How big is the prog rock community

I started listening to prog rock in the summer of 2019. I little confused about how big is the community so can any one tell me how big the is the community. It can be an estimate or very accurate. Thanks   

It would be interesting to see if anyone can figure out a way to determine that.  Spotify would only show people who are on Spotify who listen to prog, there are plenty who don't listen there, from what I see on discussions in prog radio chats etc.  I see a certain set of station and host loyals making the rounds of prog stations/shows, they do not tend to listen to other stations, although they may show up on multiple hosted shows on the same station.  There are a lot of indie labels and doubtless small sales compared to popular music; I know the live venues/festivals are small, in the US they are mostly on the East Coast, with the proximity of venues being closer, it's less expensive to put an act on the road there.  Europe is also easier to play live for acts (until just recently), for the same reasons the East Coast is, here in the US.  There must be some way to come up with a figure, but with such scattered stats, kind of a pain to do, most likely.

Edited by Snicolette - March 17 2020 at 08:55

Thanks, As noob i think prog rock is wonderful genre and it a shame that it is not popular. As an I tunes user on the genres of music theirs no prog rock category. But if you find prog rock and you like it you can never go back to regular music so prog has a loyal fan base. I cant listen to pop it feel so repetitive and boring.           

A Bard wrote: Thanks, As noob i think prog rock is wonderful genre and it a shame that it is not popular.

An accurate figure would be impossible, and it would depend on one's specific criteria and parameters.

I like and dislike, and am neutral about, a lot of what might be classified as progressive rock. While I am a part of a progressive rock community (that community being the Prog Archives community), I wouldn't describe myself as a Prog fan. I love plenty of pop music, especially of the art pop and avant pop ilk), and much of my favourite so-called Prog is repetitive and many Prog and and pop fans would find it boring.

It partially depends upon how you define (and boundarise?) Prog. One could argue that there are many Prog communities, and more still if one has liberal prog parameters.

There are a huge many people who like music we have included in Prog Archives as Prog (by our various category standards). For instance, Pink Floyd has been a mainstream, popular band, but I wouldn't expect that most who like Pink would consider themselves to be part of a Prog community.

Just with this site alone, quoted from the home page of Prog Archives:

PROG ARCHIVES intends to be the most complete and powerful progressive rock resource. You can find the progressive rock music discographies from 11,029 bands & artists, 61,116 albums (LP, CD and DVD), 1,674,625 ratings and reviews from 62,832 members who also participate in our active forum....

That's quite a lot of people for this kind of a special-interest site. The actual number of fans are much bigger, and there are other online Prog communities (some went bust).

Edited by Logan - March 17 2020 at 09:27

As for real enthusiasts who are really knowledgeable, I'd guess thousands, or might be some tens of thousands in the world. 

People who are regular listeners of the genre who aren't that passionate (and who listen to some other genres more) should be tens of thousands. 

People who listen to Pink Floyd might be a colossal community. 

I heard that it was 2% of the rock audience. Now, if we only knew how big the rock audience is.

SteveG wrote: I heard that it was 2% of the rock audience. Now, if we only knew how big the rock audience is.

According to staistica.com based on a Deezer survey for 2018, for certain US consumers, rock is the biggest genre at 56.8 percent 9 at least when it comes to buying more traditional formats (one might say rock fans are quite conservative in some ways) -- radio and types of streaming is another matter.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/442354/music-genres-preferred-consumers-usa/ And apparently the majority of vinyls sold in the US fall into the rock category. Rap fans and rappers also buy records, partially to sample, but they tend to scratch them. ;)

Amy Watson wrote: According to a study carried out by Deezer in May 2018, the most popular genre among Americans was rock music, with 56.8 percent of respondents stating that they were currently listening to music within this genre as of the date of survey. Pop and country music were the second and third most popular genres respectively, and 20.2 percent of respondents said they preferred jazz... The broad appeal of rock and pop music can in part be attributed to how both genres often blend seamlessly into one another and influence other music styles. Heavy rock bands like Led Zeppelin and AC/DC are often more divisive than melodic rock groups like Bon Jovi or Genesis*, just like pop music which strays into R&B territory or is better associated with hip hop or EDM. Each have their appeal to fans with different tastes, and the versatility of rock and pop (and music which combines the two) allows such music to reach adults of all ages and backgrounds. Rock albums also account for the majority of vinyl album sales in the United States, with pop albums ranking second. However, although the resurgence of vinyl has to a certain extent been reliant on the rock genre, this is not the case when it comes to digital music consumption. Rap and hip hop accounted for 22.8 percent of music video streams in the U.S. in 2018, whereas for rock music videos the share was just 7.1 percent. Rock fared similarly when it came to audio streams, once again losing out to rap and hip hop. Taking such data into consideration, it would seem that rock music fans are generally more drawn to traditional formats and are less inclined to enjoy their music via streaming platforms.

* emphasis in bold my own.

I’m huge.

It is at least
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that big!

Seriously, this would be a tough one to accurately give an answer to.
There are quite a number of variables, there are some bands that are not listed here on Progarchives that some would consider as being "progressive". Some people may like prog and not even know that it would "technically" be considered prog music. etc., etc., etc.