Buying Talent and Promoting Concerts in the Here and Now
Panelists:
Allen Anders, AEG Presents
John Boyle, ASM Global
Clay Campbell, Triangle Talent
Kelly Flanigan, Live Nation
Emily Simonitsch, Live Nation
Moderated by:
Bob Babisch, Summerfest
What Went Right This Year?
Emily Simonitsch began. “We’re busier than ever with five shows a night over weekends. I think everybody wanted to work. Now there's a multifaceted group of performers out there. As promoters, we are trying to see the value of each artist and making sure that they're earning the most they can. Smaller acts didn't work for a year and really faced a lot of issues on the financial side.”
Despite all the traffic, competition, new venues, and new artists, Allen Anders is just happy to be back working shows. “I was one of the fortunate ones who was able to keep my position within AEG. At one point, I think like 70% of the industry was either let go or laid off,” he said. “The big discussion now is there's too much traffic, too many on sales, and prices are too high. Two years ago, I was trying to find stuff to do around my house.”
Kelly Flannigan said, “We’ve had a tremendous summer. People have been coming out and spending more money on site. With more diverse lineups like K-pop and Latin artists. There are more people interested in seeing live music – and seeing artists maybe they’ve never had the chance to see before.”
“This year was kinda record setting,” said John Boyle. “For me, being on the building side, I've had to learn a lot. It's good not to be in the risk business right now, frankly. But promoters and acts need buildings. We have more than anyone – 350 buildings around the world. We host more than 15,000 events globally. We host, I think, 130 million people a year. So, we're in a good place as long as they keep coming.”
“It was interesting that a lot of our clients saw really strong on-sales and then things would stop,” said Clay Campbell. “Some of our clients were a little nervous, but sales during the fairs ended up being really strong. So, most of our clients ended up with good financial years. We even had a number of fairs that set financial records.” Babisch also experienced great starts that tapered off. “I saw a sudden ticket drop in some country shows. I wasn't sure if it was just because that act was starting to lose their luster.” Campbell believes that gas prices certainly affected ticket sales this year. February to March 2022 price increases for both regular motor gasoline and diesel fuel were the largest month-over-month gains on record. Fuel prices declined from June to July 2022 but remained more than twice as much as their level in early 2020.
Staffing and Other Challenges
Babisch asked his panelists to speak about this year’s challenges. “Emily was talking about things like production and crews and not being able to find qualified people. Did you guys have that same problem?”
“The opportunities are there for new positions on our production side,” said Simonitsh. “In some venues, we’re looking at colleges and trying to find employees.” Boyle concurred, “It's been wildly challenging. Even when you think you’re staffed, half of them don't show up. As a company, we do job fairs all over the place and we're trying to address it. And it’s hard for acts on the touring level. I know there's a tour bus shortage, and all these crazy things you would never think of, that make the whole supply chain kind of bottlenecked to a great degree.”
“For the most part, early on, we had the same challenges everybody else did,” said Anders. “We had a hard time filling parking attendants at the venue that we operate in Dallas. But now, we're constantly trying to fill a marketing position or a ticketing position. There's a lot of opportunity right now at all different levels.” Anders mentioned Rick Mueller’s comments on the previous panel about constantly looking for talent buyers and added, “It’s nice to have a lot of these folks back, but many of them had to figure out something else to do during COVID. And some people want to work remotely. That’s been a whole other challenge that we’ve dealt with as an industry. That's another reason we're losing people.”
“We spent a lot of time working through learning curves with fair staff in new roles,” said Campbell. “They may have had experience, but they were an assistant in the past. And suddenly it is their responsibility.” Campbell also talked about touring personnel changes, “I would advance and, four days later, I’d be advancing the same show with someone else. We did it as many as 2-4 times so that got to be a little challenging.”
Rising expenses were, of course, another challenge. “And not realizing, when we were budgeting, some of those show costs were going to rise.” Agreeing with Simonitsh, Boyle also noted reasons for optimism. “The economic headwinds are a bummer,” he said. “But fans want to come to shows. There's a lot of Gen Z acts that are selling a lot of tickets. The problem is they don't sell a lot of F&B. Everybody is 16. But a lot of these acts are coming up right so, if we can employ people, the business will be robust.”
Campbell said, “I think the biggest challenge is going to be the economic condition next summer. I think that's going to be a real challenge to ticket sales. We're already encouraging fair managers to consider being a little more conservative and maybe not have three A-list acts.”
Babisch pitched the question of ticket prices to his panelists, “I’m worried. Thoughts?” Allen responded, “There will always be challenges. I think we need to plan, book smart, and create projects that have a future. That's what we’re always trying to do. There's an ongoing discussion around ticketing, dynamic pricing, and price point. I think a big challenge is when to tap out on the ticket prices. I think we are going to see some price resistance, especially if this volume of traffic continues. The challenges for next year – and one of our strategies – is to book smart and know when to tap out.”
Babisch turned the conversation to mental health. “We're still there with mental health struggles, more than ever,” he said. “Summerfest is a 90-day music fest. We lost 11 acts this year from combination of COVID or they just had to go home because they couldn't deal with the road.”
Crystal Ball Predications
Emily: “Rosalia. She creates an artistic performance. We really saw on her recent tour. Note what Bad Bunny has accomplished. Daddy Yankee is going to retire. The Mexicans are going to be coming in. South America is going to be coming in. And they're growing completely across the U.S. They're not going to forget the music they were raised with. I think regional Mexican is going to continue to grow and there’s going to be a new evolution of performers performing it. Also, more fan meet & greet experiences. That went away because of COVID and I think fans want to have that personal interaction.”
Campbell: “Contemporary urban. We – and our clients – are recognizing that the more diverse we can be the more people we can bring onto the grounds. Our role is to get people into the fair and we may need to look at a little different definition of mainstream. You see it in Latin already, but even with some hip-hop and rock. An act can get famous on TikTok and not have to worry about radio play. We must broaden our view of what is marketable for our clients.”
Allen: “In country music, we’re seeing this new trend that's a little more alt country, outlaw country. Some are already at the top, but there are a lot of smaller acts that people haven't heard of: Kolby Cooper, Colter Wall, and Cody Jinks. These guys are selling tickets and they’re a new wave of talent that everybody needs to pay attention to. On a mid-level, outside of the music stuff, I think there's going to be a lot of alternatives like touring podcasts and reality shows. We're getting more calls on podcast content and alternative comedy than we ever have. There's going to be a lot of that because it's cheap to produce.”
Kelly: “At least for the East Coast, Asian entertainment of all kinds and K-pop is up there. We obviously have BTS, but we've also had a handful of acts from small clubs to stadiums and it's something. We have a very diverse population in the D.C. metro area so it works for us. Those fans were used to going to a certain venue in our market, but now we've started to push some shows downtown. They're selling out and selling more tickets than they would have been able to sell in the suburbs. There are lot of people who are interested and will come out.”
Boyle: “I agree with all y’all’s genres but the star of the future – the immediate future – is Billy Strings. I have not seen anything like this. They're an insulated team and they write their own rules. They're a joy to work with. Everybody leaves the building making money. I'm betting stadiums in 2024 and 2025 and, obviously, I’m getting all the shows.”
Babisch asked the panel, “More stadium shows next year or less stadium shows?” The entire panel answered, “More!”
Boyle continued, “I think we're going to see some young entrepreneurs make their mark in a big way, kind of like the Billy Strings camp. They are going to do things their way – care about the world and care about sustainability. I think we’ll see a major shift and it's going to be driven by some young entrepreneurs. Maybe there are some in this room!” He added, “We talked about what is on its way up. What’s on its way down could be a lot of older acts who aren't physically able to tour. I don't know that they're necessarily on their way down. They're just going to be too old to tour.”
Allen added, “I think one trend that seems like it's coming down is huge production in mid-size venues. I think that's a trend that's going to come down quickly. It's too expensive for these bands and it’s expensive for promoters to buy. I also think you're going to see a lot of bigger names in smaller venues.” Clay noted, “I saw a lot of acts this year that decided to fly instead of bringing their own production. They let me take care of it.”