Oldsters believe concert promotion is all about the deal.

No, it’s all about the experience.

First and foremost, the act must be someone people want to see.  In the old days, this was the responsibility of the label, which invested and then reaped the rewards of gargantuan record sales.  Those days are done.  It’s now incumbent upon promoters to break acts.  In other words, they can no longer clean up behind the elephant, they’ve got to rebuild the circus themselves.

1. Live Nation must give away music.

They say we lack filters.  Live Nation/Ticketmaster are an inherent filter, that’s where people go when they’re interested, why not turn them on to new music?

In other words, Nathan Hubbard should come out of the closet and recommend a new act.  Maybe an old act too.  Every Live Nation exec must become a personality.  With tastes.  They must be conduits to the good music.

And just like you can’t promote iTunes, Live Nation’s picks have to be unbuyable.  They must be a privilege.

Every week there’s a free download of a new and developing act.  With an explanation of why it should be listened to.  Furthermore, there’s going to be a vote.  Did you like the track or not?  Transparency is everything these days.  If it turns out people like a track others will check it out and new acts will be broken, and isn’t that the lifeblood of the concert industry, new acts?

2. Investment must be made in the physical plant.  Every LN venue needs more than a new coat of paint.  Instead of overpaying the executives how about new seats, wi-fi, a concierge, giveaways…

3. Concerts are a social experience.  So every event has to have its own site, whether it be a Facebook page or some other nexus.  Upon that page not only can you network with other concertgoers, you can rideshare and look for a date.  That’s the secret I’m going to let you in on now.  Rock and roll dating.  But it’s all in the execution.  I know how to do it, you don’t.

4. Loyalty food programs.  Pay $100 in advance and you get $120 worth of food.  Pay in advance and you get the import beer instead of the domestic.

5. Turn concertgoing into a competition.  For every show you go to there’s a badge and ultimately there’s a leaderboard.

Even better, give everybody a swipe card with their ticket, or utilize their mobile and scan when they arrive and when they leave.  Give a badge for seeing the opening act.  Give a badge for staying until the end.  Whoever has the most badges every month gets a free backstage pass for the following month, in other words, they get to be an insider.  Whoever wins for the year gets flown to the gig of his choice and is loaded with merch from the band.

6. Parking is free if you buy tickets to three shows.

7. Every ticket comes with a link to a site where the show can be relived on video.  Come on, Irving/Frontline controls all these acts, he can get the rights.  Furthermore, you get the show free with your ticket, the audio version.  Don’t worry about quality, most people won’t listen.  But this will foster debate online about who’s good and who’s not and what’s wrong with that, enough with the smoke and mirrors!

8. Higher quality food.  It can be expensive, but it has to be good.  How come Live Nation can’t make a deal with Shake Shack?

What you’ve got to do is create a club, where every concertgoer is a member.  A virtual club.  With Live Nation as the ringmaster.  Live Nation/Ticketmaster must be the fans’ friend.

This whole business is wrong.  It’s become about serving the artist, not the consumer.  And without the consumer, there is no business.

You can continue to overpay the acts, increase fees so the promoter can profit and hold back tickets for insiders.  It’s a circle jerk that is contributing to people tuning out.  Or you can get rid of the b.s. and go tech, be totally transparent and honest.

What did Steve Jobs so famously say during the dot com crash?  That Apple was going to innovate its way out of the recession?

Looks like it did.

The only innovation we see at Live Nation is dynamic ticket pricing.  May prove to be a good thing, but I don’t think that’s the real problem.  The real problem is right now concertgoing is considered a shitty experience.  A rip-off you endure to see the star.

But there are fewer stars than ever.  Old ones are fading away and few new ones are being built.

The role of the promoter is not to be a bank, but to create demand.

Live Nation has forsaken this role.  As have so many of the other big time concert promoters.  They remember the indie promoters of yore getting rich and they want those riches for themselves.  But old time concert promoters gave food to those waiting in line for tickets.  They chided acts who did not deliver.  They built a business.

But that’s when music drove the culture and you couldn’t know which way the wind blew unless you listened to the radio.

Live Nation is not our friend.  It’s just another corporation ripping us off.  Unless it changes its ways, there will be no growth.

I don’t care how many people owe Irving Azoff favors.  I don’t care how Michael Rapino keeps his power.

It comes down to the music.  Live Nation needs to be in the music business.

But just like there were MP3 players before the iPod you’ve got to make it easy and fresh for people to consume.

You want to really revolutionize this business?

Sell it to Apple.

Steve Jobs will make sure the venues, all the products LOOK exactly right.  The blight of the LN sheds will be eviscerated and people will feel good just to go.

Prices may not come down, but people will believe the show is the best place to be.

The sound system will be first rate.  And the bands acts’ will have to be screened for value, for lack of rip-off.

Apple built an ecosystem.

Live Nation has built bupkes.