Bob my boy,

I have purposefully stayed away from the Live Nation bashing because I believe that all this negative press about live entertainment and the incessant over-charging and subsequent discounting of our inventory is going to "come home to roost" for all of us (artists, managers, agents, promoters, etc.) lucky enough to make a living doing what we love.

The truth is my company is having our most successful year in its 10 year existence with Bon Jovi, the Black-Eyed Peas, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Daughtry, Leonard Cohen, our Latin touring division, Coachella, Stagecoach, New Orleans Jazzfest, thousands of one-offs in small venues, and, yes, a sixteen year-old prodigy named Justin Bieber.  Speaking of this emerging worldwide superstar, it was absolutely wrong and in poor taste to use a fictitious "canceled" Staples Center show on June 18th as an example of poorly peforming tours.  For the record, JB’s tour didn’t start until June 23rd and every show is either completely sold-out or will be by showtime.  This tour is one of the great success stories of 2010.  As far as the venue my competitors chose to use as an example, Staples Center is one of the greatest arenas in the world and has delivered many of LN’s largest grosses on even their under-performing tours.  Funny how their slide used an AEG Live tour and and an AEG venue to make a point.  That was misleading and just plain wrong like page 17 on their quarterly report.

Bob and fellow readers,  there needs to be an adjustment in how much we charge and how well we treat and interact with the consumer.  The road cannot completely fill the economic hole left by the transitioning recorded music business.  The guarantees have to come down to allow more realistic scaling of our tours, the secondary market needs to provide the consumer with a real value added experience and not just serve as a greedfest, artists cannot play markets over-and-over in the same touring cycle, and my competitors need to be less disengenuous and more responsible and transparent.

My sincere hope is that these "interesting" times will teach us all a lesson.  And I mean all of us!

Randy Phillips
President & CEO
AEG Live