A NEW tourism campaign Glasgow: Music Nonstop was launched this week to promote the city’s legendary music scene to visitors from across the UK, putting it back in the spotlight after a long period of it being shut down.
The campaign, developed by Glasgow Life’s Destination Marketing team and created with VisitScotland, lives up to its aim of showcasing the energy and vibrancy of the city’s unrivalled music offering whilst supporting the wider tourism, hospitality, and night-time industries to aid recovery.
Pre-pandemic, music events contributed an estimated £75million to the city’s economy every year with an average of 130 gigs taking place each week. As such, the music scene is vital to Glasgow’s recovery. An increase in music tourism will mean more people staying in hotels and visiting restaurants, bars, nightclubs, shops, galleries and museums.
People may come to Glasgow for one standout gig, but they stay for everything else that is going on alongside it, returning to the city when they realise one weekend isn’t long enough to discover all that’s on offer.
As well as music tourism to aid the recovery of the industry, there is nothing more important than maintaining the support of the people of Glasgow. We’ve all heard musicians and bands say that Glasgow is the best crowd they have every played to. Most of us think they say that to every city.
As someone who has worked in the music industry for over 30 years, been to gigs across the world and had my fair share of conversations with acts post-show, I can honestly say that they really mean it.
There is a unique energy that a Glasgow crowd brings to a show which is unparalleled across the world. People really do make Glasgow and it’s because of the people of Glasgow that the music scene is so strong. Without their love of live music and continued support of the venues in the city, Glasgow would struggle to compete against other cities and wouldn’t have the legacy that it does.
For reference, Glasgow is currently home to four of the busiest club and theatre venues in the world – O2 Academy, Barrowland, SWG3 and King Tut’s – and the unrivalled OVO Hydro regularly sits in the top 5 busiest arenas globally.
Glasgow is in the top 3 cities in the UK in terms of what is available for music fans and visitors to discover in the city. From the busker creating a singalong down Buchanan Street, the excitement of gig goers traveling on the Subway, entering one of the city's many famous music venues and seeing your favourite band walk on stage to rapturous applause, there really is no comparison when it comes to the music capital of Scotland. It is well and truly open for business.
By Geoff Ellis, CEO of DF Concerts
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