Live music census tunes into health of European gigs

On October 11th, 2024, five major European cities: Vilnius, Heidelberg, Mannheim, Helsinki, and Lviv hosted the first-ever European Live Music Census. By bringing together local stakeholders, surveying audiences and venues, and tracking various musical performances in the participating cities, the initiative aimed to comprise a multi-sited snapshot of the health of the European live music scene in order to inform future policies.

The first-ever European live music census was conducted by researchers from the Horizon Europe project OpenMusE (2023—2025), with researchers from the University of Turku, the SINUS-Institute in Germany, Music Export Ukraine and Music Export Fund in Lithuania. The collaborative and interdisciplinary project seeks to enhance the European music ecology by making it more competitive, fair, sustainable, and transparent, through developing tools for measuring music's value and ensuring fair compensation.

"Whether viewed through an economic or a sociocultural lens, the live sector is crucial for all music ecosystem players. However, data gaps make its impact difficult to prove. This was the first time that researchers have attempted to map live music activity across major European cities on the same day. The results will inform policy-making across Europe for years to come." – Project leader James Rhys Edwards

Through combining survey data with on-the-night observations, the Census captured a snapshot of gigs and concerts in the five cities ranging from grassroots music to church choirs and from pub gigs to full-scale concerts. Building on the UK Live Music Census of 2017, the initiative aimed to measure live music’s sociocultural and economic value, in order to support and develop a sustainable live music scene both locally and across Europe.

Please tune in & learn more about the project by checking out the Census Aftermovie!

The first local report regarding the Census conducted in Helsinki was published 27 February and is available online:

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A series of snapshot interviews captures the diverse experiences and challenges of the local live music scene of Mannheim and Heidelberg. Find the videos below!

The anonymised datasets from all five cities are also available at our open access Dashboard – please feel free to explore and find out more:

View the Dashboard

For more information, please contact:

Shnapshots of the local live music scene of Mannheim and Heidelberg

During short video interviews in the German cities Mannheim and Heidelberg, the OpenMusE Live Music Census team asked local venue owners and managers and musical artists about their challenges and ideas on how to support the local live music scene.

At the Kazwoo, we talked to the owner Thomas, who made us fall in love with jazz and had creative ideas on how to better support young artists. The up and coming jazz pianist Noah talked about the lively jazz scene in Mannheim and its need for spaces to experiment.

At Filmriss Bar, we talked to manager Chris about the role his bar is playing in supporting young talent by giving them a stage, and to DJ Ruslan about how DJs contribute to the open and diverse music scene of Mannheim.

At Tiffany we talked to manager Maximilian about the challenges of attracting younger club-goers after the Covid-19 pandemic, and to two regular guests about the club’s role in bringing people from multiple generations together.

At youth center Jugendkulturzentrum Forum we talked to René Seyedi, who is responsible for promoting young and emerging musicians. He stressed the importance of providing a space, time, and funding, and of investing in young talent. We also talked to a group of young musicians that would like to see a more diverse music scene in Mannheim.

At Cafe Leitstelle Heidelberg, we talked to owner Katha, and her colleague Romy about the challenges of hosting live music events in Heidelberg and their need for more government support and less bureaucracy.