Musical Groups and Artists (U.S.) — NAICS 71113

A short rollup primer for the "talent" layer of the music business. This is a NAICS industry (5-digit) level; because it contains only one child industry, this page is a pointer — see 711130 for the full treatment. Written for both public-market and private investors.

1. Overview

The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code 71113 covers the people who actually make and perform music: bands, orchestras, drum corps, and independent (freelance) singers and musicians producing live musical entertainment, on stage or in a studio [1]. It is a creator-led activity, not a clean stock-market sector.

Because this five-digit industry has exactly one six-digit child — 711130, Musical Groups and Artists — the two levels are the same industry with the same definition, the same firms, and the same federal statistics. This page exists only to give the rollup its own numbers and point you to the leaf. For the full story — investable names, how the money works, regulation, and outlook — read the 711130 primer.

Two facts frame the level. First, it is one of the most fragmented industries in the economy: thousands of tiny operators and self-employed artists, no dominant firm. Second, almost none of the money that flows around these artists is captured inside code 71113 — recording, publishing, streaming, ticketing, venues, and talent agencies all sit in other NAICS codes [1]. So the federal figures here describe a small, splintered cottage industry, while the real economics live next door.

2. What's inside — and why this level equals its one child

NAICS is a nested hierarchy: each five-digit industry breaks into one or more six-digit national industries. NAICS 71113 has a single child:

When a five-digit industry has only one six-digit child, the U.S. classification simply carries the same definition down a level with a trailing "0." There is no aggregation, no blending of distinct sub-industries, and no detail at 71113 that isn't already at 711130. Everything the child says about scope — that this is the performing artist and live band, and that record labels (NAICS 512250), music publishers (512230), promoters (Industry Group 7113), agents and managers (711410), and independent writers/composers (711510) are all excluded — applies here without change [1].

Practical takeaway: treat 71113 and 711130 as interchangeable, and use 711130 as the reference page.

3. Size (this level's rollup figures + undercount caveat)

These are our ground-truth federal statistics for NAICS 71113 [1]. Because the level equals its single child, they match the 711130 figures exactly. They cover the employer portion only — businesses with paid W-2 employees — and come from different reference years, so they should not be summed into a single-year market estimate.

Fragmentation is extreme. The four largest firms account for just 6.4% of receipts (the CR4, or four-firm concentration ratio); the top 8, 11.0%; the top 20, 21.1%; the top 50, 34.3% [3]. The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI, a concentration measure running from near 0 to 10,000) is 30.4 [3] — near the theoretical floor, and far below the 1,500 threshold U.S. antitrust agencies use to call a market "unconcentrated." No one controls the performer base.

The undercount is the whole story. Census employer data misses the vast nonemployer economy of working musicians — solo performers and bands with no payroll, taxed as sole proprietors or pass-throughs — which County Business Patterns and the Economic Census exclude by design [4][5]. For scale, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) counted roughly 169,800 musician-and-singer jobs in 2024 and notes many are self-employed and fall outside its wage counts [6] — several times the 40,175 employees above. And the largest dollars attached to these artists (recorded-music royalties, publishing, streaming, ticketing, merchandise) are booked in other industries. Reading this level's ~$6.8 billion of receipts as "the size of the music industry" would understate it by an order of magnitude.

4. Investable universe (where value concentrates across the children)

With only one child, value doesn't split across sub-industries here — it concentrates outside the code entirely. There is no pure public play on musical artists themselves; you cannot buy shares in a band. The listed and private opportunities all sit in the adjacent NAICS codes that monetize the artist. The 711130 primer lists them in full; the short version:

• Public — live/venues/ticketing: Live Nation Entertainment (NYSE: LYV), Madison Square Garden Entertainment (NYSE: MSGE), Sphere Entertainment (NYSE: SPHR).
• Public — recorded music, publishing, rights, streaming: Universal Music Group (Euronext Amsterdam: UMG), Warner Music Group (NASDAQ: WMG), Sony Group (NYSE: SONY), Reservoir Media (NASDAQ: RSVR), Spotify (NYSE: SPOT); plus Korea-listed K-pop label-management firms (HYBE, SM, JYP, YG).
• Private — the "own the songs / own the relationship" thesis: music-catalog and royalty funds (Blackstone-owned Hipgnosis, Concord, Primary Wave, Litmus, HarbourView); private live/venue platforms (AEG Presents/Goldenvoice, Oak View Group); and talent agencies (WME/Endeavor, CAA, UTA).

Tickers are for orientation, not recommendations. See 711130, Section 4, for scale figures and the full private-market map.

5. How the money works

Unchanged from the child. Artist income flows from four buckets — live performance (the core of this code: a guarantee plus a share of ticket revenue above a threshold, minus production and commissions, plus high-margin merchandise), recorded-music royalties (streamshare-based, with platforms passing roughly 70% to rights holders), publishing royalties (the songwriter's money, split into performance, mechanical, sync, and print), and endorsements/superfan products. A song carries two separate copyrights — the sound recording (master) and the composition — often owned by different parties, which is why the money is collected through several channels (PROs, the Mechanical Licensing Collective, SoundExchange). Along the value chain, promoters bear event risk, venues earn more recurring asset-backed revenue, ticketing runs a fee/software model, and rights owners collect royalty-like recurring cash flow. Full mechanics, rates, and operating metrics are in 711130, Section 5.

6. Demand drivers

Also unchanged: streaming growth and price increases (global recorded music reached roughly $31.7 billion in 2025, U.S. wholesale a record $11.5 billion); the durable, premium-priced live-experience boom; catalog as an institutional asset class chasing uncorrelated royalty cash flows; nostalgia and sync licensing that lets older songs earn anew; and superfan monetization (vinyl, merch, deluxe editions). Demand should stay structurally healthy but uneven, with stadium tours and residencies stronger than mid-tier acts more exposed to ticket affordability and touring-cost inflation. See 711130, Section 6, for the supporting figures.

7. Regulation

Music is unusually rule-bound for an "arts" business because so much money moves through statutory licenses — none of which live inside 71113, but all of which govern the money attached to it. The key levers: copyright law and the Music Modernization Act (MMA, 2018); the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), which sets streaming/mechanical rates; Performance Rights Organization (PRO) consent decrees (ASCAP and BMI under Department of Justice oversight since 1941); the DOJ antitrust case against Live Nation/Ticketmaster, whose proposed remedies remain subject to court approval as of 2026; FTC "all-in" ticket-pricing rules (effective May 12, 2025); AI and likeness protections; and labor/tax/immigration rules (employee-vs-contractor tests, the P-1B visa for internationally recognized entertainment groups). Full detail in 711130, Section 7.

8. Consolidation

This industry has a split personality, and it shows at both levels equally. The artist layer here (71113 = 711130) is atomized — HHI of 30.4 and thousands of freelancers [3]. But every adjacent layer that monetizes the artist is highly concentrated and sits outside this code: the "Big Three" labels (Universal, Sony, Warner) control roughly 70% of global recorded music; Live Nation integrates promotion, venues, ticketing, and management; a short list of well-capitalized buyers (Blackstone/Hipgnosis, Concord, Primary Wave, KKR, Carlyle) is rolling up catalogs, increasingly financed through asset-backed securities. Competitive advantage is relationship-based — access to artists, dates, fan data, and tour capital — not technological. See 711130, Section 8.

9. Risks

The same risks the child carries: it is a hits business (income concentrated in a few superstars, short careers, high failure rates); thin streaming economics for new work; live demand is discretionary and cyclical; promoters commit fixed guarantees before tickets sell; weather/cancellation/safety losses; antitrust and fee regulation (a forced Ticketmaster divestiture or CRB rate change reshapes economics); catalog valuation risk from higher interest rates; AI disruption and streaming fraud; and rights/collection and private-market illiquidity. Detailed in 711130, Section 9.

10. How to invest & outlook

Because 71113 offers no direct investment surface, the routes are the child's routes. Public: pick exposure by business model, not the broad label "music" — a promoter reports large gross revenue on thin margins, a ticketing agency reports fee revenue, a venue owner is asset-intensive, a rights owner has royalty-like recurring cash flow, so no single valuation multiple compares them. Private: catalog and royalty funds, music-royalty asset-backed bonds, fractional-royalty marketplaces, and platform stakes in agencies and venues express the "own the songs / own the relationship" thesis.

Outlook. The secular tailwind — more than a decade of recorded-music growth plus a resilient live business — is real; the live debate is over price, rates, and regulation, not direction. Near-term watch items: whether live demand holds after the recent touring supercycle; how far streaming price increases offset subscriber saturation in mature markets; the Live Nation antitrust remedy; AI-music policy; and whether catalog valuations normalize as interest rates reset the price. The strongest businesses will own scarce relationships or durable rights and monetize the same fan across live, recorded, publishing, merchandise, and sponsorship. Full investment dashboard and the complete build-out are in 711130, Section 10 — the reference page for this level.

---

Sources

Drawn from the child primer (711130). See that page for the complete, annotated Sources list.

1. U.S. Census Bureau, "North American Industry Classification System: 711130 Musical Groups and Artists" (2022 definition, single-child structure, and exclusions). https://www.census.gov/naics/?details=711130&input=711130&year=2022
2. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns (CBP) — 711130 profile, 2023 (establishments, employees, payroll). https://data.census.gov/profile/711130_-_Musical_groups_and_artists?codeset=naics~711130&g=010XX00US
3. U.S. Census Bureau, Economic Census 2022 — concentration statistics for NAICS 711130 (firms, receipts, CR4/CR8/CR20/CR50, HHI). https://data.census.gov/table/ECNBASIC2022.EC2271BASIC?g=010XX00US&n=711130
4. U.S. Census Bureau, "County Business Patterns Methodology" (coverage and exclusions). https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/technical-documentation/methodology.html
5. U.S. Census Bureau, "Nonemployer Statistics" overview. https://www.census.gov/econ/overview/mu0500.html
6. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Occupational Outlook Handbook: Musicians and Singers" (~169,800 jobs, 2024). https://www.bls.gov/ooh/entertainment-and-sports/musicians-and-singers.htm