Where’s the outcry from the acts?<\/p>\n
Other than Bruce Springsteen, who’s complaining about fairness after taking a $110 million check from Sony and making a deal with Wal-Mart, I don’t hear a plethora of acts lining up against the Live Nation\/Ticketmaster merger.\u00c2\u00a0 Shouldn’t they be up in arms?<\/p>\n
Fuck the fans.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, you heard me right.\u00c2\u00a0 The fans have been fucked forever, and their only avenue for equalization is to stop buying tickets.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s kind of like a junkie saying no to the heroin dealer.\u00c2\u00a0 Unless you’re willing to go cold turkey, you’ve got no power.\u00c2\u00a0 And the acts that can sell tickets know this.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is why they’re staying mum.<\/p>\n
Those superstar acts…\u00c2\u00a0 Do they want to admit to the kickbacks from Ticketmaster?\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, those service fees…\u00c2\u00a0 Not only does money go to the promoter, who the act has beaten up, but to the acts themselves.\u00c2\u00a0 In some cases, the acts are in cahoots with Ticketmaster to scalp their own tickets.\u00c2\u00a0 The acts are guilty as hell, and Ticketmaster has been taking all the heat.\u00c2\u00a0 The acts that can sell tickets.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s all we’ve got today, acts that can sell tickets and those that can’t.<\/p>\n
Anyway, it comes down to this.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re a musician, would you rather be in business with Irving Azoff or Doug Morris?\u00c2\u00a0 Irving or Lyor Cohen, Steve Barnett, who’s ever running the ship over there at EMI…\u00c2\u00a0 The labels have fucked the acts for eternity.\u00c2\u00a0 At least the consumer knows how much he’s paying for a ticket.\u00c2\u00a0 At least he can buy in ones and twos.\u00c2\u00a0 But the act has to make a long term deal with a label and if it ever sells any music, there will never be an accurate accounting, never mind that the lion’s share of the revenues will reside on the label’s side of the ledger.\u00c2\u00a0 As for the future?\u00c2\u00a0 The label wants more.\u00c2\u00a0 The label used to say they made you a star, they’re entitled to record revenue, make your money on the road.\u00c2\u00a0 Now they want a cut of that money to, whilst doing NOTHING for it!<\/p>\n
And on the other side you’ve got Irving Azoff.\u00c2\u00a0 Who Don Henley so famously said might be satan, but at least he’s the EAGLES’ SATAN!<\/p>\n
Ask any act.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s who you want on your side.\u00c2\u00a0 Satan.\u00c2\u00a0 Not someone in bed with the label, being fed acts by the company chairman, in bed with the corporation more than the talent, but someone who’ll live and die for you, who’ll take on all comers, all in the name of protecting your good name and making you tons of money.<\/p>\n
Sure, you might say the Eagles charge a lot for tickets.\u00c2\u00a0 But Irving said no to the Super Bowl and gave up on fan clubs when all they rendered was fan unhappiness.\u00c2\u00a0 Now you buy packages directly from the act.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only is the act happy, getting all that revenue beyond regular ticket price, SO IS THE FAN!\u00c2\u00a0 The fan knows exactly what he’s buying, and in the package comes a great seat and special treatment.\u00c2\u00a0 EXACTLY WHAT THE FAN WANTS!<\/p>\n
Do I think Clear Channel, er, Live Nation, and Ticketmaster should merge?\u00c2\u00a0 My fan hat says NO FUCKING WAY!\u00c2\u00a0 But I’m no longer an ignorant fan.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m privy to the inner workings of the sausage factory.\u00c2\u00a0 And even though Irving Azoff can be as trustworthy as Christopher Hitchens undergoing waterboarding, something’s got to change in this business.\u00c2\u00a0 The major labels and their CEOs have to be displaced.\u00c2\u00a0 Actually, they’re doing a good job of self-immolating.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather than license new technologies, they’ve seen half of their recorded music revenues EVAPORATE!\u00c2\u00a0 All the while making a land grab for their acts’ rights and suing the end consumer.\u00c2\u00a0 These guys have to go!\u00c2\u00a0 And who is going to replace them?<\/p>\n
Maybe, in time, a twentysomething will round up all the developing acts and change the system, but we need a revolution now.\u00c2\u00a0 I hate Wal-Mart, we all do.\u00c2\u00a0 But under the aegis of a green initiative, the Eagles did an exclusive with the retailer and sold a shitload of product, GUARANTEED!\u00c2\u00a0 All the labels could do was bitch that the numbers were inaccurate, until Journey sold a ton of product, priced cheaply, and AC\/DC blew out a ton more.\u00c2\u00a0 Point is, Irving did well by his artists.\u00c2\u00a0 Like I said, the consumer may not be paramount.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you’re on the creative side of things, Irving wins for you.\u00c2\u00a0 He gets Christina on every awards show known to man.\u00c2\u00a0 Now Jennifer Hudson.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you think that shit happens by accident?<\/p>\n
And Rapino, who’s Steve Jobs light, a spinner of a reality distortion field himself, has got innovative ideas, but no power.\u00c2\u00a0 He wants to share gate receipts with the act, he wants to sell merch, he wants to record and sell videos.\u00c2\u00a0 But he just doesn’t have any acts.\u00c2\u00a0 Irving delivers 200+ acts with Ticketmaster\/Front Line.\u00c2\u00a0 Who’ll now do a deal with Rapino, at arm’s length, because you know Irving never screws his clients, which is why they don’t leave him, which is why he doesn’t need contracts.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, he charges 15% when so many other managers charge 20%!<\/p>\n
If you wanted to cry the foul of monopoly, that ship sailed back in 1996, when Sillerman rolled up the concert promoters to create SFX\/Clear Channel\/Live Nation.\u00c2\u00a0 Most of the promoters took the dough.\u00c2\u00a0 Like today’s managers and agents.\u00c2\u00a0 They want the money first and foremost.\u00c2\u00a0 They didn’t fight the roll-up, agents\/managers\/acts LOVE the roll-up!\u00c2\u00a0 Now they get national, sometimes INTERNATIONAL guarantees, for the lion’s share of the money!\u00c2\u00a0 As far as crying about the lack of competition, there was never a pocket this deep!<\/p>\n
And if Live Nation is so heinous, why did U2, savior of the world, with an equitable image to a fault, make a deal with the concert promoter? Believe me, without Live Nation’s deep pockets, U2 wouldn’t be doing a stadium tour in the U.S. this summer.\u00c2\u00a0 Their last stadium tour TANKED! But now they’ve got that Live Nation safety net…<\/p>\n
As for rival managers…\u00c2\u00a0 Kwatinetz imploded, Terry seems to be eager to invest more time on the yoga tip, Cliff Burnstein does not seem desirous of being a world-dominating world-beater and Coran Capshaw wants this ubiquity\/power, but so far he’s only been able to lock up one superstar, the Dave Matthews Band.\u00c2\u00a0 So, the management ship sailed too.\u00c2\u00a0 Irving wasn’t the only one who could roll up the acts in theory, but he was the only one who could do it as a practical matter, because the managers he made deals with and their charges BELIEVE in Irving.<\/p>\n
We can categorize Irving’s faults all day long.\u00c2\u00a0 But he wants change.\u00c2\u00a0 He wants the artist in power.\u00c2\u00a0 Are we gonna give him the ball or are we gonna continue to live in Doug Morris’ world, where the acts are serfs, paid in lip service, and forgotten as soon as their recorded music sales start to stall?\u00c2\u00a0 Come on.\u00c2\u00a0 Get off your high fucking horse.\u00c2\u00a0 Consolidation occurred years ago.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, the Live Nation\/Ticketmaster merger gives too much power to too few people and marginalizes a lot of competitors…\u00c2\u00a0 But haven’t these competitors marginalized themselves already?\u00c2\u00a0 Not only the labels, but so many of the managers?<\/p>\n
We need change.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re only gonna get it by taking big steps.\u00c2\u00a0 Emotionally, the Live Nation\/Ticketmaster is a no-go.\u00c2\u00a0 But intellectually, it’s our best way out.\u00c2\u00a0 Only by stealing power from the major labels, only by giving the acts control of their own one stop shop, which they’ll have with Irving protecting them, can we make equitable progress.<\/p>\n
As for the fans?\u00c2\u00a0 You’re the ones keeping the secondary market alive.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re the ones paying hundreds of dollars to sit up close.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, Tickets Now is owned by Ticketmaster, but StubHub is not.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t see you boycotting either if you truly want to go to the show.<\/p>\n
We’ve got major problems in the music business.\u00c2\u00a0 First and foremost, the lack of traction for developing acts.\u00c2\u00a0 Does Irving truly care about developing acts?\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t think so.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s not enough money to be made.\u00c2\u00a0 So, independents, much younger than Irving, can develop the acts of tomorrow and change the paradigm.\u00c2\u00a0 But wouldn’t it be great if the acts were in control?\u00c2\u00a0 If talent ruled?<\/p>\n
This merger is a closer step to that than you can ever imagine.<\/p>\n
Sure, Live Nation controls a certain number of venues.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, Ticketmaster does 80% of the ticketing.\u00c2\u00a0 But we’ve learned through Live Nation’s ticketing fiasco, that despite the act-inspired ticket fees, Ticketmaster does a better job of distributing tickets than anybody else.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe they’ll come up with an auction system, that eviscerates the secondary market.\u00c2\u00a0 In order for this to happen, you need an artists’ representative in power. And that’s Irving.<\/p>\n
I’m not drinking the kool-aid, I’m just being practical.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, people shouldn’t be allowed to steal music on the Internet, but they did.\u00c2\u00a0 The whole industry fought this piracy for a decade to no avail.\u00c2\u00a0 Now we’re going to fight the Live Nation\/Ticketmaster merger in the name of protecting… Exactly what?\u00c2\u00a0 The independent promoter?\u00c2\u00a0 Who’s almost history, except for a couple of indie giants like JAM and Seth Hurwitz’s operation?\u00c2\u00a0 The power of the labels,\u00c2\u00a0 who’ve helped kill this business?\u00c2\u00a0 The managers who lost their clients to Front Line?<\/p>\n
Come on.\u00c2\u00a0 Stop dreaming.\u00c2\u00a0 This is a dirty, ugly business.\u00c2\u00a0 It needs change.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, Live Nation and Ticketmaster are merging primarily to raise their stock prices, but there are synergies.\u00c2\u00a0 And we need hope.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d like to believe this merger can benefit this industry rather than face another decade of internal squabbling, which will continue to leave the customer disenfranchised.<\/p>\n
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Where’s the outcry from the acts? Other than Bruce Springsteen, who’s complaining about fairness after taking a $110 million check from Sony and making a deal with Wal-Mart, I don’t hear a plethora of acts lining up against the Live Nation\/Ticketmaster merger.\u00c2\u00a0 Shouldn’t they be up in arms? Fuck the fans.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, you heard me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"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-1710","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\/s96vPs-irving","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1710","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1710\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}