Listening to the podcast from a couple of weeks ago (I'm a bit slow) about the state of the record and live music industries I had a rather good idea.
As Hepworth rightly pointed out, if you have a bad gig experience who do you complain to at the end of the night? Barely a week goes by without someone posting on this forum some unpleasant gigging experience they've had, from bad sound to tardy performers and chattering fellow punters.
The music industry now survives because of its live revenue, so perhaps they should start taking their customers a little more seriously.
So I propose a watchdog to look out for our rights. An independent organisation that puts pressure on venues and performers to give us our money's worth. Someone who will pick up our complaints. Someone who will campaign on our behalf about noise levels, drinks prices, starting and finishing times, overcharging, touting, poor festival facilities etc.
This could be paid for by simply addding ten pence onto every gig ticket sold in the country, I'm pretty sure no-one would mind shelling out that bit extra.
Obviously it would require either an act of parliament or the voluntary agreement of everyone in the live music industry, but I'm pretty sure it would benefit both the industry, the artists and the gig goers in the long run.
What say you?