Black Eyed Peas Freedom Campaign

Has the whole world gone mad? Yes!

You know how I know?



Just recently it was announced that the world's most benign group of breakdancing clothes-horses is advocating a cause. The Black Eyed Peas recently performed at a concert in Thailand to support the release of Burmese Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi. The concert, which is part of the Freedom Campaign initiative ( a joint project between Human Rights Action Center and U.S. Campaign for Burma) will also be simulcast in Burma where the author is under house arrest for promoting a democratic agenda. the simulcast marks the second time the people of Burma will ever be party to a concert calling for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and the first time it will be broadcast from a neighboring nation.

Hmm, I think Art Brut's Eddie Argos has got it all wrong, I think The Black Eyed Peas will write the song that makes Israel and Palestine get along.

More info here.

BRIEF: Live Nation Swallows Up Everything In Sight

In an effort to...er..um...take overthe entire live music industry. Live Nation announces plans to acquire MusicToday, an industry leader in connecting fans with artists through VIP services, fan clubs, and ticketing. The six year old company handles such big name artists as Britney Spears, Usher, and Christina Aguilera, as well as providing services to venues, promoters, labels and even non-music stars like Teri Hatcher.

"Our mission is to build larger and more passionate communities of fans around our artist clients," said Mr. Capshaw. "Partnering with Live Nation will allow us to provide the artist with a full suite of services related to the live experience. We are now in the unique position to create opportunities for artist-fan interaction both online through our platforms and offline at venues, taking fan communities beyond the virtual world to the places where artists and fans converge. Together we will offer artists unparalleled marketing reach while championing new and innovative products for their fans."

Full press release here.

More info on MusicToday here.

Tickets Not So High After All?

Apparently after all that balking about ticket prices sales appear to be up.
According to a recent article in the Ithaca journal (with information culled from Pollstar I presume) ticket sales are up 20% for the first half of 2006. In addition to the usual suspects, comedy acts like Jerry Seinfeld and Larry the Cable Guy had great record sales as did rock band Fall Out Boy.

The robust market is a bit of a surprise. Last summer, many said that high ticket prices accounted for a drop in the number of tickets sold in the first half of 2005.

But this year, “the really huge acts haven't seen that much price resistance,” says Pollstar Editor-in-Chief Gary Bongiovanni.

Fans paid as much as $350 to see Madonna (not including third-party sales), with the average ticket going for $186. A typical Stones seat cost $170. By contrast, the average ticket last year for U2 — the biggest draw at this point in the 2005 season — cost $97.

Of course, we are all waiting for the drop off point which may be around the corner, with $750 tickets on a slow trickle for Barbara Streisand.

Full article here.

Gigantour Returns!!

(Via Pollstar) I'm mostly writing about this because it has a fun name. Sponsored by Xbox 360, Gigantour, the heavy metal concert tour created by Megadeth's frontman Dave Mustaine is headed back to stages this year. I don't understand why this tour exists when there is already the Ozzfest to contend with. But considering it features Anthrax, Dream Factory, and Anthrax maybe this is the festival for the heavy metal legacy/old school acts? I dunno.



The whole deal kicks off in September. To find out more about it click here (the website secretly kinda rocks)..

BRIEF: Deep Purple Holds Off on Mideast Touring

(Via Blabbermouth)In light of the ongoing Israeli assault in Lebanon, veteran rock act Deep Purple has decided to postpone their forthcoming tour dates there.

"It's in everyone's interest that a musical concert be a relatively peaceful event. Once they get things together and the situation settles down and the time is right, I'm sure we'll go back." Glover added, "It's a shame. I know the area quite well and Baalbeck is quite beautiful and very historic. I was actually looking forward to the concert."

In 1966, the band played a 9-week stint in Lebanon.

BRIEF: American Idol touring stays strong

Ask Simon Cowell about the reported slump in ticket sales nation wide and you might be met with a perplexed glare. While other acts might be feeling the pinch, the American Idol All Star tours have been riding high for years. This year, the group will travel through the country for 60 sold out tour dates.

"On one hand it surprises me, on the other it doesn't," says Jeff Frasco, the Creative Artists Agency executive responsible for the tour. "The television show is so popular, the audience is vested with the kids throughout the entire season, and they just want to see them."

Story here on Reuters.

BRIEF: Jowell gets tough

(Via Brooklynvegan) Realizing that strong urging alone is not really going to make the difference, British culture secretary Tessa Jowell gives promoters a timeline to shape up and get tough on scalping or pay the price.

In her most recent meeting with industry leaders she set out an action plan for the eradication of scalping. Action items include:

• An industrywide standard for ticket refund by original purchaser
• A website created by Concert Promoters Association where fans can exchange tickets at face value
• An established code of practice for primary and secondary ticket sellers.

"If it hasn't come up with a workable solution to stamping out the most unscrupulous touts by next summer, where there is clear evidence it's needed, we may consider targeted action and changes in legislation to ensure genuine fans are protected from exploitation."

I wonder what sparked the sudden show of force, maybe she heard about the scalper convention and got annoyed?

Full article here.

Virgin's Festival Comes Stateside

Richard Branson and co. have announced the launch of the first ever Virgin Festival in US modelled after V Festival which is already a ten year institution in UK.

The festival which is, of course, a promotional vehicle for Virgin artists and products (like Virgin Mobile and Virgin Airlines) will be held September at Baltimore's Pimlico Race Course will feature such artists as Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Who, The Flaming Lips, Gnarls Barkley, The Killers and The Raconteurs.

"People expect the unexpected from Virgin," said Sir Richard Branson, founder and chairman of Virgin. "Our core philosophy of customer empowerment has created a real presence for Virgin in the United States. Virgin Festival By Virgin Mobile will enable us to expose an even broader audience to that brand philosophy. By creating a music festival that goes beyond expectations, we strive to make the overall live experience explosive and unique."

The festival sounds great , but I am a tad annoyed that I already got tickets for The Flaming Lips here in New York. I might have to sell my tickets and hop down to Baltimore. Flaming Lips AND The Who in New York would easily cost me more than the $97.50 cost of admission for the full day festivities in Baltimore. Thinking...thinking.

Also being the big nerd that I am, I am eager to see whether they use this as an opportunity to launch m-ticketing stateside...fingers crossed!

Full press release here.

Scalper Convention This Week

(Via BrooklynVegan) Apparently there is a professional ticket scalper convention going on right now where major promoters are rubbing elbows with ticket resellers both large (EBay) and medium (Tickettoolshed.com) and small (Fast Eddie and Crazy Joe).

Ticket Summit is a secondary ticket industry conference and trade show. It will host a consortium of experts and leaders within the ticket community, offering a chance to establish and foster relationships valuable to your business.

This conference is the illegitimate pre-party (the Slamdance of ticket selling if you will) to the real deal which is the National Association of Ticket Brokers conference taking place over this weekend. I hope the legit ticket brokers are taking detailed notes so that during their one real meeting (everything else seems to be golf and cocktails, honestly see the schedule here ), "Ticket Distribution in the 21st Century", they will be able to hammer out some solid ideas about how to deal with insane scalping and stupid high ticket prices.

Read more about Ticket Summit and NATB.

BRIEF: David and Goliath In Chicago

In the Sunday Sun Times, Jim DeRogaitis explored the ramifications of the Live Nation HOB purchase in Chicago, through a chat with the head of city's biggest independent promoter JAM productions.

Jam Productions co-founder Jerry Mickelson, sees trouble.

"I think it's bad for the consumer and bad for those of us who are in the live entertainment industry, because one more competitor has just been eliminated by Live Nation," he says. "It's not a healthy thing: Competition is good, but the way the concert industry is going, pretty soon, they'll be only one company."

The article also outlines the history of competition between House of Blues, JAM, and Live Nation.

Full article here.

The Numbers Are In!: Pollstar's Mid-year Report

Pollstar's mid-year concert report numbers are in; ticket sales are up and the Queen of Pop, Madonna, is on top.

Here are the bullet points :

• With a combined revenue of $1.012 billion, the Top 10 tours of 2006 have earned 38.5% more than last year's Top 10 at mid-year '05.
• The number of tours earning over $20 million has doubled this year to 12.
• The average tickets sold per city was up 1,233, or 22.7 percent, to 6,660.
• The average ticket price was up 16% compared to this period last year, continuing a decade long trend of yearly increases (with the exception of a price drop in 2004).
• Most new headliners are in the country music sphere, though Fall Out Boy did make the jump to a headlining rock act.
• Live Nation reported to Pollstar that it sold 10.6 million tickets worldwide in the first half of 2006. AEG reported 3.6 million sold and House Of Blues 3.2 million. Needless to say, if the Feds don't put the brakes on the deal, the purchase of House of Blues will make Live Nation an even more unbeatable force and a newly dominant force in the nightclub business.

Here are some questions:

• Where will the new headliners come from in the coming years?
• Will the ongoing litigation against Live Nation be enough to raise an eyebrow and slow the sale of House of Blues?
• With Live Nation as pretty much the only game in town in most markets will artists go direct instead of using agents to broker deals? (question stolen from Pollstar and rephrased)

Pollstar Business Analysis here
List of Top 100 Concerts here
Links to other superimportant lists and charts to geek out to here(login required)

Live Nation Is In The Merch Biz

Apparently the Live Nation shopping spree is nowhere near over. Today the company acquired majority stake in TRUNK LTD, a top merchandise company. TRUNK has exclusive licenses with a number of superstar acts including Aerosmith, The Beatles, Blondie, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd,The Grateful Dead, and The Doors to name a few. Additionally TRUNK LTD's CEO Brad Beckerman has been named President and Chief Creative Officer of Merchandising at Live Nation. This adds a whole new division to Live Nation, a company which is already a global leader in venue management and event promotion. The company is also making strides in digital content distribution. Most recently, the company purchased the House of Blues chain of clubs.

"Live Nation and TRUNK LTD share the same core consumer. Ourpartnership gives both of our companies the ability to enhance each other'sbrand," said Mr. Beckerman. "Music is the language of emotion; togetherLive Nation and TRUNK LTD will further enhance the emotional connectionbetween the artist and fan by extending the live experience beyond the show."

I'm still not entirely certain how merch fits into the grand scheme of things. I thought the focus was supposed to be getting butts into seats, but I guess that remains to be seen. I'm thinking this might be placed under brand identity; a rebranding of TRUNK and HOB could help to distinguish Live Nation as a brand and distance themselves from Clear Channel OR alternatively Live Nation might be trying to associate themselves with more popular brands towards the same goal of disassociating their name from CC . Then again with their exclusive deal to record live shows and make them available for sale to the public, I suppose they could just go ahead and open rock memorabilia shops.

Hmm, well I guess we'll all heare more about the plans for TRUNK in the forthcoming earnings call.

Zippo Tour Focuses on The Future

A recent article on Monsters and Critics profiles this year's Zippo's Tour. The tour is unique in that though it features major acts like Papa Roach (last year's tour had All American Rejects as headliners) the main focus is emerging local acts from every town where the tour stops.

"Zippo is a family-owned company, and they`re taking those family values and applying them to the local music scenes," Stephan adds. "What the Zippo Hot tour endeavors to do is use the online space to help connect kids and let them understand there is great music in their city and other cities. Zippo wants to be the brand behind helping facilitate that and become a part of their lifestyle."

Created through a joint venture between Fuse music television and the Zippo's lighter company the tour will hit cities with bands in every city competing for $100,00 in prizes and a support slot on Papa Roach's November tour.

If this is legit it sounds like a good idea, but part of me feels like this is a battle of the bands type scam. I hope I am wrong.

Full articlehere.

BRIEF: Show Shushing

Article in San Diego examines the rising phenomenon of incessant audience chit-chat. Though concert chatter is nothing new, with the spread of cellphones, the endless talk has reached what some feel is an intolerable high.

Just why people pay up to $100 or more per seat to attend a concert, only to talk throughout it, is a mystery. But talk they do, and not just in San Diego, Los Angeles or London.

At Atlanta's 7,500-seat Chastain Park Amphitheatre, artists including Rickie Lee Jones and R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe have scolded loudly talking fans.

During a 2003 Chastain concert to promote his ambitious “Greendale” album and film, Neil Young commented from the stage: “Once I made the mistake of playing acoustic in Las Vegas, and people talked through every song. I don't do that anymore. Nice to know there's a little bit of Vegas right here in Atlanta.”

Full article here.

Live Nation Second Quarter Earnings Call Scheduled

Hey Kids! Guess what's almost upon us? Yes, you guessed it! The Live Nation Second Quarter Earnings Call! It's scheduled for Friday, August 4th at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time.

For a quick refresher, here's my overview of last quarter's earnings call.

Here's my current quick list of items to listen for:

1) EVENT PROMOTION - Event revenues are up no doubt with the summer season in high gear and the purchase of Concert Productions International.
2) VENUES - Venue revenues are also without a doubt up, and with the sale of Broadway properties and the purchase of House of Blues revenues are poised to go even higher.
3) DIGITAL & BRANDING - I don't expect much change on the digital initiative side, but I am interested to hear whether they reveal any plans to change the direction of the House of Blues franchise, namely whether they plan to rebrand. This might be a good opportunity for them to define their identity and build relationships with the audience.
4) Also, do you think they will touch on any of the ongoing antitrust litigation? I'm guessing no, but I'll be keeping a sharp for any discussion of board restructuring.

OK, I'm off to dust my party hat for another celebratory call. These are high times for Mike and the gang....

Press release here.

Mobile Ticketing Gets Going

The recent issue of Billboard (July 15) features a full page article about the roll out of the newest trend in concert ticket sales, mobile ticketing or 'm-ticketing'. Through this system concertgoers can get tickets sent directly to their phone as a screen bar code which can be scanned at the venue entrance. Not only does this system cut out the paper waste and the cost of getting tickets sent through mail, but best of all it thwarts scalpers since it cannot be transferred from phone to phone.

"The mobile phone is without doubt the next step for us to create close relationships with our customers," Live Nation U.K. managing director Stuart Galbraith says. "The technology not only gives us the ability to access customers directly, they also don't have to wait for the mail or read their eamil to know they have their tickets."

The method has been tested in various European markets (in UK through a parnership between Ticketmaster, Nokia and Live Nation and in France by Vodaphone and marketing company Enpocket) and its most large scale use to date has been the O2 Wireless Festivall where ₤100,000 worth of m-tickets were sold within the first week of sales. However this summer's busy season will be the true test of m-tickets abilities, and Galbraith hopes that m-ticketing will soon be available in all 9 Live Nation venues throughout the UK.

I'll no doubt be keeping my eye out for more news about m-ticketing and am particularly interested to see whether its popularity will increase sales in backup cellphone power (for those last minute outages).

BRIEF: Wayne Coyne Loves His Audience... a lot

My love for Wayne Coyne just grows and grows. In a recent interview, The Flaming Lips' front man said that he wanted to give everyone in the crowd vibrating underwear in an attempt to make the live experience a..um.. full body experience. He says he's already tried it on his wife and a few employees.

"See, I believe in doing things," he explained. "That's the problem with most artists: They just dream and dream and dream. You gotta do stuff."



This man is a total visionary. Where do I sign?

Full article here.

Live Nation Grabs HOB

(Via Brooklyn Vegan) In further Live Nation news, Michael Rapino and co. continue the company's forward march with the unexpected acquisition of House of Blues Entertainment. The company which consists of ten clubs and eight ampitheatres throughout the country, will be purchased for $350 million in cash.

Live Nation Chief Executive Officer Michael Rapino commented: "We have great respect for the House of Blues employees and what they have accomplished and we look forward to welcoming them into the Live Nation family."

"This represents a compelling opportunity to grow our brand and accelerate the expansion of our club business, both in the United States and abroad," said House of Blues Chief Executive Officer Greg Trojan. "Together, we will be able to take live music to a new level, delivering more music on more dates in more local venues."

The transaction should be complete by the close of 2006, in the meantime I'm hunting down more information about how much this merger will increase Live Nation's marketshare. It seems like it's leaning towards monopoly-time in the midsize concert market.

Full article at billboard.biz.

BRIEF: Hootie expands their Homegrown Concert Series

Man, these stars are so magnanimous this season! In an effort to further the efforts of their foundation, top-selling artists Hootie & the Blowfish have partnered with Live Nation and Hard Rock Cafe to expand their Homegrown Concert Series. The concert was established in 2003 as a way to draw attention to the plight of schoolchildren in their hometown of Charleston, South Carolina who suffer from yearly budget cuts. This year the concert will travel to 12 cities through South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, aand Michigan with the band encouraging the audiences to donate new school supplies which will be provided to schoolchildren of the areas surrounding each stadium.

Full article and more info about the concerts here.

Keane Channels Touring Angst into New LP

Despite the whirlwind year British trio, Keane, had in 2005 with a best-selling album and a tour with U2, touring left the band frustrated and by the end they were barely speaking to each other.



"I think we were pretty spent," said drummer Hughes as he sat in a hotel bar with the rest of the group. "It seemed to us like we'd been touring a long time and we'd stopped communicating and sort of started to shut ourselves off a bit just to survive, and you enter a sort of crash mode."

Though one would expect the band to scatter in opposite directions as soon as they stepped foot back in Sussex, they rather headed back into the studio. Much like The Zutons, they channeled the angst of touring into more music.

I understand that the creative process is different for different artists, but if rappers from the projects in Brooklyn can make millions rapping about dancing with girls in St. Tropez, rock bands should be able to roll with the punches and find inspiration wherever they go. Touring is not a new phenomenon,and neither is post-tour fatigue. Look alive people, there are songs yet to be sung!

"We've always evolved as people making music," said (drummer, Richard) Hughes. "It's just that the first five or six years of it, no one was watching ... now it's sort of in full view."

Full article here.