This year Ticketmaster has teamed up with one of the UK’s leading voices in grime, Disrupt, and the Black Music Research Unit at the University of Westminster to undertake the first ever comprehensive study on public attitudes towards grime music. The State of Play: Grime report assesses the impact of the genre on the mainstream, revealing that it’s now an established part of British culture with a direct effect on the political establishment.
See the full State of Play: Grime report here now and read below for some highlights.
Grime is mainstream
Grime music has taken hold of the UK as research shows three in four (73%) of the British public are aware of grime, with 43% listening to it. One in five (22%) consider themselves grime fans and 13% of the UK population has attended at least one grime event in the past three years. These stats explain the uptick in the number of grime events sold by Ticketmaster in 2017, quadrupling since 2010, and is currently at a record high.
The findings clearly show that grime events attendance has been on the increase since 2014, with more people attending each year. According to the data, this looks set to continue, with 69% likely to attend another grime event in the next year.
Furthermore, according to a recent BPI report, album sales for grime music between 2016 and 2017 also grew faster than the total UK music market in the same period (93% v 6%).
Most streamed grime artists on Spotify from 2016 to 2017
- Stormzy
- Skepta
- Dizzee Rascal
- JME
- Bugzy Malone
- Wiley
- Lethal Bizzle
- Kano
- Chip
- Big Narstie
Stormzy dominates as 2017’s most streamed artist on Spotify and when asked, 47% of grime fans said the Croydon MC is their favourite grime artist. Streams of grime music on Spotify have more than doubled in the last year, rising from 89 million streams in 2016 to 206 million streams in 2017.
Fans’ spending habits
According to Ticketmaster data, most grime fans tend to purchase tickets closer to the event date, however, 2017 saw a shift towards earlier purchasing, closer to the ticket onsale dates. Respondents are also willing to spend more on tickets than they are currently spending on Ticketmaster, with 17% suggesting they’d be willing to spend over £100 on tickets for grime gigs.
Around a third of grime attendees (37%) purchased their tickets from a large ticketing site, mostly for big grime events, such as stadium tours or festivals. The findings show that half of attendees (53%) are willing to purchase from a large ticketing site for all grime events – be it small, big or a festival.
You can read the full State of Play: Grime report here – and check out upcoming grime artists and events along with the latest grime news at Ticketmaster.co.uk/grime.
