Aug 10, 2026 · 41 min · 11 segments
Not all music towns are built the same. While some cities have great music venues and timeless festivals, others are often overlooked are shut out by radius clauses and contract exemptions that…
Dave BrooksHost
Michael SevilleHost
Today, we're counting down the top 10 most underserved live music cities, both domestically and internationally.
I wanted to try and find a little theme song or soundbite for today's show about cities with really weak music scenes.
If I can find a good song about cities with bad live music scenes, maybe I can find a terrible song about great rock and roll towns.
It's also, you know, interestingly being considered throughout the years by major media outlets, which you don't have to pay any deference to, as one of the worst songs in rock and roll history.
The New York Times ripped it apart and when it came out and, and, and Rolling Stone, um, tore it apart for being basically a formulaic and derivative.
Um, there's actually, there's actually a super interesting story about why, how the song was created and, and maybe kind of why it ended up being so bad.
Um, according to some, um, It's a story that I'm not going to tell right here because we don't have time to get into that.
But I will say the only thing that can make that song 10 times worse would be if it changed its name to We Built This City and then in parentheses.
One international and the other domestic ranking the most underserved live music markets on the planet.
Think streaming numbers off the charts and venues nowhere to be found for all those people who stream music through Spotify.
Before we start, you know, I want to just give a quick note about how we came up with this list.
And to rank the markets, both North America, internationally, we created a simple market scoring equation, I should say, with the help of Claude Code that looked at streaming and engagement demand minus, you know, actual live touring supply.
Specifically, I cross-referenced four major data pillars for every market, right? There was demand density, which was based on Spotify's own kind of localized streaming numbers and active monthly listener accounts.
There's touring supply and frequency mapping actual concert history over the last several years, while also peering into a market's venue portfolio to measure available venue seed inventory, and look at things like show volume and how other major markets route or skip that market on tour.
I also looked at infrastructure gaps in the city that might have massive streaming numbers, kind of lack key mid-tier venues, like let's say a 3,000 to 5,000 capacity theater or a modern 15,000 seat arena.
And lastly, economic and purchasing power index, right? We wanted to factor in local entertainment spend and ticket yield potential, separating out people who listen to streams and those who are willing to spend, you know, kind of on the high-grossing ticket purchases.
So when you stack those variables together, you get a single market deficit score.
And according to how I calculated this, you know, a high score means a massive underserved fan base stars for live shows.
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Today, we're counting down the top 10 most underserved live music cities, both domestically and internationally.
I wanted to try and find a little theme song or soundbite for today's show about cities with really weak music scenes.
If I can find a good song about cities with bad live music scenes, maybe I can find a terrible song about great rock and roll towns.
It's also, you know, interestingly being considered throughout the years by major media outlets, which you don't have to pay any deference to, as one of the worst songs in rock and roll history.
The New York Times ripped it apart and when it came out and, and, and Rolling Stone, um, tore it apart for being basically a formulaic and derivative.
Um, there's actually, there's actually a super interesting story about why, how the song was created and, and maybe kind of why it ended up being so bad.
Um, according to some, um, It's a story that I'm not going to tell right here because we don't have time to get into that.
But I will say the only thing that can make that song 10 times worse would be if it changed its name to We Built This City and then in parentheses.
One international and the other domestic ranking the most underserved live music markets on the planet.
Think streaming numbers off the charts and venues nowhere to be found for all those people who stream music through Spotify.
Before we start, you know, I want to just give a quick note about how we came up with this list.
And to rank the markets, both North America, internationally, we created a simple market scoring equation, I should say, with the help of Claude Code that looked at streaming and engagement demand minus, you know, actual live touring supply.
Specifically, I cross-referenced four major data pillars for every market, right? There was demand density, which was based on Spotify's own kind of localized streaming numbers and active monthly listener accounts.
There's touring supply and frequency mapping actual concert history over the last several years, while also peering into a market's venue portfolio to measure available venue seed inventory, and look at things like show volume and how other major markets route or skip that market on tour.
I also looked at infrastructure gaps in the city that might have massive streaming numbers, kind of lack key mid-tier venues, like let's say a 3,000 to 5,000 capacity theater or a modern 15,000 seat arena.
And lastly, economic and purchasing power index, right? We wanted to factor in local entertainment spend and ticket yield potential, separating out people who listen to streams and those who are willing to spend, you know, kind of on the high-grossing ticket purchases.
So when you stack those variables together, you get a single market deficit score.
And according to how I calculated this, you know, a high score means a massive underserved fan base stars for live shows.
