🔗 Share this article

Picture having a night off. You feel refreshed, open to experience, and hoping to shake up your regular habits of relaxing at home. The world is your oyster! Could you choose a) seeing live music or b) having sex? The answer, as is often seen with these types of hypotheticals, is clearly: “That depends.” Reasonable people might logically wonder: what's the concert? Who is the companion? Will it be expected to be enjoyable?

Not many would choose a intense rock concert if the alternative was one enchanted evening with Jonathan Bailey. However tweak any part of the scenario, and it becomes less clearcut. For the thousands surveyed posed this query by a live event company, no such clarification was given – and the response came out decisively and strongly in favour of concerts.

Survey Results Indicate Interesting Preferences

An international study, interviewing a large sample aged between 18 and 54 across different nations, showed that concerts have become the number one leisure activity, ranking above athletic events, films and – indeed – sex. If restricted to a single form of enjoyment permanently, 39% of respondents selected live music, compared to watching movies (17%) and games (14%). The group was significantly more as inclined to choose attending their preferred performer live (70%) rather than sex (30%).

You arrive hopeful of being pleasantly surprised – and frequently you might find with someone else’s hair in your mouth

Context and Considerations

Naturally it’s not surprising that a promotional study carried out for a gig organizer should come out so overwhelmingly supporting concerts – and, in the freewheeling spirit of a would-you-rather, if your favourite artist is, for example Paul McCartney, one can appreciate why watching him may be chosen rather than a ordinary experience. However this either-or decision between live music or sex, clearly absurd as it is, is noteworthy to reflect on considering the strange juncture we face with each.

The Change of Concert Culture

Over the past few years, live music participation has grown beyond a communal experience but a serious endeavor. Live organizations appropriately highlight that large venue turnout has “grown significantly annually”, and music festivals sell out quicker than before. Merely acquiring passes now needs extensive preparation, rapid-fire response times and deep finances (or a generous credit card limit). Even if you succeed, that alone won't do to just show up and enjoy the show. There’s now an assumption, particularly with concertgoers, that you might enhance your experience quality by attending more than once (even travelling internationally), studying the set list beforehand and understanding the rituals to perform and calls-and-responses developed through earlier audiences.

Many concertgoers admit to shaken by their experience at popular events: what felt like a orchestrated show of massive crowds, to which some individuals came unfamiliar with the protocol. The extended tour, earning massive sums, was proof of the degree to which people will go to participate in a significant event and watch their preferred performer sing, even if the live sound appears more and more secondary to the production.

The Situation of Current Relationships

Sex, on the other hand – an affordable and common experience – experiences difficult times. Per contemporary studies, about a quarter of people had sex in an average week, while about three in ten were abstaining. In a different nation, modern figures showed that over a quarter of individuals said they had not sexual activity a single time in the previous year, rising from lower numbers in earlier years. Across these regions, the change has been linked to decreased encounters in youth demographics. Juxtapose this with the industry expanding rapidly for stadium extravaganzas and the cutthroat competition for admissions. Certainly it's more complicated as a simple decision between either option – “could you choose attend a huge concert repeatedly, or stay celibate?” – but it’s perhaps an sign of which is perceived as the more dependable pleasure.

Surprising Parallels

Intimacy and concerts are more comparable than one may assume. Each symbolizes the commencement of a bond, a actual experience of ideas or possibility that might have amassed solely in your imagination. You come with a general notion of what might happen, but expecting to be pleasantly surprised – and if it turns out good or bad rests largely on how your vibe and hopes correspond with partners. Regularly you might find with a stranger's hair in your mouth, and afterwards be waiting around for a break and a moment alone alone. Similarly for each, stimulants and beverages can sometimes improve or lessen the experience (but certainly help the worst experiences easier to weather).

Finding the Balance

The appeal to both gigs and sex hinges on finding that perfect combination between comfort and excitement, consistency and change, effort and ease. Certainly it occurs infrequently – but it's the recollection of successful moments, the understanding that it can happen, that inspires us to attempt once more: to {