It’s coming from the promoter.<\/p>\n
In Aspen, Jim Lewi and Diarmuid Quinn lamented that there was nowhere to get cash anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 That the label couldn’t afford to fund everything.\u00c2\u00a0 Where was the money going to come from?<\/p>\n
Two weeks later a promoter who was in attendance laughed.\u00c2\u00a0 He told me the promoter was the new bank!\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the promoter who’s guaranteeing the tour, but he’s not seen as a partner, the agents and acts just want to extract as much cash as they can, they don’t care about the health of the company that puts on the show.<\/p>\n
This same person quoted Howard Kaufman.\u00c2\u00a0 Irving once told me in a phone call that he had no problems with Rapino, he just had to say "You don’t want me to have Howard call, do you?"<\/p>\n
Michael Rapino wanted to change the structure.\u00c2\u00a0 Wanted acts to share in the upside.\u00c2\u00a0 But suddenly Howard’s acts weren’t going to play Live Nation sheds.\u00c2\u00a0 They were going to take a year off, or play indoors.\u00c2\u00a0 Howard controls the shed sellouts, everything from Jimmy Buffett to Def Leppard to Journey.\u00c2\u00a0 Rapino caved.<\/p>\n
Not that you can blame Howard.\u00c2\u00a0 He can’t help it if promoters are clambering over each other to pay more.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what we’ve got, a pay more world.\u00c2\u00a0 Where Live Nation and AEG outbid each other.\u00c2\u00a0 Live Nation needs the business and AEG has got more money than god.\u00c2\u00a0 But is this helping the industry?<\/p>\n
Sure, momentarily it’s helping the acts.\u00c2\u00a0 But, as a result, ticket prices go up and promoters end up stealing from acts. Who wouldn’t?\u00c2\u00a0 It’s almost impossible to make any money.\u00c2\u00a0 And if you’ve got a loss, it’s significant.\u00c2\u00a0 Used to be the agents\/managers\/acts would help the promoter out if he lost money, the talent needed the promoter to stay in business.\u00c2\u00a0 But now that Live Nation is a publicly traded company and AEG is so rich, why?<\/p>\n
So the promoter has to cough up a ton of bread.\u00c2\u00a0 The promoter is the bank.\u00c2\u00a0 But he’s getting very little in return.<\/p>\n
Why can’t deals be restructured?\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Where costs are covered and everybody shares in the upside?\u00c2\u00a0 Why can’t labels use some of that 360 money, that live revenue, to develop new acts?\u00c2\u00a0 Why does the promoter put up all the money and have such little power?\u00c2\u00a0 Where else do you take all the risk and end up with so little reward?<\/p>\n
We’re fighting amongst ourselves and we’re the losers.\u00c2\u00a0 Live gigs are a once a year event, something planned way in advance as opposed to a weekly or monthly occurrence like they used to be.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, tickets go on sale more than twelve months ahead in some cases!\u00c2\u00a0 And unlike in sports, the teams\/acts are constantly changing, so you don’t have a legacy of good will bringing the customer inside the building.<\/p>\n
But ultimately, you’ve got to blame the promoter himself.\u00c2\u00a0 The promoter has to learn how to say no.\u00c2\u00a0 But he hasn’t yet.<\/p>\n
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It’s coming from the promoter. In Aspen, Jim Lewi and Diarmuid Quinn lamented that there was nowhere to get cash anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 That the label couldn’t afford to fund everything.\u00c2\u00a0 Where was the money going to come from? Two weeks later a promoter who was in attendance laughed.\u00c2\u00a0 He told me the promoter was the new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-shows","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-pj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1569"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1573,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1569\/revisions\/1573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}