Las Vegas growing concert destination

It's official: In this city's slow and steady evolution as a live music destination for something other than past-their-prime entertainers -- What's that Mr. Manilow? Cheeks getting a little red? -- Las Vegas is now walking upright.

It even has opposable thumbs, apparently.

The change has been apparent, particularly this fall, where every week, it seemed, brought to town different, must-see bands such as The Pixies, Vampire Weekend -- who were here twice in a span of weeks -- Jonsi, Pavement and LCD Soundsystem, to name but a few.

But now a new study confirms as much.

Recently, the folks behind Songkick.com, a pretty cool social networking site of sorts for concertgoers that serves as a massive aggregator for just about every band and venue you can think of, allowing fans to keep track of who's playing where, compiled a list of the top 10 cities for live music in the States based on their massive database of gigs from 2007-2010.

Where did Vegas rank?

At No. 4, behind Austin, Texas; Madison, Wis.; and New Orleans.

Surprised that New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco didn't top the list? Well, the study was done on a per capita basis, meaning a city's population was taken into account. And so, while a market such as Los Angeles may host more shows in total, Las Vegas has more concerts proportionate to its size.

Still, for Vegas to rank so high is a bit of a surprise considering that this has long been viewed as a secondary market in the touring industry.

"Yes, Las Vegas has less of a reputation as a place to go to see live music," Songkick CEO Ian Hogarth says. "But when people are there on holiday, for a weekend or a couple of days, they have pretty high expectations for the quality of the entertainment available. So I think a disproportionate number of bands play Las Vegas because of the awareness that it's somewhere where people are to be entertained."

Some less surprising results: The study also found that Las Vegas has far and away the highest ticket prices of any of the top cities, with an average cost of $62.76 per show, which is almost double the next costliest city, Denver, where ticket prices run an average of $33.24.

Much of this is likely attributable to big name acts such as Kenny Chesney, Jay-Z and Kiss, who normally play large arenas in most cities, performing in much smaller venues here in Vegas, such as The Pearl and The Joint, where the capacities range from 2,500 to 4,000.

With less fans in the house, the cost of each ticket rises to pay the artist's guarantee.

"I suppose when you get to see Jay-Z in a 1,000 person venue you're willing to pay extra," Hogarth says.

And so while you may pay more to see bands in Vegas, at least now there are more and more bands to see.

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.