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Picture being gifted with a night off. You are rejuvenated, ready for adventure, and wanting to break from your typical schedule of post-work slumping. Your options awaits your choice! Could you choose a) seeing live music or b) being with a partner? The answer, as is often the case with such kinds of questions, is obviously: “It depends.” Thinking adults could understandably wonder: what's the concert? Who is the partner? Could it be likely to be good?

Few would select a intense rock concert if the choice was a dream date with a favorite star. Yet change any part of the scenario, and it turns less obvious. Regarding the thousands surveyed presented with this choice by a major concert promoter, no additional details was provided – and the answer was revealed clearly and overwhelmingly preferring live music events.

Survey Results Indicate Interesting Choices

An international study, interviewing thousands of participants ranging from 18 and 54 across different nations, showed that concerts are now the most popular leisure activity, surpassing sports, movies and – indeed – intimacy. If restricted to a single form of enjoyment permanently, a significant portion picked live music, against watching movies (17%) and athletic competitions (14%). They were also significantly more as likely to choose attending their preferred performer on stage (70%) instead of sex (30%).

You arrive hopeful of being delightfully amazed – and frequently you could wind up with someone else’s hair in your mouth

Context and Considerations

Certainly it's expected that a promotional study commissioned by a live event company might conclude so heavily in favour of concerts – and, with the speculative spirit of a hypothetical choice, if your preferred musician is, such as a legendary singer, it's understandable why seeing him might win out over a common or garden experience. Yet this binary choice between live music or sexual activity, clearly absurd even if it seems, is interesting to consider given the odd point we experience with these two aspects.

The Change of Concert Culture

Lately, concert attendance has grown beyond a shared activity but a serious endeavor. Major promoters appropriately highlight that large venue turnout has “tripled year-over-year”, and music festivals sell out more rapidly than previously. Merely acquiring admissions now needs military-level planning, quick decision-making and deep finances (or a substantial budget). Even if you succeed, that alone won't do to merely attend and watch the performance. Currently there is an assumption, particularly with concertgoers, that you might enhance your enjoyment value by going multiple times (including overseas trips), studying the performance lineup in advance and understanding the rituals to follow and calls-and-responses developed through earlier audiences.

Many concertgoers admit to affected by their participation at large concerts: what seemed like a scripted production of massive crowds, where particular fans came not knowing the steps. That 18-month event, producing huge revenue, demonstrated of the degree to which people will go to participate in a cultural moment and experience their top musician sing, even if the live sound grows somewhat overshadowed by the show.

The Situation of Current Relationships

Intimacy, by contrast – an accessible and common experience – is in difficult times. Per recent surveys, about a quarter of people were intimate in an typical week, while about three in ten were sexually inactive. In a different nation, current statistics revealed that more than 25% of people said they had not sex a single time in the previous year, up from smaller percentages in previous decades. Across these regions, the trend has been linked to reduced intimacy in youth demographics. Contrast this with the market expanding rapidly for major events and the cutthroat competition for tickets. Of course it’s not as simple as a simple decision between one or the other – “could you choose see a major tour repeatedly, or remain abstinent?” – but it's possibly an indication of how people see the more consistent satisfaction.

Unexpected Similarities

Relationships and gigs are more similar than people often believe. They both embody the activation of a connection, a real-world test of impressions or potential that might have amassed just in your mind. You arrive with a basic expectation of how it’s likely to go, but expecting to be pleasantly surprised – and whether it proves good or bad rests largely on if your enthusiasm and expectations align with others. Frequently you could wind up with another person's locks in your mouth, and later be hanging out for a smoke and personal space by yourself. Likewise with either, substances and drinks can sometimes improve or reduce the event (but certainly help the most dire experiences easier to weather).

Finding the Balance

The magic to both gigs and sex depends on discovering that perfect combination between familiarity and novelty, sameness and variation, effort and ease. Certainly it occurs infrequently – but it's the recollection of successful moments, the awareness that success is achievable, that drives us to attempt once more: to {