Western Classical Music Concerts Are More Immersive, Intellectually Stimulating, and Social, When Experienced Live Rather Than in a Digital Stream. An Ecologically Valid Concert Study on Different Modes of Liveness

The presented study compares conventional live concerts to digital streams on multiple audience experience dimensions in ecologically valid settings. Furthermore, it includes an analysis of the audience's previous expectations regarding certain aspects of concert experience. Data from pre- and post-concert questionnaires from concertgoers of 12 concerts in physical co-presence of musicians and audience (with a total sample size of N = 1,133 participants) were compared with those from four digital stream concerts. The concert program included Western classical music by van Beethoven and Brahms and a contemporary piece by Brett Dean. We found that the live concerts were rated significantly higher in three out of four experience dimensions, especially in terms of social experience. Furthermore, those concertgoers who had a priori high expectations toward social experiences rated these even more intensively at the live concerts compared to digital streams. We also observed that the felt interaction of musicians and audience was stronger in live concerts. These results strongly support theory about concert experience and bring new indications of what is unique about live concerts, distinguishing their experience from that of the digital stream concerts.