PHISH PICKS SEATTLE OVER NEW ENGLAND
Until last fall, every announced tour brought a common lament: "West Coast screwed again." But the data has a different refrain: While the West Coast gets plenty of love, it's the band's home turf that gets routinely shafted - and moreso across the band's history.
The mantra "follow the line going south" did not emerge in lyrics or tour patterns until 1987, following four years solely in New England. By 2014, Phish had abandoned Patriots territory - but they still played Seahawks city.
And last fall was hardly an anomaly. There have been more shows in Pacific states than New England ones in 12 of 23 periods - including 1997 and 2004, in particular. New England has even fallen behind non-US shows in six periods!
Other patterns are apparent, as well: The Midwest had its hey day (esp. 98-04), but has slipped away since the "breakup". Non-US shows were tops in 1996 and 1997, but have barely been seen since the hiatus. And if there's a region that's been roundly ignored throughout the band's history, it's not Western states but South Central.
Methods:
This stacked-column flowchart is expanded from a 4-year chart (by the fabulous FrankensTeam) to cover 23 periods and with narrower columns, faded connectors, and percents (rather than proportions in decimal form). It might also be called a Linked Stacked-Column Graph, Platform Shift Graph, or Shifting Stripe Graph.
Regions are based on Census Bureau divisions, though these may not be ideal. For example, the Atlantic region is a long swath heading south, although DC was played four years before Florida. (Indeed, subsquent comments have suggested using FEMA regions, though there are of course problems w/ any alternative.)
Note also that I've left Pacific separate from Mountain, a distinction that wouldn't be made by some (such as those who divide the country by the Mississippi River). If those two regions are combined, Western shows dominate even more often.
And, yes, you can hang a print of it over your bed.
Comments
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Phish.net
The Mockingbird Foundation
Now we live in the Mountain division, and the closest shows are a minimum of 500 miles from home. (Yes, we knew this when we moved here and, for any given distance, the driving is much easier than east of the Mississippi, so I'm not complaining.) But to even flirt with the idea that Denver and San Francisco--which are 1300 miles apart--are in the same region is just silly. Remember, that's the same distance from NYC to Miami, a distance about which I seem to recall much wailing and gnashing of teeth just a few months ago...
One suggestion: if there is any way to change the font color for the name of each region it might be easier to follow each region's ups and downs.
If so, that biases the graphic breakdown toward mid-Atlantic. I can see calling the Camden/Philly area mid-Atlantic, but SPAC and Albany are both within 30 miles of New England.
Between MSG, Randall's, SPAC, CMAC, Darrien, Albany, Glens Falls, Rochester, Unica, Syracuse, Bethel, Watkins, Went and Oswego, you could give New York its own catergory. It would change the shape of the entire graph.
Calling WA, OR and CA the same then dividing up the east coast is totally lost on me and is totally bias for this discussion.
People don't complain that "Phish ignored SoCal"; the manta is "West coast screwed again" - and it's factually inaccurate.
But it's not as sparse as other areas. For example, New England is twice as dense as Washington state (with 14 million vs 6 million, each in 71K square miles) - and Boston proper has fewer than 650K.
populated.[/quote]
Fall 2010 was a great tour with all kinds of shows in "sparsely" populated area's. Augusta, Amherst, Providence and Manchester especially would be great fits for return visits
I get it that you're trying to prove that New England doesn't get enough shows for the people living there. But census divisions I wouldn't consider an unbias "stratification" based on X or Y or Z. You could have subbed in population or square miles...but that wouldn't have proved your point.
Thanks for dorking out on Phish!
That's a misuse of many words, including "random" (instead of, for example, "arbitrary".) Yes, the Census regions are based on "historical accident". That doesn't make the data or analysis a normative exercise about what ought to be.
That's not true at all. I wasn't trying to "prove" anything. (I'd never use that word for anything I'd argue.) And I never suggested that New England should have more shows, either as a function of its population or for any other reason.
24% of 2014 shows (and about 1/8 of shows almost every year) were played in a region that people complain gets ignored. That's the story.
In any case, I appreciate the effort you put into this and they are interesting statistics, even if slightly out of context.
They played 18 shows in NE in '92, not 16
10 shows in '93, not 9
11 shows in '94, not 9
12 shows in '95, not 15
3 shows in '96, not 4
7 shows in '97, not 9
6 shows in '98, not 12
6 shows in '99 (not including Carreystock or Kuroda's wedding), not 9
4 shows in '00, not 8
4 show in '03, not 9
4 shows in '04, not 22?!?
4 shows in '09, not 8
10 shows in '10, not 21?!?
2 shows in '11, not 5
2 shows in '12, not 5
4 shows in '13, not 10
1 show in '14 - You got one right!!!
I'm not gonna check Pre '91, but I'd assume the numbers are probably off for New England as well.
- What happens to this data when NY is put into it's own category?
- What happens to this data when NY and NE are combined into North East?
I liked Camden too, what happened to that?? My first shows were there in 2010, holds a special place. (RIP MJ!)
Those aren't counts, which wouldn't be relative by year, but percentages. (First column shows 100% in NE; second has 95 ad 5; etc...)
You can sum the Mid-Atlantic and New England percents on the chart, to conceal that the band plays now plays NYC rather than VT/NH/MA/CT/RI... but that's kinda the story.
Someone else has suggested that I should have used FEMA regions, which I'll try for a later date... But the story will be essentially the same: Born in region I, they've shifted south to region II, and don't ignore regions IX or X nearly as much as folks complain.
How anyone can begrudge the NW shows is beyond me.