AUSTIN, Texas -- "This is our last show," singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten said with a mixture of exultation and exhaustion during her final set at the South by Southwest Music Conference. "We made it -- we made it to Saturday!"

Van Etten was among 2000 bands and artists who performed at the 25th annual conference, which concluded Sunday. Many of those artists were like Van Etten, performing as many as seven or eight times during the week, sometimes several sets a day, all hoping to crash through the round-the-clock din that had saturated hundreds of venues clustered around 6th Street since last Tuesday. Austin becomes music's international capital once every year, and the conference has seen attendance skyrocket since it debuted in 1987. Back then it was a little grassroots gathering focused on Texas music, an earthier alternative to the then-dominant New Music Seminar in New York. In its first year, South by Southwest attracted 172 bands and 700 registrants. This year the number of bands hovered around 2,000 and registration exceeded 13,000.

The big music companies rolled out their heavy hitters to flog new albums or tours. Kanye West, the Strokes, Foo Fighters and TV on the Radio all performed in major showcases and big brands like Vice magazine and Perez Hilton hustled to outhustle each other by presenting the most must-see bands in invite-only parties. There there were were the inevitable "buzz" bands, up-and-comers who have generated mounds of media attention in recent months: the Los Angeles hip-hop collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, British soul balladeer James Blake, Chicago power-pop quartet the Smith Westerns. But as usual the heart of the festival was the artists striving for any sort of recognition at all, trying to transform a labor of love into a living.

AUSTIN, Texas -- So how's that Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger working out? Representatives of the music industry, including Ticketmaster CEO Nathan Hubbard and an attorney for the Department of Justice, showed up Friday at the South by Southwest Music Conference to discuss the biggest music business story of the last decade.

In general, the discussion was low-key and free of invective, even though a number of panelists had reason to feel otherwise, including independent promoters whose livelihoods are threatened by a Live Nation Entertainment conglomerate that dominates music ticketing, arena and stadium-level concert promotion, and manages some of the top acts on the circuit. Despite all signs pointing to a monopoly that could raise ticket prices, and ruin or at least undermine countless independent businesses, the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger was approved last year.

Though ticket prices have not skyrocketed and independent promoters such as Chicago-based Jam Productions and Los Angeles-based Mitchell Frank, who were represented at the panel, are still in business, it's too early to gauge the merger's impact, Chicago booking agent David Viecelli of the Billions Corporation said. "The threat of consolidation has yet to be realized," he said. "There are a lot of people in the industry who want to get their hands on ticket fees and surcharges, and it's not a good situation. The concert industry needs to be stripped down and rebuilt" rather than consolidated.

The slumping economy has forced promoters to tow the line on ticket prices, but that may not last as Ticketmaster moves to an open-market pricing model where ticket prices rise or fall depending on demand. The system will reinforce a hierarchy where only the wealthiest fans will be able to afford the best seats, Hubbard acknowledged.

But the Ticketmaster CEO insisted that the merger has been good for consumers in that it has allowed the company to build in greater efficiencies in the way it sells tickets. "Ticketmaster satisfaction is at an all-time high," he said, bringing chuckles from more than a few in the audience. He also deflected concerns that Ticketmaster is now able to share information about competitors with Live Nation by saying, "We talk to the Department of Justice every week about this issue, and we take it very seriously."

John Read, a Justice department attorney, confirmed that his department monitors compliance of the merger terms daily, which suggests an enormous amount of resources are being expended to make sure Live Nation Entertainment isn't gaining a competitive advantage.

"We haven't seen the big disaster" that some merger critics predicted, Read said. "Ticket prices have not gone through the roof. It's still early but so far things are OK."

Read also said that the Justice department has received "several complaints" about how Live Nation Entertainment does business, and each is being investigated. "We have not sued them yet for contempt," he said. Looking up at the audience he added, "The key to this (working) is to get information from you all" on how Live Nation does business.

greg@gregkot.com  

It’s been a tumultuous decade-plus for the music industry, with technology enabling more bands than ever to create and distribute their recordings, and more fans to listen to more music than at any time in history. With that as a backdrop, a number of trends emerged in 2010 that could have a major bearing on what comes next. Here are a few of the most prominent:

The Twitter bug: Increasingly, artists are usurping traditional media and going direct to their fans to break news, and you can’t get much more direct than Twitter. In 2010, artists ranging from Kanye West to the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne opened accounts and immediately attracted tens of thousands of followers. Rhymefest used the instant messaging network to announce his candidacy for 20th Ward alderman in Chicago. From behind his drum kit at “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” the Roots’ Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson punched out quips, critiques and behind-the-scenes details of daily tapings. And West turned tweeting into his own 140-character art form, whether providing blow-by-blow descriptions of the studio sessions for his latest album; musing about fashion, women and art; or venting his instant reaction to controversies such as his “Today Show” interview about former President George W. Bush.

Android chic: Futurism is in and pop entertainers are up to their bionic eyeballs in it. Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Janelle Monae, Robyn and Christina Aguilera all did variations on sci-fi themes and sexy robot characters on recent albums and tours. Black Eyed Peas hopped around like outer-space invaders on their latest arena jaunt. The trend goes hand-in-hand with the continued prominence of Auto-Tune on countless pop hits, which turns human voices into Hal, the robot from “2001: A Space Odyssey.” For many of these entertainers, it’s just an opportunity to play dress-up. But for Janelle Monae, the concept of “The ArchAndroid” has been part of her creative thinking for several years. “The android to me represents ‘the other’ in our society,” she says. “I can connect to the other, because it has so many parallels to my own life – just by being a female, African-American artist in today’s music industry. I have gone to predominately white or black schools, and tried to represent individuality, whereas some of the people around me were not. Whether you’re called weird or different, all those things we do to make people uncomfortable with themselves, I’ve always tried to break out of those boundaries. The android represents the new other to me.”

    In a lawsuit that puts a key component of the controversial Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger on trial, Jam Productions is aiming to cut ties with the nation’s top ticket agency in Chicago.

        The suit filed Monday in Cook County Circuit Court contends that Ticketmaster breached a contract to sell tickets at Park West, the Vic Theatre and the Riviera Theatre when the ticket agency merged this year with Jam’s competitor, Live Nation. 

    If Jam wins the suit and eTix, a North Carolina-based agency, is allowed to continue selling tickets at Jam-owned venues in lieu of Ticketmaster, consumers could benefit financially. On shows that sell for $40 or less, the differences between eTix and Ticketmaster service charges are relatively small. But eTix caps service fees at $8, whereas numerous Ticketmaster shows currently on the Chicago market have double-digit fees attached.

Audience members watch a music performance at Lincoln Hall, a smaller venue that's been successful in its first year open. (Tribune photo by Andrew A. Nelles)

The arena and amphitheater-level concert industry – a cornerstone of rock touring since the ‘60s – is slumping in what is normally its most profitable time of year.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Federal officials addressed concerns about such hot-button issues as the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger and net neutrality Thursday at the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference, but ended up raising far more questions than they answered.

 The merger of Live Nation, the nation's most powerful concert promoter, and Ticketmaster, the all-powerful ticketing agency, was approved a few weeks ago by the Justice Department's anti-trust divsion, headed by Christine Varney.

 Varney showed up Thursday to explain why she allowed the two companies to join forces and create a monolith of unprecedented proportion, one that could potentially dominate every aspect of the music industry, from concert ticketing to artist management. By merely showing up, she demonstrated a lot more respect for the music community than did the top guns at Ticketmaster and Live Nation, Irving Azoff and Michael Rapino, who were conspicuous by their absence (South by Southwest representatives said both executives were invited to speak but declined).

   Jerry Mickelson, the cofounder of Chicago-based concert promoter Jam Productions, took a day to absorb the impact of the $4.4 billion Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger, greenlighted Monday by the Department of Justice, and then spoke his mind.

    A deal to allow a merger between the two most powerful companies in the concert business, Live Nation and Ticketmaster, was reached Monday.

    Both companies agreed to conditions set by the Department of Justice pending court approval.  Canadian regulators and 17 attorneys general also signed on to the deal.