Oldsters believe concert promotion is all about the deal.<\/p>\n
No, it’s all about the experience.<\/p>\n
First and foremost, the act must be someone people want to see.\u00c2\u00a0 In the old days, this was the responsibility of the label, which invested and then reaped the rewards of gargantuan record sales.\u00c2\u00a0 Those days are done.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s now incumbent upon promoters to break acts.\u00c2\u00a0 In other words, they can no longer clean up behind the elephant, they’ve got to rebuild the circus themselves.<\/p>\n
1.<\/span> Live Nation must give away music.<\/p>\n They say we lack filters.\u00c2\u00a0 Live Nation\/Ticketmaster are an inherent filter, that’s where people go when they’re interested, why not turn them on to new music?<\/p>\n In other words, Nathan Hubbard should come out of the closet and recommend a new act.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe an old act too.\u00c2\u00a0 Every Live Nation exec must become a personality.\u00c2\u00a0 With tastes.\u00c2\u00a0 They must be conduits to the good music.<\/p>\n And just like you can’t promote iTunes, Live Nation’s picks have to be unbuyable.\u00c2\u00a0 They must be a privilege.<\/p>\n Every week there’s a free download of a new and developing act.\u00c2\u00a0 With an explanation of why it should be listened to.\u00c2\u00a0 Furthermore, there’s going to be a vote.\u00c2\u00a0 Did you like the track or not?\u00c2\u00a0 Transparency is everything these days.\u00c2\u00a0 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?<\/p>\n 2.<\/span> Investment must be made in the physical plant.\u00c2\u00a0 Every LN venue needs more than a new coat of paint.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead of overpaying the executives how about new seats, wi-fi, a concierge, giveaways…<\/p>\n 3.<\/span> Concerts are a social experience.\u00c2\u00a0 So every event has to have its own site, whether it be a Facebook page or some other nexus.\u00c2\u00a0 Upon that page not only can you network with other concertgoers, you can rideshare and look for a date.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the secret I’m going to let you in on now.\u00c2\u00a0 Rock and roll dating.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s all in the execution.\u00c2\u00a0 I know how to do it, you don’t.<\/p>\n 4.<\/span> Loyalty food programs.\u00c2\u00a0 Pay $100 in advance and you get $120 worth of food.\u00c2\u00a0 Pay in advance and you get the import beer instead of the domestic.<\/p>\n 5.<\/span> Turn concertgoing into a competition.\u00c2\u00a0 For every show you go to there’s a badge and ultimately there’s a leaderboard.<\/p>\n Even better, give everybody a swipe card with their ticket, or utilize their mobile and scan when they arrive and when they leave.\u00c2\u00a0 Give a badge for seeing the opening act.\u00c2\u00a0 Give a badge for staying until the end.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 Whoever wins for the year gets flown to the gig of his choice and is loaded with merch from the band.<\/p>\n 6.<\/span> Parking is free if you buy tickets to three shows.<\/p>\n 7.<\/span> Every ticket comes with a link to a site where the show can be relived on video.\u00c2\u00a0 Come on, Irving\/Frontline controls all these acts, he can get the rights.\u00c2\u00a0 Furthermore, you get the show free with your ticket, the audio version.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t worry about quality, most people won’t listen.\u00c2\u00a0 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!<\/p>\n 8.<\/span> Higher quality food.\u00c2\u00a0 It can be expensive, but it has to be good.\u00c2\u00a0 How come Live Nation can’t make a deal with Shake Shack?<\/p>\n What you’ve got to do is create a club, where every concertgoer is a member.\u00c2\u00a0 A virtual club.\u00c2\u00a0 With Live Nation as the ringmaster.\u00c2\u00a0 Live Nation\/Ticketmaster must be the fans’ friend.<\/p>\n This whole business is wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s become about serving the artist, not the consumer.\u00c2\u00a0 And without the consumer, there is no business.<\/p>\n You can continue to overpay the acts, increase fees so the promoter can profit and hold back tickets for insiders.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a circle jerk that is contributing to people tuning out.\u00c2\u00a0 Or you can get rid of the b.s. and go tech, be totally transparent and honest.<\/p>\n What did Steve Jobs so famously say during the dot com crash?\u00c2\u00a0 That Apple was going to innovate its way out of the recession?<\/p>\n Looks like it did.<\/p>\n The only innovation we see at Live Nation is dynamic ticket pricing.\u00c2\u00a0 May prove to be a good thing, but I don’t think that’s the real problem.\u00c2\u00a0 The real problem is right now concertgoing is considered a shitty experience.\u00c2\u00a0 A rip-off you endure to see the star.<\/p>\n But there are fewer stars than ever.\u00c2\u00a0 Old ones are fading away and few new ones are being built.<\/p>\n The role of the promoter is not to be a bank, but to create demand.<\/p>\n Live Nation has forsaken this role.\u00c2\u00a0 As have so many of the other big time concert promoters.\u00c2\u00a0 They remember the indie promoters of yore getting rich and they want those riches for themselves.\u00c2\u00a0 But old time concert promoters gave food to those waiting in line for tickets.\u00c2\u00a0 They chided acts who did not deliver.\u00c2\u00a0 They built a business.<\/p>\n But that’s when music drove the culture and you couldn’t know which way the wind blew unless you listened to the radio.<\/p>\n Live Nation is not our friend.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just another corporation ripping us off.\u00c2\u00a0 Unless it changes its ways, there will be no growth.<\/p>\n I don’t care how many people owe Irving Azoff favors.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t care how Michael Rapino keeps his power.<\/p>\n It comes down to the music.\u00c2\u00a0 Live Nation needs to be in the music business.<\/p>\n But just like there were MP3 players before the iPod you’ve got to make it easy and fresh for people to consume.<\/p>\n You want to really revolutionize this business?<\/p>\n Sell it to Apple.<\/p>\n Steve Jobs will make sure the venues, all the products LOOK exactly right.\u00c2\u00a0 The blight of the LN sheds will be eviscerated and people will feel good just to go.<\/p>\n Prices may not come down, but people will believe the show is the best place to be.<\/p>\n The sound system will be first rate.\u00c2\u00a0 And the bands acts’ will have to be screened for value, for lack of rip-off.<\/p>\n Apple built an ecosystem.<\/p>\n Live Nation has built bupkes.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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.\u00c2\u00a0 In the old days, this was the responsibility of the label, which invested and then reaped the rewards of gargantuan record sales.\u00c2\u00a0 Those days are done.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s now […]<\/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":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-13H","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4073","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=4073"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4074,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4073\/revisions\/4074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}