Until recently, I’d never quite understood all of the hype that surrounds concerts. With the hassle of locating a venue that’s reasonable to get to, finding people to go with, spending an exorbitant amount of money on overpriced tickets, and dealing with the thousands of other people (not to mention the accompanying traffic!) who attend – it certainly did not sound appealing to me. I’d always been one of those people who went to the store and purchased CDs or clicked a few buttons on iTunes from the comfort of my home, and then listened to my favorite songs at my own leisure (and multiple times in row, if I so pleased). Sure, I understood that the artists were there in person, but I’d most likely convinced myself that they sounded better on their recordings than when they performed live.

Adhering to this mentality is probably why I did not attend my first concert until last summer. My friend, who has extremely similar music tastes, was able to purchase reasonably priced tickets for some lawn seats for Gavin DeGraw, The Script, and Train. I’ll admit, I had a lot of fun and enjoyed the concert. The one thing that struck me was the culture – most people got into clapping their hands to the beat and the crowd went wild when the artists directly interacted with them. Fast forwarding a year to last weekend, I went to another concert with my sister and cousin, this time to enjoy the music of American Authors, The Script (again!), and One Republic. As we were all singing along and laughing at the jokes made by the band members, I subconsciously started thinking about why people pay to go to these things time and time again. And then it hit me: it’s the experience.  

Not only are there thousands of other people there to enjoy the same music as you, but the engagement is what gets me – from something as simple as getting everyone to clap their hands in time with the beat to calling an audience member’s ex-boyfriend and singing into the phone a song about how they are better off without them. As I circled around the amphitheater, I took in everyone’s good vibes.

I started to analyze this whole experience and came to the conclusion that bands performing at these concerts would not be nearly as successful if they did not try to actively engage with their audiences. While the commonalities between concerts and the workplace are perhaps not so transparent, maybe we can all learn something from concerts and apply these lessons to our own careers and interactions – invest and engage in your employees. Build communities of people that work toward a common goal. Craft their experiences in such a way that keeps all of their creative juices flowing and their levels of engagement at an all-time high.