#153

A great start to the season 🎆

Today's read ... 6 

minutes

Turns out it wasn’t just Live Nation that had a great start to 2023, CTS Eventim and AEG are also taking advantage of fans’ desire to attend live events. Perhaps the adage is true, “a rising tide lifts all boats.”

 

 

Credit: Billy McFarland, photo via TikTokConcert Week → Festival WeekendLive Nation expanded its concert week to include festival weekend, offering a limited number of $99 all-in (plus tax) single-day tickets to 13 festivals across the US last weekend. Feels like a great deal - especially with all fees included - but if business is really booming, as Michael Rapino suggests, is there a need to offer discounted tickets?  

Billy McFarland Doubles Down

Two big announcements from Billy McFarland last week: he’s secured funding for FYRE 2.0 (apparently from venture capitalist John Cerasani), and there are plans for a Broadway musical, FYRE 1.5, which will come out before the festival. Billy explains the show: “Instead of like traditional Broadway actors, it’s going to be current music artists, combined with the Broadway format of the play — making fun of me, but also, I think, sharing some of the good sides as well.” We’ll believe it when we see it.

 

CTS Eventim Explodes (in a good way)CTS Eventim recorded consolidated revenue of €366m ($395M) in Q1, up 164% from €139M ($150M) in the first quarter of 2022 and a 29% increase from Q1 in 2019 (pre-pandemic). Its Q1 ticketing revenues nearly doubled from €77M in 2022 to €148M in the first three months of 2023, primarily due to solid performances in the German market. According to Klaus-Peter Schulenberg, chief executive of CTS Eventim, “The results show that live entertainment remains as popular as ever.”

AEG is on 🔥 

AEG had a helluva April, with some of its biggest festivals kicking off the season. Goldenvoice-produced Coachella and Stagecoach didn’t sell out, but they did sell nearly 1 million tickets over the three weekends in the desert. And the Coachella live streams drew nearly 3 times the audience of the Oscars and the Grammy’s. And NOLA Jazz Fest saw over 400,000 guests during its two weekends, despite the rocky weather. AEG is a private company and doesn’t have to share its financial results.

SeatGeek Leak

SeatGeek accidentally leaked 2 codes that offered free tickets up to $500 for over an hour on May 12. The ticketing company has said that “these purchases are not valid, and we are working to resolve each situation accordingly.” It is unclear how many tickets were secured during the leak or how SeatGeek will be able to cancel tickets where it wasn’t the primary seller or reseller and tickets that have already been transferred between parties.

 

Concert Discovery in Apple (via Shazam)Apple has launched a new concert discovery feature in Apple Maps and Apple Music by integrating with Shazam. In Apple Maps, there are 40 guides covering 10 cities that allow users to browse venues’ shows via Shazam’s concert discovery module which taps into Bandsintown. Apple Music users can also access Shazam’s concert discovery module while listening to their favorite artists.

Promoter Stocks Heat Up With recent positive Q1 results announced by Live Nation and CTS Eventim recently, it’s no surprise that concert promoter stocks in the Billboard Global Music Index had a good week last week; just as the summer season is starting to heat up. Madison Square Garden Entertainment (MSGE) was up 19.4%; CTS Eventim rose 9.2%; Live Nation gained 8.4%; and Sphere Entertainment Co., which spun off MSG Entertainment in April, improved 6.1%.

New Live Nation Venue in South KoreaLive Nation and South Korea’s Busan Metropolitan City plan to build a new entertainment complex in Busan, South Korea. The venue will include “a 20,000-capacity arena, an exhibition center, as well as hotels and an educational facility to foster the growth of talent in the K-pop scene.” No date has been announced for the project.

Fee Transparency Coming to MAMassachusetts Senators introduced the “Taylor Swift Bill,” also known as, An Act Ensuring Transparent Ticket Pricing, requiring ticket sellers to fully disclose all of the fees associated with ticket purchases upfront. It also prohibits dynamic pricing on tickets. This is already a law in New York state and has been proposed in the TICKET Act by US Senators.

Don’t Buy Miley FlowersMiley Cyrus can talk to herself for hours and is totally OK with it. In fact, she prefers it over large performances. In an interview with British Vogue, the artist said she has no intention of touring anytime soon. “Singing for hundreds of thousands of people isn’t really the thing that I love. There’s no connection. There’s no safety.” Her last large tour was in 2014 and she did a small, 6-city tour, “Attention,” in 2022.

 

 ACL Live is hiring a full-time Ticketing Supervisor to oversee daily ticketing and staff operations at The Moody Theater box office, supporting event calendars for the ACL Live and 3TEN venues in Austin, TX.  The Festival Group has an immediate need for a full-time Festival Director in Fairfield, NJ, to run The NJ Lottery Festival of Ballooning and Rock, Ribs & Ridges. Duties include hotels, hospitality, social and web presence, and admin functions.  160over90 (part of Endeavor) is looking for a Vice President, Partnerships to join its NYC-based team. Salary range $146,250 - 214,500.

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Last Week's Results:

readers would have paid $300 to see Dead and Company's most recent performance at Barton Hall.

Headliners, Lineups, Festival & Tour Announcements

  • UK’s Midnight Sun Weekender Festival was canceled just a week before it was supposed to start (May 25 - 27) due to rising costs, limited infrastructure availability, and low ticket sales. While the cancellation is unfortunate, the honesty around the reason for canceling is refreshing to hear.

  • CMA Fest has added Fitness at Fest for those looking to burn some extra calories during the Nashville festival. Activities include training sessions with celebrity trainers and Jana Kramer, June 9 - 10 and pickleball with LOCASH during Fan Fair X, June 8 - 10. 

  • The Big Machine Music City Grand Prix has announced the lineup for its Freedom Friday Tribute Concert including Brian Kelley, Chris Janson, Vince Neil, Friday, August 4 at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, TN.

  • Bedrock and Afro Nation will launch Afro Nation Detroit August 19 - 20 as its flagship US festival. The first US fest, Afro Nation Miami, takes place this coming weekend, May 27 - 28. 

  • Music Midtown will feature headlining performances from P!NK, Billie Eilish and Guns n’ Roses, September 15-17 at Atlanta, GA’s Piedmont Park.

  • The Cure, Death Cab For Cutie and the Postal Service headline Riot Fest 2023, September 15 - 17, Douglass Park, Chicago, IL

  • The National announced the return of Homecoming Festival - for the first time since 2018 - with Patti Smith, Pavement, Walkmen & more, September 14 - 15 in Cincinnati, OH.

  • San Francisco’s Portola Festival returns to Pier 80 with Skrillex, Eric Prydz, Jai Paul & Nelly Furtado, September 30 - October 1. 

  • Phish: Riviera Maya returns to Mexico for its 7th all-inclusive festi-vacation, February 21 - 24 at Moon Palace Cancun.

About last weekend...

Credit: INSOMNIAC

Backline + Love4Live Present: Tour Health + Wellness Workshop

 

The Event Safety Alliance is offering complimentary 2-year membership to individuals currently enrolled in university, college, high school, or tradecraft programs. If you are a student, take advantage of this!

 

Dating App Bumble now allows you to see if you and your potential soul-mate share the same Top Artists via a newly released feature of its Spotify integration.

 

 Lululemon hosted a Dupe Swap to prove that their leggings are in fact superior to the many imitators on the market.

 

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