release, chatting with friends at a show about the scene, or talking to your close friends about your favourite recent local releases? Has anyone ever told you that we’re in a “singles era”, while simultaneously talking about how much they loved the most recent local EPs? (new Neon Ghosthouse, Guest Room Status, or No Hits, etc.), or even LPs? (Sparrow’s Valley, Rockin’ Engine, Class of 91, etc.) Something about all these situations doesn’t line up. 

Messaging is even more murky on the internet. There are endless blog posts about “the best method to release your music” with examples of how they personally released their music, flaunting their millions of streams, while neglecting to mention the thousands spent on advertising or streaming bots. Or YouTubers using clickbait titles and thumbnails like “music scenes are dead,” or “how to get 1 billion streams in a week” with the tired rhetoric that everything has migrated online, and therefore as an artist you should primarily care about what is happening online — I don’t think they’ve been to Ottawa lately.

So what should you do as an artist with this deluge of anecdotes? Well, I put together an online survey to collect information from our local music community, real primary data which could inform us of what really matters to us. 

Before we get into it, there are a few things to note. First, the majority (74%) of the 53 respondents to the survey self-reported that they have some involvement with the local music scene, to varying degrees. Second, the opinions expressed in this piece are my own, and they do not reflect what you should or shouldn’t be doing, the music scene is not a monolith. Last, according to the internet, a 10% sample size is what ideally aimed for in statistics, and since Stats Can doesn’t collect information on the sizes of music scenes (boo), it is pure conjecture that our subsection of active members of the Ottawa music scene is 500+/- people. Also, I’m not certain whether this is a balanced sample of the total music scene population (if it is, then this is quite the sausage fest); take this information with a grain of salt. If you’re salty about this piece, or you think it’s fricken awesome, come tell me what you think in the Neighbourhood Noise discord server. 

With that out of the way, we can get into the juicy bits of this lengthy, potentially pseudo-scientific piece. Sincere thanks to everyone who took the time to complete the survey, hopefully this article is a worthy exchange for the time it took to complete the survey. Also, apologies for it taking so long to put together. 

To organize the article, I’ve grouped the findings into three overarching themes: Releases & Creative Products, Shows, and the Music Scene & Community. Let’s start with Releases and Creative Products. 

Theme one: Releases & Creative Products

Releases & creative products are your bread and butter as an artist. Whether they’re recordings, merch products, or otherwise; how you butter your bread is none of my business, but I can share how the wonderful people in our community tend to like it. 

Favourite genre 

Genre is a popular, and often controversial, topic amongst artists and music fans alike. It’s used to help define your musical identity; from your top 40 pop fan, to the trve kvlt black metal band. Genre is a powerful associative shorthand, through wearing a genre, your sound is given a clear definition to communicate to both masses and niche. The top 5 genres amongst survey respondents were rock, punk, pop, metal, and folk. If you’re having a hard time nailing down how to describe your sound, it might be worth throwing in some of these broad terms as descriptors.

Listening habits 

Where do people listen to your music? Whether out at a party, or behind the wheel driving to work the next morning, music is the soundtrack to your life. Where someone listens can often be as important as the music itself – “fitting the vibe,” if you will. Respondents listen to local music everywhere (yay!), but generally listening to local music tends to be a somewhat solitary activity. Respondents primarily listen at home, commuting, or at work/school. Something to definitely keep in mind when putting out your music. 

Content

Content – it’s a word that’s thrown around all the time, artists are supposed to make it and people are supposed to consume it. While all of us may not be fans of the term “content”, knowing what kind people enjoy locally is valuable information for us local artists. Overall, respondents tended to be most interested in EPs and albums, over singles or collaborations/splits. In contrast, they tended to be middle of the road on recordings of performances and least interested in vlogs/funny videos.  

Merch

From Walmart Nirvana shirts to limited run tees only sold on a specific tour, merch has been a part of the music scene since day one. Ensuring that you’re nailing your merch designs undoubtedly aids in establishing your credibility as an artist. Further entrenching the connection to your fans, allowing them to integrate your music to their identity (through how they choose to present themselves). When faced with reality, many artists ask themselves, what should I be offering? The survey data indicates that t-shirts, stickers, buttons & hats are the primary items which respondents have previously bought. This is not to discourage you from pursuing other forms of merch, rather this data is likely due to most merch tables only offering t-shirts and stickers. If you are confident that a specific item would appeal to your fans, then undoubtedly pursue it, but t-shirts and stickers are always a safe bet if you are uncertain of what kind of merchandise you should be offering.

Theme two: Shows

Shows are an integral part of the Ottawa music community. They bring people together in celebration of artistic labour. But what really matters when it comes to a show? What stands in the way of holding a successful event? Should I be posting more on social media, or be messaging my friends directly? If you’re at all like me, these questions swirl in your mind ad-nauseam. 

Show attendance

First off, knowing how frequently people are even willing to go out to a show is important information. While everyone loves a good show, are they willing to hit up to three shows in a weekend or just once every few months? The data indicates that over half (55%) of respondents will go to between 1–3 shows per month, or on average 22.6 shows per year. While thinking of putting on shows as a competitive undertaking makes me cringe, it’s important to realize that if you are putting on more than one show per month, and expect to have high repeat turnout, that your shows would be taking up over half of an individual’s average annual show quota alone. I’d also like to highlight here that this data is mostly from self-reported musicians, who are likely to be counting their own shows in this data. While we all want more people to come out to more shows, there is indeed an annual quota for how many mosh pits that people can frequent.

Also speaking of show volume, within the Neighbourhood Noise discord server, members try their best to share all of the upcoming shows, with a cursory glance there have been 358 links (show/ticket links) shared since December 2022, around 11 months ago at the time of writing, which roughly evens out to 32.5 shows per month. With an average of over 8 shows happening each week, this further highlights the point that most audiences are pretty selective about their show attendance.

Show attendance decision 

Speaking of audiences, what actually matters to them? What stands in the way of them showing up to every show under the sun? How much of their hard-earned  guap are they willing to drop on my sicko-mode show? What’s the difference between a mosh pit at the Dom and Astroworld? (sorry didn’t actually ask that one) (insert incredibly dark joke here LOL) https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/travis-scott-concert-deaths-compression-asphyxia-1.6288786) 

In terms of what matters to concertgoers, the most important aspect when deciding whether to go to a show were Genre & Artist (61% positive response), followed by Community & Friends (54% positive response). All other aspects were middling or skew negative.

This is not to say that the other categories don’t matter or are not worth the effort. For example, Advertising & Word of Mouth alone does not play a deciding role in the decision-making  process, but it is integral to informing attendees about upcoming shows. If your show attendance has been waning, or you’d like to increase your attendance, make sure that you are appealing to people who are fans of the type of music you are playing and/or have a strong community of friends who would be interested in coming out to support.

Favourite aspect of local shows

In terms of set length, a 45 minutes set is the clear front-runner  among respondents (24) followed by 30 minutes (17 respondents). While this is very dependent upon what your specific crowd and genre demand, many also mentioned that 30 minutes for openers and 45 minutes for headliners is the optimal arrangement.

When asked what their favourite aspect of local shows was when they actually get there, respondents clearly identified that the music takes precedence, followed by the social aspects (being social/community) followed by having fun. 

Ticket Prices

Good news is that the vast majority (95%) of respondents find tickets affordable. With all respondents paying between $11 to $20, with the majority (66%) between $16-$20. Though the majority (69%) would prefer to pay less than $16-$20. This is important to keep in mind, as keeping shows affordable, while still profitable or worth the effort, is an integral part to the health of any music scene. Further, the majority (68%) of respondents indicate that they do not have any issues accessing local music events,  either due to location or affordability. This indicates that current ticket prices have approximated an equilibrium price, where it is both profitable enough for music industry workers, while also affordable for the majority of concertgoers. Increasing prices any more would decrease attendance,  reducing profitability, while lowering prices would see shows become less profitable with diminishing returns in incentivizing attendance. Generally,  this is known as price equilibrium.

Venues

The bedrock of any music scene, but what really matters when choosing a venue to host your event? In terms of frequented stomping grounds, SAW Centre, LIVE! on Elgin, The Rainbow, and House of Targ top the list. This is not to imply that other venues are not comparable, rather that these are the most widely frequented. In terms of desirable venue characteristics: sound quality, location and atmosphere hold the highest positive response. Further, there may be some advantage to be found in the related aspects of location and familiarity with a venue: the fact that the top 10 most familiar venues coincide with location being one of the top 3 characteristics 

Theme three: Music Scene & Community

The last, but not least, juicy section of this article – what we’re all here for – what do people think of the music scene?

Important aspects of a local music scene

Starting off with the basics, among respondents, the most important aspect of a local music scene is Diversity & Inclusion, with an  82% positive response and a mere 3% negative response (bro who would negatively vote against D & I) . This may come as a surprise to some, but it makes sense, you need people to make a community and communities need diversity and inclusion to necessarily exist. You might have thought that music would be most important, though it follows as the second most important aspect, with a 76% positive response and a 12% negative response. Roughly equivalent, at least in net positive response, venues were the third most important aspect of a local music scene.  

Who makes up our community?

When conducting surveys it is common knowledge that demographic information is often the hardest to collect, as people are often hesitant with disclosing this information. This is completely understandable, disclosing how much money one makes, what industry they work in, or what neighbourhood they live in, are generally uncomfortable questions. I was surprised though, a large portion of respondents were comfortable with sharing this information, which provides a better understanding of the life circumstances in which people in our lovely community exist.

Age

The gender distribution skewed heavily male, with 33 responding male, 15 female, 3 non-binary and 1 prefer not to say. If I were to redo this survey, or perhaps distribute it more effectively, there would likely be a better distribution. Thankfully,  there was a pretty even distribution of ages. There is definitely a large contingent of the local scene who are in their early 20s or younger, and that it may be worth considering trying to play more all ages events to facilitate their participation.

Location 

The distribution of respondents geographically was fairly concentrated around Centretown, though perhaps this is unsurprising as there is a certain ease which enables music scene participation when you live close to where it all happens. Though this concentration is by no means absolute, respondents live all over the city and surrounding communities. When considering where to hold events or gather with other scene folks, most music oriented people in Ottawa congregate towards Centretown.

Work

Perhaps also unsurprising as Ottawa is the capital of the country that there is a strong concentration in the public sector, followed by private. For those who are unaware, the public sector usually refers to working for the government, whether that be municipal, provincial, or federal. While the private sector refers to working for a company or for-profit organization. This may be most relevant when considering your audience, that a large quantity of people in the scene will actively know the pains of working in a large bureaucracy, or the specific ennui that comes with golden handcuff style jobs, that the pension, pay and stability outweighs the need to manifest one’s own passions on their work. 

Income

In terms of how this translates to income, which is notably one of the most difficult data points to collect, there is a large diversity in terms of reported annual incomes among respondents. I think it is fair to say that there is a larger concentration below $60,000 per annum, which is definitely something to keep in mind when considering how much it costs to be a participant within the music scene. This is not to suggest that pricing should be changed to accommodate this observation, rather backs the price equilibrium claim above, that significant pricing changes would be detrimental.

You did it! 

You made it to the end of this insanely long article! I would like to start this conclusion with thanking you for reading, for completing the survey and for being active members of our wonderful music scene. I hope this analytical foray provided some answers, or at least context, to some of your burning questions. Further, I would like to thank Dave from Guest Room Status for editing this piece, as it would not be nearly as readable without him. I hope to follow up this article with perhaps some deeper analysis, likely cross tabulation and identification of archetypes/profiles present within the scene and/or a digestible video speaking to these points, if you would be interested in this, please share this article with your community minded friends. 

Until then, I wish you the best in your musical endeavours.