Concert Photography: Part 2—Journalism vs. PR in the Pit
By Scott W. Coleman
Warrant in concert, Cedar Park, Texas — Copyright Scott W. Coleman, All rights reserved.
What happens at a concert isn’t always on the stage. Sometimes it’s bigger, louder and messier than the music itself—and that’s just one of the reasons that concert photography is journalism, not PR.
In a single instant, a show can turn into news. A fan collapses. Security breaks down. A protest erupts from the stage. A crowd surge sends people to the hospital. Or a record-setting turnout makes front-page headlines the next morning. None of this is hypothetical — it’s history, and more often than not it’s first captured through a photographer’s lens.
But more and more, those moments are being replaced by polished handouts from an artist’s PR team — images designed to sell tickets, not tell the story of what happened.
The Handout Problem
Photo handouts aren’t journalism. They’re advertisements. They’re crafted to show only what the artist or their handlers want you to see: a flattering pose, a screaming crowd, a perfectly lit stage.
When editors choose handouts over independent coverage, they’re not giving readers the truth. They’re giving them PR, often without disclosure. That’s a betrayal of readers who trust journalism to report, not to be a marketing arm of a concert promoter, a venue, or an artist.
And it’s a betrayal of musicians, too. Because when things go wrong — and sometimes they do — the public deserves to know what really happened. A staged handout can’t capture that.
Real-World Examples
Think of the 2021 Astroworld Festival tragedy in Houston. Ten people died, hundreds were injured, and the world wanted to know how it could have happened. Images of the overcrowded, chaotic scene became central to public understanding and lawsuits. If coverage had been limited to handouts from Travis Scott’s PR team, the story would have been a sanitized version of reality.
Or consider the AC/DC concert in Karlsruhe, Germany in 2025 — the largest show ever in that city. Local papers and wire services ran images not just of Angus Young duck-walking across the stage, but of the sheer scale of the crowd. That’s journalism: documenting an event’s significance. A press-team handout would have missed the story.
Live Nation’s Role in the Shift
The handout problem doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s reinforced by the same consolidation that has reshaped the concert business.
Live Nation’s merger with Ticketmaster gave the company control over ticketing and promotion. Its 2014 acquisition of Austin-based C3 Presents added major festivals like Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits. By 2023, the company reported owning, operating, or holding exclusive booking rights to nearly 400 venues worldwide. DOJ’s 2024 complaint put its North American share at 265 venues, including more than 60 of the top 100 U.S. amphitheaters.¹
When a single company controls the venue, the promoter, and the ticketing, it also controls the pit. That leverage makes it easier to dictate restrictive contracts — or to deny access outright. The result: more handouts, fewer independent images, and a public record shaped by corporate strategy instead of journalistic need.
Radius Clauses and Editorial Gaps
Radius clauses — non-compete provisions that bar artists from playing other venues within a set distance and timeframe — also shape coverage.
In Chicago, Lollapalooza’s contract terms have long been a case study: 300 miles, 180 days before the festival, and 90 days after.² The Austin Chronicle reported similar restrictions tied to C3-promoted shows in 2010, blocking roughly 130 bands from independent venues for nine months of the year.³
For artists, that means fewer gigs. For fans, fewer options. And for journalists, it means fewer shows to cover, and fewer opportunities for photographers to build the kind of archives that serve publications down the road.
When publications can’t build or reuse those archives, they fall back on — you guessed it — handouts.
Why Handouts Hurt Everyone
For photographers, handouts are the end of a paycheck. You can’t license, resell, or build a portfolio on work you didn’t shoot.
For editors, handouts are an editorial trap. You might save money today by avoiding freelance costs, but you undermine your credibility in the long run. Readers can tell the difference between journalism and PR — and they lose trust when you blur the line.
For musicians, it’s a hollow win. Yes, handouts guarantee flattering coverage. But they also erase the chances their performances will documented honestly, in ways that matter to history. The iconic images of Madonna in Frankfurt, Michael Jackson at Wembley, or Prince at the Super Bowl weren’t crafted by PR. They were captured by photographers who knew how to see the events and frame them for readers. Their professional eye and experience helped tell the story.
And when something goes wrong, relying on handouts leaves the story untold — or told only by lawyers and executives who want to control the narrative.
The Norway Example
There’s another way.
In Norway, concert photographers have banded together and collectively refuse to sign rights-grab contracts. Publications support them by refusing to run handouts. The result: artists and promoters had to back down. Photographers kept their rights, coverage stayed independent, and the public got real journalism.
The difference? Unity. In the U.S., the freelance market is fragmented. For every photographer who says no, there’s another willing to sign a bad contract just to get access. That undercuts everyone. And it leaves artists, fans, and publications dependent on the corporate pipeline.
Why This Matters
Concert photography is journalism. It’s a public record. It documents culture, history, and sometimes tragedy. Handouts are not a substitute.
When the pit is closed, when rights are stripped, when handouts replace coverage, we lose something bigger than a paycheck. We lose truth.
Real-World Takeaways
Editors: Don’t run handouts without disclosure. Readers deserve journalism, not advertising.
Photographers: Say no to contracts that turn your work into free PR. Unity is leverage.
Musicians: Support independent coverage. History is better served when your shows are documented by professionals, not sanitized by handlers.
Fans: Demand more. If the photos you see look like ads, ask why.
Footnotes
U.S. Department of Justice, “Justice Department Sues Live Nation-Ticketmaster for Monopolization,” May 23, 2024; Live Nation Entertainment, Inc., Form 10-K (2023).Reuters, “Lollapalooza Radius Clause Draws Scrutiny,” Aug. 6, 2010.Austin Chronicle, “Radius Clauses Draw Scrutiny,” Aug. 6, 2010.