Presently Japan has over 2,800 concert halls built as public facilities. The management of these concert halls, and by extension, the music industry, is beginning to feel the far-reaching effects of a new legal provision in line with broad based administrative reforms being implemented by the national government. The "designated manager" system enables municipalities to commission the management of public facilities - concert halls included - to private companies or nonprofits, instead of the heretofore universal system of direct management by municipal government.

 A survey of concert halls by the Association of Public Theaters and Halls in Japan that obtained replies from 1,323 halls found that management of 46.9% (621) was being handled by the municipalities and 44.4% (587) by designated managers. In addition, the survey found that 7.6% of the halls (101) had adopted a limited system of management by outside parties. Another 14 concert halls had systems that fit none of these management categories. Thus, more than half the halls had changed their system of management, but in 84.8% of the cases in which outside managers were brought in, the commissions went to public foundations or corporations, and to private companies in only 70 cases, which is less than had been expected. Municipalities have mandated the issuing of new designated manager commissions on the basis of performance evaluations at 3-5 year intervals. Under the circumstances, it will probably take a number of years before this new system settles into a predictable role within Japan's concert halls network.

 One aspect of this system is that it is intended to reduce costs. This has raised concerns in the music industry that it will result in concert halls spending less on sponsoring their own concerts, thereby reducing the industry-wide scale of cultural projects.