Thoughts on Numbers

[Marian Schedenig 11,695]

This post by Koray reminded me of a thread I've been meaning to start for over a year:

Sad that Family Plot didn't even sell 3,000 copies after all these years.

This is the Große Saal at the Wiener Konzerthaus:

It seats 1,865 people and is usually sold out at the now annual Hollywood in Vienna film music concert. That's 1,865 people from Vienna, Austria, Germany and other neighbouring countries who have at least some interest in film music that's strong enough to pay the ticket price (which has been consistently rising, a mid range ticket is about €50, with ground floor tickets going up to about €100).

Now obviously, not every single one of them is a fanatic like we here are. Some just want to hear some nice familiar melodies from films they like, some are there accompanying friends. Still, a significant percentage probably has an active interest in film music, and altogether there are 1,865 people with *some* interest in film music in the same place at the same time.

That's nearly twice as many people as there are printed CD copies of Abel Korzeniowski's score to Copernicus Star (1000) in the world. And not all of them have been sold.

It's nearly as many people as the number of La-La-Land's Jane Eyre and Tora! Tora! Tora! releases, two classic scores by two of the greatest and most famous film composers of the second half of film history. Take all sold copies of one of these releases and give one to each audience member and you might just not run out of CDs before everyone has one.

Which raises the question: How many of us actually are there in the world?

[JoeinAR 1,957]

it's one thing for people to attend a live concert with "interests in film music", it's another to try and parallel that to film music cd sales.

Thanks for the beautiful pics M.

[Quintus 6,496]

Which raises the question: How many of us actually are there in the world?

Less than 0.1% of the western world's population. But the incognisant fans are in their millions.

[JoeinAR 1,957]

also having an interest in film music doesn't mean you have an interest in all film music.

I love JW and don't have any interest in buying Family Plot.

[Marian Schedenig 11,695]

But consider the relations. These are people attending one concert, in one specific location, at a specific time, for a somewhat steep price for just three hours of live music and spectacle. On the other hand, buying these limited releases are all soundtrack fans all over the world, over a course of several years. And yet there's at most half as many copies of the much lauded Copernicus Star sold as there are people in that hall.

It also shows how very much the labels are dependent on us. Limited releases of 2000 or 3000 discs are a tiny number, and I'm sure each release that doesn't sell as well as expected is a significant financial blow to the producers.

[JoeinAR 1,957]

perhaps but this past weekend I was more than willing to shell out significant money to attend the A Night At the Movies performed by the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. I was paying for entertainment, not supporting a cause.

[BloodBoal 8,711]

[JoeinAR 1,957]

Some people only go to the concert for the free food.

no free food at this one.

[BloodBoal 8,711]

[Richard P 5,303]

You're comparing a concert of music that people know and love, with a CD by a largely unknown composer which most buyers are uncertain about.

I'm not in the least surprised that the CD has a hard time selling out.

[Marian Schedenig 11,695]

I'm just giving examples. Take the releases limited to 5,000 copies - few of those have sold out, and those include some major scores. I also didn't intend to directly correlate the number of people at these concerts to the number of film music fans. But consider: 5,000 copies of a popular score, not sold out - that means that in the whole world, there are less than 5,000 people who are such big fans that they would buy it. And that's still less than three times the people that fit into a concert hall - in other words: A really small number.

[JoeinAR 1,957]

yes but as we keep pointing out it's apples and oranges, or concert halls and cds

[BloodBoal 8,711]

[Koray Savas 2,260]

Awhile back I estimated <10,000 film score fans of some sort.

When you see 3,000 copies you don't think it's much, but then when something like SpaceCamp sells out in 20 hours, I think: Where the hell are these people? You'd think with such a small niche there'd be a club lounge or something. Add the members from here and FSM and the other boards and you maybe have 500 active film score fans.

[KK 3,313]

I'm just giving examples. Take the releases limited to 5,000 copies - few of those have sold out, and those include some major scores. I also didn't intend to directly correlate the number of people at these concerts to the number of film music fans. But consider: 5,000 copies of a popular score, not sold out - that means that in the whole world, there are less than 5,000 people who are such big fans that they would buy it. And that's still less than three times the people that fit into a concert hall - in other words: A really small number.

I think most people are unaware of the labels limited releases. At least, I know I had never heard of them before joining this forum.

I'm just giving examples. Take the releases limited to 5,000 copies - few of those have sold out, and those include some major scores. I also didn't intend to directly correlate the number of people at these concerts to the number of film music fans. But consider: 5,000 copies of a popular score, not sold out - that means that in the whole world, there are less than 5,000 people who are such big fans that they would buy it. And that's still less than three times the people that fit into a concert hall - in other words: A really small number.

I think most people are unaware of the labels limited releases. At least, I know I had never heard of them before joining this forum.

This.

I have some friends who have gotten into film music over the last year or 2, and they've never heard of any of the labels and limited releases. There's probably a large part of the niche that has no idea about the film music review sites or forums online.

[gkgyver 1,647]

Reading the original post, I thought this was going in a different direction, asking why few releases sell out when there are clearly enough people interested in film music to buy them.

I think some publicity work is in order.

[BloodBoal 8,711]

[Marian Schedenig 11,695]

Awhile back I estimated <10,000 film score fans of some sort.

When you see 3,000 copies you don't think it's much, but then when something like SpaceCamp sells out in 20 hours, I think: Where the hell are these people? You'd think with such a small niche there'd be a club lounge or something. Add the members from here and FSM and the other boards and you maybe have 500 active film score fans.

I think Koray understood what I meant. Forget the concert hall comparison, it was only an example, or, more accurately, what made me think about this in the first place.

The point of the concert hall was just this: 5,000 people is not that large a crowd. Another example, I attended Muse's concert at the Wiener Stadthalle last autumn. That hall holds 16,000 people, and it was obviously sold out. Of course Muse is one of the most popular bands in the world at the moment, and you can't compare the number of Muse fans to the number of film music fans. But the number of people who went to a single concert (of a long international tour) at a single day in Vienna is more than THREE times the number of people who will ever have a copy of, for example, La-La Land's Hook.

I think most people are unaware of the labels limited releases. At least, I know I had never heard of them before joining this forum.

Possibly. But then they're not in our category of fans - those who actively look for new/newly released music by this composers, and who monitor the internet to find them.

Consider this. Of course we're a niche. But we're a global niche. There's soundtrack fans all over the world, and plenty of them are obsessive, to one extent or another. We've had several people from Austria here over the years, a small country. I've personally *met* and become friends with several people from Austria through these boards and concerts, people who also monitor the label's websites and buy these releases. And yet, if you add all these people together, from the whole world, you end up with just a few thousand people.

And still there is not just one CD label entirely focused on finding, licensing, restoring, producing and releasing this stuff, but there are a few. All for a niche interest group so small that it probably pales in comparison to pretty any international interest group you could think of.

It just seems to me that we're a much rarer breed than we realise. And all the more lucky to have anyone at all who actually devotes his working life to our hobby.