Why We Need Live Events More Than Ever In 2025 and Beyond

If you tune into the news today, you are bombarded by a barrage of negative stories and depressing headlines. The wars in Gaza and Ukraine, the recent assassinations of Charlie Kirk and Melissa Hortman, and the relentless framing of every issue as one side versus the other. The finger-pointing, the fear and anger stoking, the "chaos is a ladder" energy from those in power or those seeking to get into power, all seem like too much to handle, and it is.

It's no wonder rates of anxiety and depression, especially among young people, are rising. In 2024, 43% of adults say they feel more anxious than they did the previous year, up from 37% in 2023 and 32% in 2022. A 24-hour negative news cycle combined with social media spreading horrific violence and nasty comments to anyone within seconds is a brutal combination that would make anyone easily feel worse about the world, humanity, and themselves.

I believe the antidote to this feeling and this cycle is LIVE IN-PERSON events. Concerts, festivals, sports, comedy shows, you name it. Going out to an event gets us offline and interacting with friends, hopefully making new friends, and enjoying something with a group that gives us a commonality and community. We might be standing right next to someone with different political beliefs, but since we like the same artist or team, we have something that unites us, and we can agree to disagree on the other things.

For example, I recently went to Oklahoma a couple of weeks ago for a friend's bachelor party. The main event of our weekend was the Oklahoma vs. Michigan football game. The entire day was spent walking around the university campus, soaking up the sunshine with students, alumni, families, and fans of both teams. Even though fans of Michigan and Oklahoma probably differ in opinion on a lot of issues, there was a palpable respect for each other in the air. We were all coming together to enjoy a sport, outside, with our friends and with strangers.

Having events on our calendar also gives us something to look forward to and hope for as we wade through the weekly waterfall of depressing news.

My client Saxsquatch is going on tour next month, and the fans at his shows represent an amazing melting pot of demographics, which shows just how much more we have in common than things that divide us. His fans are firefighters, ravers, jazz enthusiasts, Bigfoot believers, and so many other types, and they all come together to enjoy an evening of music. It is inspiring to see people from all walks come together for their love of something, in this case, a saxophone-shredding Bigfoot.

As a society, we must continue to tackle the rise in division, polarization, and all types of violence by bringing people together through live events to show that we have much more in common than we often recognize.