SEATAC, Washington — Many airports no longer consider background music. The airport hires local musicians and brightens travelers’ moods with carefully curated playlists.
London Heathrow Airport has set the stage to showcase the UK’s emerging performers for the first time this summer. The program has been so successful that the airport plans to resume it in 2025. Nashville International Airport has five stages that host more than 800 performances a year, from country musicians to jazz combos. Live merengue music welcomes passengers at Punta Cana International Airport in the Dominican Republic.
Tiffany Idiart and her two nieces were thrilled to hear musicians perform during a recent stopover at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
“It’s great. There’s a lot of people here so they can all hear it,” said Grace Idiart, 9. “If the plane was delayed or something like that happened, I would have had a hard day. So the music. “It could have made them feel better.”
Even airports are carefully curating their recorded playlists. Detroit Metro Airport plays Motown hits in the tunnels connecting its terminals. Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas has a playlist of local artists compiled by local radio stations. Singapore Changi Airport commissioned special piano accompaniment for its giant digital waterfall.
Music is not a new phenomenon in airport terminals. Brian Eno’s “Music for Airports” album, released in 1978, helped define the ambient music genre. It is designed to be minimalistic and calm.
But Barry McPhillips, international creative director at Mood Media, which provides music to airports and other public spaces, said technology has made background music less generic and more tailored to specific places or times of day.
Mood Media, formerly known as Muzak, develops playlists that can appeal to business travelers or families based on who is at the airport at any given time. You might want to program calm music at the security checkpoint, but you might want to program something more energetic at the duty-free shop.
“We look at it as a soundscape,” McPhillips said. “We design for all these moments.”
He added that Mood Music has a science behind determining volume, tempo, and even considers whether to play a song in a major or minor key.
“How do you want to influence their mood in that moment?” McPhillips said. “It’s not just like, ‘There’s a lot of songs here.’ “There’s too much singing in 10 minutes, so we move on to the next 10 minutes.”
At the same time, many airports are using cutting-edge technology, such as hiring local musicians to serenade travelers and give them a sense of the places they are passing through.
Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway airports host more than 100 live performances each year. Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport began its live music program five years ago and now has two stages featuring local artists.
Seattle-Tacoma Airport started a live music program about 10 years ago after city commissioners heard live music at the Austin, Texas, airport, said Tami Kuiken, Seattle airport music manager.
“I thought, ‘Gosh, why isn’t there music in Seattle?’ We are a music city too,” Kuiken said.
Initially, the airport created a playlist featuring emerging artists alongside established artists like Pearl Jam. I then decided to try being a live musician for 12 weeks. This was so successful that the airport now features live musicians daily and is building new performance spaces.
“People’s anxiety levels are very high when they travel,” Kuiken said. “The feedback we started getting was that once they got through the checkpoint and were greeted with music, suddenly their anxiety and stress levels dropped.”
The program also benefits musicians who get paid to perform and gain more exposure. When the Colorado Springs Airport announced its live music program last March, more than 150 musicians applied. Currently, we hold two-hour performances twice a week.
David James, a singer and guitarist who plays at the Seattle airport once a week, said waking up in time for his weekly gig takes some getting used to. But he won new fans all over the world.
“We always get a really good response from people who say, ‘It’s so relaxing to be able to sit and listen to music between flights,’” says James. “So I think it’s particularly therapeutic for people.”
Country stars like Blake Shelton and Keith Urban have interacted with local musicians through the Nashville airport, said Stacey Nickens, the airport’s vice president of corporate communications and marketing. Shelton even gave one person a guitar.
Otto Stuparitz, a musicologist and lecturer at the University of Amsterdam who has studied airport music, said airports need to think carefully about their music choices. Music intended to be actively listened to, such as live music or catchy pop songs, can be very distracting in an already chaotic environment, he said. He found that some airports, especially in Europe, turned off piped melodies altogether.
But McPhillips said large spaces like airports can feel cold and unwelcoming without background music.
“A well-crafted audio strategy is one that people aren’t particularly aware of,” he said. “They just know they’re having a good time and it’s appropriate.”
___
Durbin reported from Detroit.
