Concert posters emerge as new art form

Concerts are the kind of events that can be remembered forever. Who doesn't recall the first concert he ever went to, or that one performance that just left him in awe of how perfect a song could be? And for every show there is always some kind of memorabilia that serves as a concrete reminder that this event actually happened. This can be a T-shirt, a ticket stub, a program or concert posters.

All concert posters advertise an upcoming music event. This is where the similarities end, particularly with rock concert posters. They can be anything from a generic picture of the band or album cover to elaborate limited-edition pieces of art. Like any piece of fine art they make use of everything from acrylic ink and silk screening to glow-in-the-dark paint and magazine cutouts. They can be satirical, moving, abstract or shocking in their imagery.

This breadth in creativity is largely due to the independent nature of concert posters. Most music-related items—T-shirts or CD artwork—are controlled and marketed by the record label. While there’s a great deal of room for creative input, since these labels have the marketing rights, they basically have complete reign over the aesthetics of the products.

It is a completely different situation with concert posters, which are used to advertise an event on a particular date. Only after the concert are they sold as pieces of art. But since posters are in effect advertisements for some event that occurred in the past, they’re considered to be collectibles, or cultural artifacts, unlike other merchandise, which is considered a product. The only way for the record labels to actually control the creation and distribution of concert posters would be by licensing their own promotions and organizing their own marketing. A feat such as this would be so detail-oriented, it would effectively be impossible for the major labels to pull off. For now the creation and distribution of concert posters rests solely in the hands of the artist and the performers they advertise.

Lately, this hodge-podge of designers has begun to organize themselves into a more cohesive, business-like unit. In 2002, the American Posters Institute was created as a non-profit corporation dedicated to serving poster artists and promoting the art form. It is organized like any corporation, including a board of directors, which consists of both artists and non-artists. That same year API also created Flatstock, a convention held yearly at the South by Southwest Music Festival to feature and promote the artwork of both up-and-coming and established concert poster artists. It seems that concert posters have progressed far from their do-it-yourself roots of mass photocopies with slapped together cut-outs and sketches.

Even big-name corporations are getting in on the trend. For instance, for this past summer’s Warped Tour, concert poster artist Brian Ewing was commissioned to design five posters, which were sponsored in part by Cingular and Samsung. When these posters were distributed for free at the shows, the two companies’ logos were prominently displayed in the lower right-hand corner. Examples like this may become more and more visible in the coming years, especially since many of these artists work in other capacities with these bigger businesses, where they may design corporate logos and illustrate advertisements.

But many performers still see concert posters as the most direct visual embodiment of their music and with the variety in both style and message, it is still one of the most vivid ways to keep the memory of that first concert alive long after the ticket stub has been lost and the T-shirt has been worn to shreds.