“When you assemble artisans and create scarcity that results in a supply/demand imbalance, you generate a cash volcano that you can cap the same way you do an oil well — and turn on/off as needed. Businesses are either supply-constrained (e.g., rare earth minerals, 1945 Château Mouton wine, etc.) or demand-constrained (pretty much everything else). The companies that trade at the greatest multiples are those that are artificially supply-constrained, where the supply/demand imbalance puts a dial on the spigot the managers control. Imagine the decision to have more revenue is just a function of when you’d like more revenue (see above: Hermès).”

That’s the concert business. It’s predicated on not filling demand. Sure, Garth Brooks has gone in the opposite direction, playing in a market until demand is satiated, in the process keeping ticket prices low, but he can only do so in one market at a time, inherently constraining demand.

This is the essence of the big time concert business. You can’t get a ticket! What could be better. There are only a limited number available and how are you going to get yours. Are you going to join the fan club, sign up for a credit card, become a verified fan, log on at 10 on Saturday morning… You want to go, you need to go, but the bottom line is everybody can’t.

So it must be somebody’s fault.

Believe me, concert tickets were always in demand. But like rare records once the internet came along light was shined on the whole process. There was more information. There was StubHub, suddenly you could see that you were competing against professionals, and the odds of you getting a ticket were low. You felt frustrated, it had to be somebody’s fault. But certainly not the acts’. The acts were trustworthy and inviolate, someone else must be at fault.

And all the acts complaining about the death of recording royalties… Turns out it was the best thing that could ever happen. Because now your music was freely available to everyone. Literally on YouTube, at a de minimis cost on Spotify, et al. And if you had notice, demand was greater than it had ever been in history. Think about it. For decades there were few stadium shows, the demand was not there. Now there is a plethora of stadium shows, because of overwhelming demand.

Not to mention that there’s a slice of acts making a fortune on streaming. Not to mention that many acts complaining couldn’t even play, couldn’t get their recordings released, couldn’t create live demand, in the pre-internet era. As for the endless sea of product, the end result is there is a thin layer of luxury brands that have become ever more desirable, that people will pay a fortune to see. Certainly the oldsters, like the Stones and the Eagles, never mind McCartney, but newbies too, like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny. Demand so far exceeds supply that these acts’ images are burnished, paying dividends for their entire careers. Come on, how many stories have there been in the press about the inability to get Taylor Swift tickets? It seems to be easier to meet the President!

And then there’s Lady Gaga. Who continued to sell tickets without any hits. She had her original slew, but until “A Star is Born” she hadn’t had one in years, but people still bought her tickets. What a business!

Even better, if you need some cash, you just put up some shows, demand seems to be endless.

The ticket frenzy is akin to Birkin bags. Or even Rolexes. Rolex limits supply. During the 2008 recession they repurchased watches to ensure they were not sold at a discount, hurting the brand. And now you can’t buy a Rolex at retail, unless you’re very connected. Third parties buy them and the flip them online, at a premium. Just like ticket scalpers. Are people mad at Rolex? Of course not, they love Rolex. They’re mad at the third parties. Meanwhile, in truth Rolex could make more watches, but it doesn’t want to! Because the virtuous economic circle would be devastated. If everybody can buy a Rolex what is it worth? It’s devalued.

When it comes to concert tickets, the enemies are Ticketmaster and the scalpers. Talk to anybody in the business, the acts love to blame Ticketmaster, that’s what the company is paid for. As for acts bitching about the ticketing company, it reminds me of when Jay Leno took over the “Tonight Show.” He kept saying he wasn’t preventing stars from appearing on competing shows, and then his manager, Helen Kushnick, took him aside and said..,.

“I’ve been serving you steak dinners for almost eighteen years, I just haven’t bothered showing you how I slaughtered the cow.”

The acts are ignorant. Get them to talk about publishing and recording royalties, it’s laughable, they’ve got no clue. They’re just sure they’re being ripped-off and it’s somebody else’s fault. That’s why there’s a music business, because without it the acts would never break, and would be broke, all those people behind the curtain actually do something.

And it’s not only the acts, some of the managers are clueless too. If your act has been off the road for a year or more, don’t negotiate without calling your attorney, your agent, getting up to speed on what is happening in the marketplace, otherwise you’re going to negotiate to your detriment.

As for Robert Smith and the fees… That was a screw-up by Live Nation, by labeling the money as fees. AEG just baked the cost into the overall ticket. I mean who can go to see the Cure for twenty bucks, I mean really. If I told you you could buy a Birkin bag for a grand would you believe me? Or a Rolex for the same price? You’d think something shady was going on, and you’d be right.

This is the essence of the music business, supply and demand. This is why we’re in the heyday. It’s only going to get better, for the act side of it anyway. It’s going to get harder and harder to get a ticket, especially as live experiences continue to be treasured, one of the non-digital, non-commoditized items out there.

As for the value…

You’re a fan of the Yankees, you watch every game on TV, are you entitled to a cheap ticket? Of course not! It’s the same with a band. Just because you stream their music every day ad infinitum, that does not mean you’re entitled to get in the building at all, never mind for a cheap price. That doesn’t square almost anywhere, certainly not when demand far outstrips supply.

That’s the goal of touring, to leave people wanting more. To make sure there are never tickets available, that every gig sells out. This stokes demand down the road. If there are empty seats then the image of the act is impinged, and people think they’ll be able to get a ticket in the future, assuming they want one.

So demand keeps going up and ticket prices keep going up and sure, Zach Bryan is keeping prices low, but getting tickets is nearly impossible. And there are always outliers, like Garth Brooks, but they are not the mainstream. Why work that hard and not make the bucks?

And you don’t want someone else making the bucks off you, ergo the scalpers. Platinum, etc… They exist because demand is so damn high! The act just wants to capture some of the income that would otherwise go to the aftermarket. At least Bruce Springsteen owned it. And when the Boss does so, it makes it easier for everybody else. Do you see any Taylor Swift fans complaining that tickets are too expensive? No, they’re thrilled to be in the building at all, having a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Go to the grocery store, and buy milk, or chicken, it’s there every day, and it’s relatively cheap. You don’t buy it and thank your lucky stars you could get it and then go home and spend hours savoring it. But if the producers limited supply… Wow, chicken prices would go through the roof!

But they can’t get away with it, food is seen as a staple, people need to eat.

But they don’t need to go to the concert, they’re not entitled to go to the concert, it’s a luxury good, and priced accordingly! And the prices are so high only because people want to pay them!

The above quote is from Scott Galloway, you can read the complete screed here: https://www.profgalloway.com/scarcity-2/

In the piece Scott also says:

“This trend highlights what has got to be a first-ballot-hall-of-fame strategic head-up-your-ass decision: Do away with one of the great artisanal brands of the 20th century, HBO.”

You see Galloway is in branding 24/7. Zaslav is like an act that goes on the road every three years. He doesn’t know the landscape. So he’s out of the loop and making a big mistake.

Believe me, the insiders in the touring business know exactly what they’re doing. And they don’t want you to know how it all works, just like Hermes and Rolex don’t want you to know how they limit production to keep prices and image high.

Ultimately, demand outstrips supply, there is mania, people spend time talking and hunting for acquisition. Those who get the product, the tickets, are seen as stars, ultimately making the product even more desirable.

That’s the game. Don’t think you can break it. Because you want to go to the show…

And so does everybody else.

https://amzn.to/3L0ZXSt

Now that’s a book. Expect to see it on the ten best lists at the end of the year.

“Birnam Wood” is no “Maame.” “Birnam Wood” is literary fiction. As in the concepts supersede the plot, big ideas are wrestled with and… I don’t think anybody can really come up with a clear definition of “literary fiction,” it’s more like pornography, to paraphrase that Supreme Court Justice, you know it when you see it. Then again, with pornography at your fingertips via Google (and Bing!) what exactly is pornography. What crosses the line? I’d say very little. Oh yeah, your kids are seeing pornography before they reach puberty. All the child locks known to man can’t keep them from it. And this is good, because sex will be decriminalized, it will no longer be seen as a bad thing. I mean why prevent kids from seeing pornography when they endure active shooter drills and must confront the distinct possibility of being mowed down in school?

So what you’ve got here is the do-gooders and the billionaire. And they’re chiaroscuro, as in they’re neither perfectly good nor perfectly bad. For someone who came of age in the sixties, the number one societal issue is income inequality. Not only can we not make the money of the billionaires, we pay fealty to them, we lionize them, as if by having money they’re better than we are.

But what kind of person can make this money? Elon Musk has been exposed as two-dimensional and evil. Furthermore, he thinks he’s above the law. What is this new class of people who exist in this rarefied air? Like Trump. If you consider him to be wrongly accused, just think of the Black people who endure this each and every day. Or the Central Park Five Trump declared to be guilty who were put behind bars, losing all that time when in truth they were completely innocent. But if you let your jeans hang low and wear a do-rag you’re guilty until proven innocent. Whereas if you wear a suit, it’s the other way around.

There’s a great passage about our adulation of the rich near the end of the book:

“And she had always known. That was the sad thing. Neither she nor Owen had ever been under any illusions that Lemoine was a good person, Lady Darvish thought, as she advanced. They’d known he was bad right from the start. And still they’d courted his business. Still they’d courted his approval, his respect. Still they’d courted him.”

The sycophants. Be privileged to hang with the rich and powerful and the hangers-on will have you rolling your eyes, if you’re not one of them yourself. You want some of that shine to rub off on you. You want to fly on the private jet, relax on Necker Island. This is the power of Epstein. Everybody looked the other way because he was rich. And even the justice system gave him a pass, with an unwarranted plea bargain in Florida. I mean after all, rich people can’t be guilty, can they?

Of course they can.

And I’m going to let you in on a little secret. These people who made these fortunes… They’re very smart, very business savvy, very people savvy. They veer on being sociopaths, and some are. They can make you feel good while ripping you off. They’re always moving forward. As for friends? They know their kind, there are no real friends at this level.

But can the do-gooders triumph? Can we conquer climate change?

And it’s always the youth who lead the charge. Because they’re still optimistic, they still believe in possibilities, whereas when you get older you’re resigned to the way the world works, at least how America works. Your only choice is to be an artist and speak truth to power. But the artists don’t want to do this, they want to hang with the billionaires too, nobody wants to be poor, and nobody wants to alienate a potential customer, whether it be a brand or a person.

Speaking of Elon… Have you been following the story of NPR and PBS? Elon basically labeled them, inaccurately, as tools of the government, and they’ve decided to no longer tweet. Maybe because they’re not typical corporations who have to deliver better numbers each and every quarter. But they’re taking a stand. When seemingly no one else can. Those on Twitter not only want to glean information, they want to play, post and burnish their image. All these oldsters complaining about TikTok addiction in the youth should look at themselves. And why is it that the media can’t stop covering Musk and Trump. They’re laughing all the way to the bank! Biden doesn’t get anywhere near the mindshare, and he’s the President!

So “Birnam Wood” is set in New Zealand. The author, Eleanor Catton, moved there from Canada with her family, she now lives in the U.K. But this story could take place anywhere. However, the New Zealand government is seen as more benevolent than typical western governments.

But it’s not only the big societal issues that “Birnam Wood” addresses, but the personal. Who is the leader and why. Who is stifled and why. Who will sell out and who won’t. These are questions we deal with every day. All of us. If you take the money they own you, you’re compromised. But today everybody is looking to sell out, just look at the “influencers” hawking products they don’t believe in just for some of that corporate dough. They think they’re winning but in truth it’s the companies that are winning, the influencers are just pawns in their game. Working 24/7 with no portfolio to make money. And when they’re burned out and it’s over, what have they got? Nothing. Why is it suddenly a badge of honor to drop out of school. Education itself has a bad rap. They’re afraid you might learn to think so they make sure you’re not exposed to stuff. As for college, it’s now a glorified trade school. When I went it was about becoming a well-rounded person. Not a single person I went to college with thought about a well-paying job before graduation. That’s not what they were in it for, they wanted to expand their minds before their pocketbooks.

And the jet set lifestyle of the billionaires. They actually own their own jets, which was not the case back in the sixties when the term was coined. And they have security, both cameras and people. And their goal is to keep themselves separate from the rest of us, the great unwashed. And they sell the fiction that if we just work hard enough, we too can become rich. What a crock…

So some of the reviews, even Stephen King, consider “Birnam Wood” to be a thriller. And I guess it is, but that’s not how it felt to me, I wasn’t reading for the great surprise at the end.

And did I tell you that Catton won the Booker Prize?

This is usually a badge of unreadability. And I won’t say that “Birnam Wood” is an easy read, but it’s not that hard. It does not cut like butter, but you’ll get involved in the world, you’ll think and you’ll care.

So would I tell you to put “Birnam Wood” at the top of your reading list?

No. “Birnam Wood” isn’t for everybody. If you never read books, don’t start here. If books put you to sleep, don’t even bother starting. But if in your high school English class you were searching for the zeitgeist… If you took liberal arts courses in college instead of science and engineering… “Birnam Wood” is right up your alley.

You see it isn’t only about money…critical thinking, the power to analyze, the ability to wrestle with the big issues… These are critical to our society. Remember, all those TV series and movies and records were not made by techies. That’s a different vertical. Needed, but we live for the soft issues. That which is not black and white, that which is not easily defined, like life. We’re all wandering, looking for insight, but that is not primary, it all comes down to the bucks. Oh, and looking good too. So the Kardashians are billionaires. Would you treat your body that way, with so much plastic surgery? And I’ve yet to hear one of them utter truths gleaned from an analysis of experience. No, they went there and did that and they’re empty vessels but they’re billionaires, so we have to read about them and the young and impressionable try to be like them and…

Our society is truly screwed up. I won’t even bother to delve into politics. Then an issue in “Birnam Wood” is whether you can trust the government. I mean if everything is a conspiracy…

And Eleanor Catton is only 37 years old. I’m not saying she’s a prodigy, but she’s not an oldster stuck in her ways like so many of the vaunted writers of literary fiction. I mean wipe out the boomers and Gen-X’ers who come down from the mountaintop with tablets, holier-than-thou. The only hope for our society is the youth. I wish they’d read “Birnam Wood” rather than go to business school, then again…

I’m not rich.

Holly Knight started out as the pianist in the band Spider (alongside drummer Anton Fig), which was managed by Bill Aucoin. Holly even played on KISS’s “Unmasked” (uncredited, of course). After Spider made an album for Dreamland Records, Mike Chapman convinced Holly to move to Los Angeles to be a songwriter. The two of them ended up writing Pat Benatar’s “Love Is a Battlefield” and Tina Turner’s signature song “The Best.” Holly also co-wrote Tina’s “Better Be Good to Me” as well as Patty Smyth’s “The Warrior,” Animotion’s “Obsession” and even Aerosmith’s “Rag Doll.” Holly has a new book “I Am the Warrior: My Crazy Life Writing the Hits and Rocking the MTV Eighties” and we discuss it as well as so much more!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/holly-knight/id1316200737?i=1000608772170

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/bafe9912-f9b9-4427-bb84-cc8e8e5a8805/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-holly-knight

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/holly-knight-301968342

I don’t understand ditching a long-established brand.  Especially in 2023.  I remember the introduction of “New Coke” back in the 80s.  Bill Cosby assured us all that it was better than the old Coke.  Maybe Bill is available to help with this re-brand too?

Ken Misch

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HBO contributes just about everything worthwhile in programming to what can be found within HBO Max/Max.

Absolutely brain dead move.

That’s the equivalent of renaming Disneyland “Tune Town”.

Jaime Feldman

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Talk of Zas dropping the HBO in HBO was around for months and optimistically I chose to believe no one could possibly be this out of touch.

OK he’s got all these ‘reasons,’ but none of them have anything to do with the basics of brands, pop culture, consumer awareness and behaviors.

Don’t know if this will go *all the way down in flames, but it’s a lock for the next megalomania textbook. Like Musk not understanding even the basics of social media.

Deb Wilker

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Zaslov will go down as one of the most short-sighted, anti-creative, destructive bean counters in history.

Just google what he’s done to the animation industry, to an entire generation of creatives. Cancelling shows, shuttering studios, wiping out the careers of thousands. Because… Discovery Channel??

This week there is news of Warner Brothers literally throwing out press kits and posters dating back to the 1950s as another cost-cutting move.
A cost cutting move caused by the pointless financial shenanigans of Zaslav, who apparently makes more than 40 million a year.

As you point out, it’s truly pathetic.

In the age of streaming this blinkered greedy moron is burying and cancelling content.
Max will fail. He will fail. But the damage is being done to real people and real culture.
ugh

Xeth

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I was heavily involved in the development of HBO advertising in the mid 90s at BBDO advertising. The agency’s job was to develop tune-in advertising for select HBO programming, just when the network was pivoting from theatrical movie releases to original programming. The decision to heavily invest in original programming was a strong and bold move by HBO management, somewhat similar to Reed Hastings jettisoning DVD’s for streaming w/ Netflix.  HBO’s unique, original and high-quality programming immediately created a point-of-difference vs. programming offered by other networks; which led to the “It’s Not TV, It’s HBO” tagline. Back then, the network was run by programmers (not bean counters), who also understood the importance of both branding and marketing. Now admittedly, the television landscape has shifted dramatically in the past 10+ years with much more competition.  There now are many, many players. That said, I knew the brand was in deep trouble the minute AT&T took ownership of HBO in 2019. Very few brands have the equity and iconic imagery of HBO that was built and nurtured over several decades. Bob, this branding debacle isn’t as bad as New Coke, it’s far, far worse. It’s inexplicably Harvard case study worse.

Stuart K. Marvin

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Talk about living in the past. Crazy that “HBOMax” goes with “Max”, a brand whose legacy nods to Cinemax (Skinemax) and HBO’s common corporate parentage. I have had for years the highest regard for the quality of HBO programming like Succession, Sopranos, True Detective, Game of thrones, The Wire, Perry Mason, John Oliver, Real Time, etc. “Max” is a silly, puzzling and backward move at a Min(imum). And how is it they have ceded the comedy market HBO once owned to Netflix. Comedy specials (Pryor, Robin Williams, etc) and movies established their elite brand early on. Color me baffled.

Jim McKeon

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Typical idiocy anyone could see coming a mile away that will result in a devalued brand and golden parachutes for the architects of the stupidity.

Dave Conklin

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The name and logo remind me of the old skinemax (Cinemax)

Maury Wilks

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I thought the exact same thing when I saw this. I mean who’s brilliant idea was it to go from HBOMax and leave just “max” when Cinemax already failed and HBO was the only thing going for this “venture”?! The optics are horrible. Talk about complete self own.

L.A. Gonzalez

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I’ll bet people will think MAX is a new version of Cinemax. If it ain’t broke……

Russ Turk

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Agree on all points – And also, hasn’t MAX always been shorthand for Cinemax?

Ball of confusion.

Brian Howell

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Max / CineMax was HBO’s 2nd tier product. Seems so silly to rebrand to something related to your 2nd tier product.

Rusty Hodge

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Totally agree first thing I thought when announced. MAX has a soft porn rep to us gen xers but HBO had the cache’…oh well.

Luke Joerger

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Truth. I didn’t subscribe to Max. I subscribed to HBO.

Steve Schalchlin

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I think it’s safe to say that every single person who subscribes to Discovery+ does so in order to watch reality tv. Don’t underestimate the power of Bravo’s various franchises.

I’m only slightly ashamed to admit that I subscribe to Paramount+ for no other reason than to watch Survivor and The Challenge.

Zac Lasher

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Max is a plane with an unfavourable legacy.  HBO is the service that brought us the Sopranos. What are they thinking?

Andrew Forsyth

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Bob: Took your recommendation to check out Love Life on HBO Max.  Show has been pulled, effective last February.  Bob Paris

“William Jackson Harper Says He Was ‘Big Mad’ After ‘Love Life’ Was Pulled From HBO Max. The anthology series, which starred Harper in its second season, was recently canceled and removed from the streaming service as part of cost-cutting measures.”

https://bit.ly/3GEfTap

No Love Life on HBO MAX, gone to pay on Amazon and others.

Paul Zullo

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it’s worse than calling ’NEW COKE’ just NEW.
why are people so dumb sometimes???

Rob Preuss

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Bob, nailed it.

Mike Vial

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Hear hear.  Insanity.

Nick Davis

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Agree Bob. Completely.

The most important thing Zaslav could do is find some outsiders and listen to them. Unfortunately, ego and isolation are the enemy of success during periods of the kind change that is disrupting his world.

John Parikhal

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I don’t care what they call it. Just give the app some much needed tech support. Not being able to play downloaded content on a device in airplane mode is pointless.

Keith Farszmil

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As a very fine actor said in a great film:  “stupid is as stupid does. “   This is marketing 101. Amazing.

Martin Tudor

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I’m changing my name to Murray.

Steven Ross