The Science of Bucketgigs
Ramón Salinero
A few weeks ago we came across a couple of articles we found interesting.
The first was a study that claimed that going to a concert a couple of times a month is likely to increase your lifespan by about 9 years.
The second was a scientific explanation of why we're so fond of music from our teenage years.
Now we admit, we were very sceptical about the first, but the reasoning is something like this:
The findings come off the back of bespoke psychometric and heart-rate tests at a range of wellbeing activities – including gig-going, yoga and dog walking. The gig experience increased participants feelings of wellbeing by 21% – with key markers across the happiness spectrum showing increases, including feelings of self-worth (+25%) and closeness to others (+25%) whilst mental stimulation climbed by an impressive 75%.
And since science has shown a direct link between wellbeing and longevity, they did a Hey Presto!
The second article was fascinating. It dove into the reasons for our fondness for the music of our teenage years and why we remain so fond of it even after going through multiple periods of change in music.
Turns out it has all to do with the reminiscence bump, a name for the phenomenon that we remember so much of our younger adult lives more vividly than other years, and these memories last well into our senescence.
It makes sense, then, that the memories that contribute to this process become uncommonly important throughout the rest of your life. They didn’t just contribute to the development of your self-image; they became part of your self-image—an integral part of your sense of self.
This phenomenon also explains the enduring popularity of some of today's biggest stars.
Now we here at Promogogo thought:
- We have a huge events database
- We can map artist popularity to years (for a few decades)
- We can map those formative years for people and see if any of the artists popular in those years are playing anywhere near you
So we did. And the results were uncanny.
We tried this ourselves and got very excited about the gigs we found for ourselves.
We had people test this and got very excited about how excited they got - even the ones that said "I'm not your target audience, I don't really go to concerts. .... Although I found one that I got tickets to...".
So we added some spit and polish and now it's your turn.
Go ahead, try it out. You'll have fun and live longer. It's a win win.
