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Imagine being gifted with a open night. You feel energized, open to experience, and looking to change your typical schedule of post-work slumping. The world awaits your choice! Do you opt for a) seeing live music or b) being with a partner? The outcome, as is often true with such kinds of questions, is plainly: “That depends.” Thinking adults might logically wonder: what's the gig? With whom is the partner? Is it expected to be good?

Not many would pick a intense rock concert if the alternative was one enchanted evening with Jonathan Bailey. Yet change either end of the comparison, and it turns less obvious. For the participants presented with this choice by a live event company, no additional clarification was given – and the response came out decisively and strongly in favour of concerts.

Survey Results Reveal Surprising Preferences

An international study, polling 40,000 people from 18 and 54 across multiple countries, found that concerts are now the number one leisure activity, beating out games, cinema and – yes – intimacy. Given the choice to a single form of enjoyment permanently, 39% of respondents picked live music, versus watching movies (17%) and sports events (14%). They were also more than twice as inclined to prefer watching their top musician on stage (70%) instead of intimacy (30%).

You show up anticipating pleasantly surprised – and quite often you could wind up with another person's locks in your mouth

Perspectives and Analysis

Of course it makes sense that a marketing research conducted for a live event company should come out so strongly in favour of gigs – and, in the freewheeling spirit of a would-you-rather, if your preferred musician is, for example a legendary singer, one can appreciate why watching him could prevail instead of a common or garden encounter. Yet this binary choice between concerts or intimacy, clearly absurd even if it seems, is noteworthy to consider considering the strange point we experience with each.

The Change of Live Music Experience

In recent years, gig-going has grown beyond a communal experience but a intense competition. Event companies appropriately highlight that arena crowds has “increased threefold year-over-year”, and festivals sell out faster than ever. Just obtaining admissions now demands extensive preparation, rapid-fire response times and significant funds (or a generous credit card limit). Although you succeed, it’s not enough to just show up and watch the performance. There’s now an expectation, particularly with concertgoers, that you could increase your experience quality by going multiple times (potentially going abroad), learning the song selection ahead of time and knowing your marks to follow and fan traditions developed through earlier audiences.

Many fans describe being shaken by their experience at popular events: appearing as a choreographed performance of huge audiences, where some individuals arrived not knowing the steps. The extended event, producing huge revenue, showed of the extents that fans will travel to participate in a cultural moment and watch their preferred performer sing, although the real performance seems increasingly overshadowed by the spectacle.

The Condition of Contemporary Sexuality

Sex, by contrast – an accessible and accessible pleasure – faces dire straits. According to recent surveys, nearly one in four of people had sex in an typical week, while nearly 30% were sexually inactive. Elsewhere, recent data revealed that a significant portion of people said they had not sexual activity even once in the past year, up from smaller percentages in the past. In both territories, the shift has been attributed to reduced intimacy among younger people. Contrast this with the industry expanding rapidly for stadium extravaganzas and the fierce battle for admissions. Certainly it's more complicated as a basic option between one or the other – “would you rather attend a huge concert repeatedly, or avoid intimacy?” – but it's possibly an signal of which is perceived as the more reliable pleasure.

Interesting Comparisons

Relationships and gigs are more comparable than people often believe. Both represent the initiation of a connection, a real-world test of impressions or promise that might have amassed just in your mind. You arrive with some idea of the probable outcome, but anticipating happily shocked – and how it ends up enjoyable or disappointing depends very much on whether your energy and hopes align with others. Quite often you might find with another person's locks in your mouth, and following be lingering for a smoke and some quiet time alone. Likewise with either, stimulants and beverages can either enhance or lessen the event (but certainly help the most unpleasant experiences more bearable).

Finding the Balance

The wonder to both gigs and sex depends on finding that hard-to-find balance between the known and the new, sameness and variation, effort and ease. Certainly it happens only rarely – but it's the remembrance of when they did, the knowledge that it’s possible, that inspires us to give it another shot: to {