When do bands have to play at bigger venues?
 

The title of the thread is the question, so let me here your responses. The only reason I ask is because some bands I do enjoy are selling out wayyy to quickly at medium sized venues. Would this mean bands have to make an upgrade to some sort of arena center or did a lot of fans just want to go to that one show at the smaller venue? When do you think it's time for that band to take it's next step?

As a business strategy, yeah, play at a bigger venue. But when the money comes as a first priority, ahead of the music, that's when bands start getting ****ty, IMO. See the sellout thread, in my mind this issue is somewhat related.

But I always found a sort of beauty in bands, famous or not, who play, or still play, at small bars in the middle of no where.

O for sure, I think the smaller venues give a way better sound. Whereas at the HUGE venues you almost don't even feel like your at the show.

^Exaaaactly. Music, good music anyhow (though that's subjective), to me, always has an intimate sort of feeling to it. And I'm not talking about track one, side one of Let's Get It On... just the ambience of the stuff, y'know? The people who seem to get that always seem to show up at the smaller places. A bond is formed and that, to me, is one of the main purposes of beautiful music.

Alive @ 5, in Albany on the riverfront, is a great example. Free show. Good people, most off skid row for the free atmosphere, and mostly good tunes.

I think it just has to deal with location and the options they have to choose from.

I'd say it's probably for the money, but it might be like an ego thing too.

I hate stadium shows, but I dont mind big outdoor venues. And I agree about the intamacy, plus stadium shows often have seats, so you cant really get into it. Even if a band I really like is playing a stadium, I refuse to go, Id rather just put on their album and turn the volume up to 10, and make believe Im there.

As far as that question, I guess popularity. For example, I saw Of Montreal last October and they played this place called The Roxy in Boston, a small/medium sized venue. However for the Skeletal Lamping tour, they're playing this theatre type place, which is a more sizeable venue. I just dont know if it based on album sales, buzz, concert sales, merch, etc. though.