This article was taken from the June 2013 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by <span class="s1">subscribing online.
This infographic shows the distances DJs and bands travel to entertain their fans. The data is taken from music-events website Songkick and represents around 100,000 artists and 800,000 concerts in 2012. Unsurprisingly, laptop-wielding DJs dominate the most-travelled list over bands and their heavy (and expensive) equipment.
Acts are increasingly touring outside their Europe and US heartlands: Mexico City, for example, registered 183 concerts in 2012, compared to 85 in 2008;
Hong Kong had 38 gigs in 2012, versus 12 in 2008 -- a 216 percent rise during the period.
"The data shows that more and more bands are touring the world," says Ian Hogarth, cofounder and CEO of the London-based company. "But many fans still never get to see the bands they love. We want fans to influence where bands go by putting their money down. That was part of our DNA from the very beginning."
Songkick launched Detour as a beta in 2012. It enables fans to pledge to buy tickets to see an act perform in their home city; if there's a critical mass, Songkick will work with the acts and their management to help make the event happen, with ticket prices and size of venue dictated by demand.
In 2012, Detour produced 30 shows for artists including Hot Chip, Tycho, Desaparecidos and Andrew Bird, who toured South America thanks to the project. "The crowd that funds the concert is the crowd that goes to the concert," says Hogarth, who now plans to scale up Detour and give fans more power to decide which acts to fund. "When I was growing up in south London, I was a fan of hip hop, but the artists I loved never came to London. It was frustrating. Now we can finally use the web to bring people together offline."
If you book them, they will come
These are Songkick's 20 most-travelled acts of 2012, in kilometres. The totals were calculated by adding up the distance travelled between each show throughout the year.
Steve Aoki: 389,221km (168 shows)
Paul Oakenfold: 361,590 (129)
Paul van Dyk: 359,872 (99)
David Guetta: 339,703 (133)
Skrillex: 330,974 (142)
Avicii: 329,628 (153)
Tiesto: 320,005 (119)
Calvin Harris: 315,687 (98)
Hot Chelle Rae: 311,095 (114)
Diplo: 301,881 (118)
A-Trak: 277,795 (103)
Hardwell: 264,329 (89)
Laidback Luke: 254,033 (96)
Kimbra: 253,782 (106)
Kendrick Lamar: 251,494 (136)
Ferry Corsten: 248,203 (71)
Alesso: 244,223 (95)
Bingo Players: 242,513 (86)
Knife Party: 241,003 (65)
Afrojack: 239,952 (97)
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
