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Issue 27: Supp 2 2009
IQ 27 cover and inside front
...Pink...2009 Review...France...Stage Effects...Copenhagen...Legal News..
IQ 27 cover and inside front
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IQ 27 contents and News
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contents
Supp 2 2009
E IQ MAGAZINE N I Z A G IQ MA SUPP 2 2009 9 0 0 2 2 PP
IQ Magazine
2-4 Prowse Place London NW1 9PH United Kingdom tel:+44 (0)20 7284 58 fax:+44 (0)20 7284 1867 70 email:info@iq–mag.n et
SU
Something’s been bothering me about the Britney Spears debacle in Australia. It’s not the ‘shock horror’ realisation that she mimes, after all, as John Mayer dryly tweeted, “If you’re shocked that Britney was lip-syncing at her concert and want your money back, life may continue to be hard for you,” but do we need to make the distinction between a concert and a show? In 2004 at the Q Awards, when Madonna won the Best Live Act category, Elton John famously said: “Since when has lip-syncing been live? Anyone who lip-syncs in public on stage when you pay £75 to see them should be shot.” It’s a typically controversial statement by the Rocket Man, but when what’s on sale has more in common with a dance troupe than a gig, how clear should artists be about what their fans are getting? Yes, Spears & Co make no attempt to hide that she lip-syncs, yes, her Circus tour is indeed an impressive spectacle, and yes, that’s showbiz, but shouldn’t a tour be upfront about how much ‘live’ you’re getting for your lira? This is far from an issue specific to one star or one tour (and Circus has done fantastic business), but the recorded industry made the mistake of presuming their customers would keep returning regardless – maybe we shouldn’t do the same.
Greg Parmley, Editor
Contents Credits IQ issue 27: Supp 2, 2009
Publisher ILMC and M4 Media
Editor Greg Parmley
Associate Editor Allan McGowan
Marketing & Advertising Manager Terry McNally
Sub Editor Michael Muldoon
Contributors Lars Brandle, Ben Challis, Christof Huber, Lord Tim Clement Jones, Steve Forster, Lex Hunter, Will Jameson, Emmanuel Legrand, Steve McClure, Paul Morrison, Manfred Tari and Adam Woods
Editorial Contact: Greg Parmley Email: greg@iq-mag.net
Advertising manager Contact: Terry McNally Email: terry@iq-mag.net
IQ Magazine manager 2-4 Prowse Place, London, NW1 9PH, UK Tel: +44 (0)20 7284 5867 Fax: +44 (0)20 7284 1870 Email: info@iq-mag.net
Design & Production Iain Humphrey, Dan Moe, Martin Hughes Email: enquiries@oysterstudios.com
4 News 10 Legal News
4 News l News egaNews 1011 LBusiness 64 In Focus 11 Business News 65 Green Room In Focus 64 66 Your Shout 65 Green music
Have we learnt anything from the Great White disaster? Manfred Tari goes back to market UK Festival Awards and more Countdown for Copenhagen
Your desert island necessities
COMMENT Licensing for a Live Future – Lord Tim Clement Jones The Diversity of Live – Steve Forster A Formula for Success – Paul Morrison The Lake of Stars – Will Jameson
out 66 12 Your sh
13 – 15 COMMENT 12 14 15 full steam ahead for 16 FEATURES 2 Ahead for ILMC 22 1l16mFullc2Steam 09 Review 20 24 20 2009 Review Pintokthe House of Fun 3302 Welcome r de France 4466 TourTdeou France use and Effect Appandla 52 56 Applause Effect All aboard as we launch the 2010 conference
Allan McGowan sifts through a year of headlines in his annual round up Pink’s Funhouse Tour has blazed a trail around the world. Greg Parmley reports Emmanuel Legrand profiles one of Europe’s strongest live music markets Adam Woods gets to grips with pyros, lasers, confetti, inflatables and more
3
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industry news
Supp 2 2009
4
AEG Bags
Trio of Venues AEG Europe has announced three new facilities contracts in as many months, bringing its total to 14 venues in eight markets and making it the largest venue operator on the continent. The most recent announcement is that AEG will lease and operate the new Stockholm Arena, a 30,000-seat stadium with retractable roof set to open in 2012. The venue will be managed as part of AEG’s 25-year agreement with the City of Stockholm in leasing its four Globe Arenas
– the Ericsson Globe (cap 16,000), Hovet Arena (8,300), Annex Arena (3,500) and the Söderstadion (16,200), which will be torn down to make room for the new build. Both set to open in 2010 are the new Danube Arena in Bratislava, an €80million multi-purpose 15,000-capacity arena, and the 52,500-seat Türk Telekom Arena, currently under construction in Istanbul, which will be home to Turkish football club Galatasaray S.K. “It’s amazing that it was just two years ago that we opened The O2 in London –
our first European venue,” says Brian Kabatznick, AEG's VP of business development. “It’s exciting for us that with the assets of our sports division, our facilities division, our global partnerships division and of course AEG Live, we’re able to influence the success of these markets and facilities.” AEG Facilities also owns O2 World in Berlin and Colorline Arena in Hamburg where it also manages Volksbank Arena; it has a strategic services agreement with the Ahoy in Rotterdam and is currently looking
to raise funds to build a new 15,000capacity arena in Copenhagen, which Kabatznick describes as a “hybrid” ownership/management arrangement with the city council. AEG originally had until mid-June to secure the necessary funds, but the deadline has since been extended. “We’ve worked closely with the local stakeholders to try to raise the rest of the construction funding,” says Kabatznick, who admits that raising the capital has “been challenging.”
iTunes Goes Live They may not end up as close as once predicted, but Live Nation and Germany’s CTS Eventim are clearly thinking along similar lines, as both companies announced deals with digital retailer iTunes just weeks apart. Live Nation has launched a new live
and Ziggy Marley, and Live Nation plans to release many more. “We are thrilled to offer artists a
sources for all involved rights holders. CTS Eventim, meanwhile, has teamed up with iTunes to offer priority ticketing to fans
new high-quality platform to share the
who pre-order the new Tokio Hotel album.
magic of their live shows with their fans,”
The concept was initially trialed by
said president and CEO Michael Rapino in
Ticketmaster with US rockers Foo Fighters
a statement.
two years ago, and Eventim believes that
Coinciding with the launch, iTunes US has
such partnerships open up vital new marketing opportunities for promoters.
music programme which offers exclusive live
launched a new area dedicated to live
tracks recorded at its network of 80 ‘wired’
recordings, and by utilising the recording
“We are inviting every promoter and
venues. Music fans can pay to download
facilities at its venues, Live Nation says it
record label to experiment with [this]... and
concerts and live recordings by artists
hopes to open a new avenue for touring
to reach out to new target groups. We’re
including OK Go, Jesse McCartney, Saving
artists to offer audio and video recordings
open to every idea”, says VP of new media,
Abel, A Fine Frenzy, Duffy, Plain White T's
directly to fans, and to create new revenue
Malte Blumenthal. Michael Rapino
German Biz Faces Obstacles Representatives of the German concert business say their first major meeting with the Government was positive, despite new figures showing a 9% decrease in live music revenues, and collection society Gema having recently won mediation to triple its performance rates.
knew,” says IDKV president Jens Michow.
said: “The rate for small-scale concert
trade title Musikmarkt) showing that the
so the state can control its efficiency and
promoters and clubs was outside the scope
value of live entertainment decreased from
The meeting in late November was
should justify whether it’s valid that they
of this decision.”
€3.87billion in 2007 to €3.61bn in 2008,
concerts of up to 15,000-seats. It’s a net
market in 2008, and that was before the
rate of 5.76% – a sharp increase from the
recession was even on the table. I’m sure
online petition calling for a review of
current rate of 1.872%. The rate for
that we’ll see more losses in 2009, and how
Gema’s working practices, and Michow says
concerts over 15,000-capacity is 7.65% of
an association can ask to continuously raise
the meeting confirmed that the German
gross takings (6.12% net of all discounts,
rates until 2014 in this climate is amazing.”
parliament will launch an investigation into
up from the current rate of 3.58%), while
the much-criticised collection society.
in a statement Gema CEO Harald Heker
100,000 people have now signed an
“It’s a state-licensed association, and
At its AGM in Berlin in late November, IDKV released research (in partnership with
chaired by state secretary Hans-Joachim
still take 25% of the gross monies
Michow tells IQ that IDKV will not
Otto from the Ministry of Economics and
collected for their efforts,” he says.
accept the ruling. “We’re going to have to
the same period fell 9%, from €2.82bn to
go to court,” he says. “It could take three
€2.57bn. The research also showed that
featured cultural affairs leaders, tax experts
It’s a small consolation given that on
a drop of 7%. The value of live music over
and members of the German promoters’
20 November the arbitration tribunal of the
years to resolve. There is one loser, and
the average ticket price increased 3% from
association IDKV. “It was the first time I
German Patent and Brand Office in Munich
the loser is the audience – the public will
€29.45 to €30.39 while the number of
realised that politicians are so into our
ruled to allow Gema to increase concert
have to pay the bill.
ticket buyers for all events fell 7%, from
business, and I was amazed at what they
licence rates to 7.2% of gross by 2014 for
“There was a 9% drop in the live music
127.3 million to 118.7 million.
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industry news
Stadium Recruits
Answer Call The recent announcement that two more acts are about to step up to stadium status seems to have answered, at least temporarily, a common gripe within the industry – that of “where are the next U2s and Rolling Stones coming from?” Last month Pink announced a string of outdoor and stadium dates in UK and Germany, and is targeting 40 in Europe in total next summer, and US punk rockers Green Day recently announced two UK stadium dates at Wembley Stadium in London and Lancashire Cricket Ground in June, in addition to Parc des Princes in Paris. The news comes after a summer season that saw Coldplay follow Muse’s lead and move into stadiums internationally, as well as Take That smash sales records for a UK stadium run. SJM Concerts’ Simon Moran has promoted more UK stadium shows this year than anyone. “The acts we’ve worked with this year – Take That, Coldplay, Green Day and Oasis – have all built up a great career and fan base and they’re renowned for great live shows,” he says. “Getting a great live reputation means that once you’ve get the repertoire you can step it up and hopefully people will go with you.” “The Prodigy will sell out Milton Keynes Bowl at 65,000 [in July 2010], which is a huge achievement,” he says, adding that there are more artists capable of the jump up from arenas. “Kasabian have a shot, Kings of Leon certainly in the next two or three years, and possibly The Killers,” he says. “There’s a few.” Green Day
Production Meet to
Streamline Rules The ILMC Production Meeting (IPM) is doubling in size next year due to what organisers claim is increased interest around the event and strong delegate feedback. Held the day before the main conference, the specialist forum for production personnel, promoters’ reps, venue operators and technical coordinators is expecting 150 attendees this year, and is also increasing the amount of panel topics and meeting discussion points. The IPM has gradually grown since its inception three years ago, and the 2010 edition is planning six sessions, breakout meetings, a networking buffet lunch and post-event drinks and nibbles, integrating with other conference delegates in the evening. While the full agenda will be announced in the New Year, organisers say that discussion topics are likely to include the establishment of common procedures for promoters’ reps and production managers on a pan-European level, in order to ensure consistency and safety. “We’re going to be looking at what happens when something goes wrong and you have to change your usual approved way of working,” says IPM chairman Chrissy Uerlings. “We need procedures to make it easier for people on the floor to decide whether or not a show is going to happen.” The IPM takes place on Thursday 11 March at the Royal Garden Hotel in London. The event is free to attend for ILMC delegates (although registration is separate), or £95 for non delegates. Full information is available online at the ILMC 22 conference mini site at www.ilmc.com.
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industry news
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Jackson Not Bad for O2 The O2 in London is set to officially become the busiest arena in the world with executives predicting total ticket sales of 2.3 million by the end of the year. And despite losing 27 Michael Jackson dates from the 2009 diary, the venue is on track for 175 events, a 25% increase on the 140 it hosted in 2008. The news comes after The O2
Ben Hur at The O2
The promoter’s Melbourne-based
Carmen. We are always looking at new
by four times, and according to David
things for the arena that might not
Campbell, CEO of AEG Europe, a good
have been tried before.”
proportion of its success is down to a proactive philosophy. “AEG goes out and actively finds
In just over two years since opening, The O2 has been instrumental in transforming the
new and fresh content,” he tells IQ.
arena market, and an announcement
“That’s why we premiered Ben Hur
about the second phase of the site
LIVE which was loved by its audiences
development – including the space
– so much so it is coming back next
that was earmarked for its
year. We’ve had Star Wars: A Musical
unsuccessful super-casino bid – is
Journey in collaboration with George
expected in the New Year.
released 2008 figures two months
Lucas, and we’re currently
ago that showed a £15.6million
collaborating on two projects with
we’re determined to make The O2
(€17.3m) pre-tax profit. The arena is
Raymond Gubbay – Christmas
the home for music in Britain,”
outselling previous top seller
Spectacular and our first opera,
Campbell says.
Coppel Eyes New Festival Veteran Australian concert promoter Michael Coppel has his sights set on a new festival property, having parted ways with the V Festival Down Under.
Madison Square Garden in New York
Virgin’s decision-makers in London because of a “change in the strategy” on the V Festival brand. Coppel’s decision to split with V Festival comes as no shock to Australia’s hugely competitive promoter community. Despite
“With 7.7 million visitors a year
Growing EuroSonic
Caps Attendance Once referred to as a ‘weekend’, the EuroSonic Noorderslag conference has added so many days that it might soon be known as a ‘week’. The 14-16 January event starts a day earlier next year – on Wednesday 13 January – when the inaugural European Festival Awards, presented by Yourope and Virtual Festivals, takes place.
from European talent supported by 60 festivals in the European Talent Exchange Programme, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Yourope and Network Europe. In addition to the showcases, there will be 100 panels and meetings on a wide range of topics including live and recorded music, radio and digital.
company Michael Coppel Presents confirmed
pulling some of the hottest headliners
in late October that it would walk away from
around, sources say the event has struggled
its three-year association with V Festival
to turn a profit from what has become a
Australia following the 2009 edition.
saturated festivals market. The Killers, Snow
registrations are 40% up so far, although
Patrol, Kaiser Chiefs and Madness featured
registrations are capped at 2,650 – the
keynote by Steve Knopper, a contributing
intend to continue in the festival market,
at the most recent tour, held across four
same number as this year. “It’s not about
editor of Rolling Stone and author of
but there are no active plans for the next
national dates from 28 March to 5 April.
quantity, it’s about quality,” says organiser
Appetite for Self-Destruction: The
Ruud Berends at Buma Cultuur. “More
Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in
Richard Branson’s Virgin Group is extending
people wouldn’t be that pleasant anymore
the Digital Age, a keynote by music blogger
its footprint on Australia’s live scene through
– it would be a bit too busy.”
Speaking to IQ, Coppel remarked, “I
six months. It’s something we’re looking at in 2011.” Coppel explains that planning for the
As reported in the previous issue of IQ,
2010 V Festival had been “moving ahead,”
a naming-rights arrangement with Sydney’s
but he pulled away following a rift with
Metro Theatre.
Organisers report that delegate
The event takes place in Groningen in the Netherlands, and sees 250 showcases
“We have Norway as our focus country and European music as our function,” Berends says. Confirmed highlights so far include a
Bob Lefsetz, and a Q&A session with IQ editor Greg Parmley in conversation with UK agent Steve Strange.
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UK Festival Awards Step Up Having broken four figures this year, organisers of the UK Festival Awards say they are already working on making next year’s event even better. The 19 November ceremony welcomed 1,000 guests from across the festival and concert business, with several hundred also attending the UK Festival Conference (UKFC) during the day. Winners included Glastonbury (Best Major Festival), Bestival (Best Mediumsized Festival), Oxegen (Best Overseas
the entire festival industry under one roof
New Fields’ chaired by IQ’s Greg Parmley
entitled ‘How to Sustain a Successful
with speakers including Solo’s John
the marketplace progress more
Festival Brand’, organised by UK trade
Giddings, Live Nation’s John Probyn, Jenner
effectively,” says organiser Steve Jenner
paper Music Week. Other panels at the
and Yourope’s Christof Huber.
of Virtual Festivals.
UKFC included ‘Festival Futures: Seeding
Presenting Big Chill founder Katrina Larkin with the Lifetime Achievement
Katrina Larkin collects her lifetime achievement award
Award was met with consternation from some quarters in light of her festival recently going under leaving creditors £500,000 (€550,000) out of pocket, but Jenner says the decision was made in advance of the liquidation. “We do not feel it would have been
Festival), Sonisphere (Best New Festival)
right of us to withdraw the award any more
and Croissant Neuf Summer Party (The
than it would be to do the same to any of
Greener Festival Award).
our previous winners, should they become
“Our goal for both events was to unite
Larkin also participated on a panel
to celebrate, share knowledge and help
caught up in a future controversy,” he says.
Japanese Fans Turned Off Foreign Acts Although foreign acts continue to draw big crowds in Tokyo, in the provinces of Japan it is now a different story. Owners of the Billboard Live venue in the south-eastern city of Fukuoka gave this reason for closing their venue in August, and now other promoters report a similar trend. “Interest in foreign artists and ability to book them anywhere outside of Tokyo is declining,” says Ken Bieber, CEO of Tokyo-based concert/event-promotion company On
the One. “Seeing foreign artists used to be novel and
and with no viable promotion happening on radio and little
newsworthy, but now that so many bands try to tour Japan, I
happening on TV, the result is that music fans outside of
think that audiences are no longer impressed enough to pay
Tokyo and Osaka are probably getting far less exposure to
$30 to see an unknown band.”
small- and medium-sized foreign music artists than five or
Bieber says “structural flaws” in the way foreign music is promoted in Japan are also to blame. In the past, Japanese
The neighbouring, 13,000-capacity NIA is earmarked for refurbishment in late 2010/early 2011, and NEC Group partnership manager Richard Spencer says that a naming rights deal is central to the process. “We’re looking to do a similar partnership for the NIA that we did with the LG Arena,” he says. “We’ve had outline discussions with a couple of brands, and despite the economic climate, there is interest out there.” Spencer won’t reveal financial details, but says he is looking for a “minimum of
Another factor is that young Japanese seem to be turning
labels routinely paid music magazines for coverage of new
away from Western music. Non-Japanese product accounted
overseas acts, but falling magazine sales mean labels are
for 22% of recorded-music sales on a shipments basis in the
now less willing to make cash-for-coverage deals.
year to October, according to the Recording Industry
“With this visible hole now where print media once was
NIA Follows LG’s Lead Having completed the £29million (€32m) refurbishment of the LG Arena, the NEC Group is looking to follow a similar route with the National Indoor Arena (NIA).
ten years ago,” he says.
seven or eight years valued at several million pounds cash value plus other benefits. It’s an opportunity for their customer base to interact with our product and vice versa,” he says. “It’s also about what additional value the deal can bring.” Involving Korean electronics firm LG in the sister arena’s refurbishment influenced much of the eventual lighting and colour schemes, and with the NIA’s facelift likely to focus on food & beverage areas and corporate hospitality, Spencer hopes a future title sponsor will lend similar influence. Last year The NIA and LG Arena sold in excess of 1.4 million tickets to live events, and future shows at the NIA include Paramore, Pet Shop Boys, Ronan Keating and Stereophonics.
Association of Japan, compared to 27% for calendar 2006.
Venue Think Tank Takes Off A cadre of promoters and venue operators from across the AsiaPacific region has gathered in Perth for an inaugural think tank on the live sector. The exclusive 16 October Venues Summit took place over lunch within the confines of the One Movement for Music conference and festival. The two-and-a-half hour gathering explored the region’s idiosyncrasies and cross-cultural barriers, and laid bare the touring opportunities that are now coming to light. “The networks are there, and we’re drawing closer and closer [links] to Asia,” explained David Etherton, CEO of Perth-based venues management company VenuesWest. “Perth is a lucky scenario. From here, we can team up Asia with Australia.” AEG Ogden CEO Harvey Lister, Acer Arena general manager David Humphreys,
and Carel Hoffman, president of South Africa’s OppiKoppi Productions, were among the who’s who of international live music players who assembled for the session. “We’re looking to bring Australian independent acts out to India,” noted Vijay Nair, founder of Indian promoter and booker Only Much Louder. “In the past, the problem had been a lack of venues in India,” he points out. “But that is changing.” Promoter Michael Chugg played a key role in creating the event, which boasted 500 delegates across the three-day conference. “The Asia-Pacific music markets are rapidly increasing in size and stature and we feel it is important that these markets and their intricacies are adequately addressed in a regular global forum, in a global context,” he says. “In 20 years of conferences that I’ve attended, I’ve never seen the networking and business that was done at this event."
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IQ 27 legal&comments
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legal news
Supp 2 2009 Ben Challis
10
Legal
News
www.musiclawupdates.com
Ben Challis asks whether we’ve learned anything from the Great White disaster. If you work in the events industry and you haven’t heard about the Great White disaster, you should have. The tragedy happened in February 2003 when pyrotechnics set off by Dan Biechele, the tour manager of veteran rock band Great White, ignited flammable low-cost soundproofing installed at the Station Night Club in West Warwick, RI, by the Derderian brothers, Jeffrey and Michael. One hundred people died (including one member of the band) and many more suffered horrific injuries from burns and smoke inhalation. After facing charges of 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter, both Michael Derderian and Dan Biechele served prison sentences and Jeffrey Derderian served a community penalty. All three then served terms of probation, and the Derderians also faced fines for failing to carry employer’s insurance. The real impact on the live industry is the sheer scale of the civil law claims resulting from the incident. A shortterm $3million charitable fund was set up to help with medical, funeral, ambulance, counselling and living costs for survivors, but little could be done in the face of the astronomic cost of American medical care and the ongoing and long-term costs of helping victims overcome physical injuries (as well as deal with psychological trauma and loss). Initial estimates at the time put potential civil claims at $1billion. Six years later, those who have settled include the state of Rhode Island and the town of West Warwick (both $10bn). Perhaps more surprising were the settlements from local TV station WPRI who made an out of court settlement of $30m because their cameraman was at the nightclub and might have blocked exits with equipment. Ironically, the film crew were making a film about safety at nightclubs after an incident a week earlier in Chicago when 19 clubbers died. The second surprise was a settlement from Clear Channel who agreed to pay $22m. Clear Channel’s WHJYFM radio station had promoted the concert by running ads, giving away tickets and providing their DJ Mike Gonsalves to MC the night, although as WHJY-FM pointed out,
neither itself nor its employee had any control over activities in the Station club that night, nor did they hire, pay or have any control over Great White or their performance and indeed Gonsalves was unfortunately one of the victims of the fire. In September 2008, the insurers of the surviving members of Great White agreed to pay $1m to the survivors and victims’ relatives and the Derderians’ have offered $813,000 from their insurance plan. They will receive bankruptcy protection against further claims. But what has the live industry learned from the Great White tragedy? Well, looking at subsequent events, perilously little it
Great White
seems. On 30 December 2004 a fire in Buenos Aires left 194 dead. Here a fire swept through an overcrowded Buenos Aires nightclub during a rock concert, killing and injuring more than 700 people as concertgoers scrambled for the exits. Four out of six of the fire exits were locked and audience members had been allowed to bring flares into the club. On New Year’s Eve 2008 pyrotechnics set off inside the Luna nightclub in Scotland ignited plastic netting, causing injuries but mercifully no fatalities, and then on New Year’s Eve 2009 a devastating fire at a New Year's event in a Bangkok nightclub left 66
dead with more than 212 injured when a blaze broke out at the Santika Club. The band Burn were performing when pyrotechnics were let off in an overcrowded club which had no appropriate licence, no marked fire exits, no building use consent and no insurance. It seems almost unbelievable that these recent tragedies could have happened, particularly those in the USA, which is one of the most modern and regulated nations on the planet. In the Chicago tragedy prior to Great White security staff had created crowd panic in an attempt to quell trouble but the venue had already failed fire checks and yet had stayed open and had locked fire doors. In West Warwick why did no one consider the effects of pyrotechnics? How could there be no sprinkler system? How could a venue ignite in seconds? Passing more and more laws is the natural reaction of modern day legislators to problems; in the UK we have an ever increasing tidal wave of initiatives, guidelines, regulations and expensive regulatory authorities nominally set up to improve our lives, but often having the reverse effect. More pour out from European Union legislators. What we need are clear sensible laws and properly enforced laws. The live events industry really does need to take matters in hand. Promoting health and safety isn’t a luxury, it is a necessity. We have a clear obligation to keep our customers as safe as possible and while any mass gathering will always have inherent risks, there have been major improvements in safety at many events in recent times. Crowd safety is quite simply too important to be left solely to politicians and the live events industry needs to maintain a professional watching brief and proactive approach to audience safety if it is to proactively prevent future tragedies – or face the death of our industry by incompetent legislation. This article is the abridged version. The original will appear in the December issue of the Journal of Crowd Safety and Security Management, which can be found online at: http://www.crowdsafetymanagement.co.uk/
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business news
Supp 2 2009
Music in Shares
11 Manfred Tari www.pop1000.com
Manfred Tari rounds off the stock market rollercoaster that was 2009... The 2009 business year is almost over and it’s been a very interesting 12 months. Given the recession, it’s remarkable that many corporates have managed to maintain or even improve their turnover figures, even if earnings are a different story. And then there’s the intended merger between Live Nation and Ticketmaster that has caused much concern – not only amongst other concert companies. Live Nation and Ticketmaster are now waiting for the decision on the merger by the US Department of Justice (DOJ), and the UK’s Office of Fair Trading, which has postponed its final ruling until 19 January due to the volume of submissions it is receiving, and quite possibly in order to follow the State’s lead. In order to receive permission from the DOJ, Ticketmaster may need to spin off some of its business assets, and according to a media report by Bloomberg, US cable network operator Comcast is interested in acquiring some of them in North America. It is not yet known if Live Nation will have to undertake similar measures.
results in most of their business segments in the latest quarter. Revenues contributed by sponsorships went up 4.4%, from $75.2m (€49.8m) to $78.5m (€52m); the turnover of the North American music department rose from $962.3m (€638m) up to $1,036.2bn (€687m); the international music department increased revenues by 20.5% from $603.1m (€399.9m) up to $726.9m (€481.9m); and the revenue of its ticketing division went up from $6.7m (€4.4m) to $30.2m (€20m). The improvement continues with the 52-week share price which saw an increase from $3.76 (€2.49) to $7.48 (€4.95).
FRONTLINE AID FOR TM Ticketmaster business figures appeared stable but on closer inspection indicate that the figures were augmented by the profitable Front Line Management Group that it acquired a year ago. The company’s overall Q3 turnover came in at $348.5m (€231.1m), a 3% increase on the same period in Q3 2008 ($339.2m [€224.9m]), while net income rose
amortisation was $62.7m (€41.5m) compared to $19.6m (€13m) for artist services. The nine-month figures for 2009 foresee a revenue of $1.07bn (€0.71bn) compared to $1.06bn (€0.70bn) in 2008, with a net income of $27.2m (€18.0m) compared to $65.3m (€43.3m).
EVENTFUL FOR CTS While Ticketmaster is keen to work with Live Nation again, CTS Eventim already is – powering the system behind the promoter’s new ticketing platform. During the first nine months of 2009, Eventim increased its revenue by 12.9% to €329.5m compared to the previous year’s €292m. The company’s net income grew 44.2% from €16.4m to €23.6m.
CTS Eventim 12-month share price
Q3 RESULTS Live Nation generated a turnover of $1.8billion (€1.2bn) in Q3 compared to $1.58bn (€1.05bn) over the same period in 2008. Its net income was $69.2million (€45.9m) compared to $138m (€91.5m) in Q3 of 2008, but a loss of $60.7m
Live Nation 12-month share price
(€40.24m) was also reported for the first nine months of the year, which equates to a loss per share of about $0.74 (€0.49). Nevertheless, Live Nation enjoyed improved
Ticketmaster 12-month share price
36%, from $9.6m (€6.4m) to $13.1m (€8.7m). Throughout this period Ticketmaster sold 29 million tickets with a gross value of $1.7bn (€1.1bn), a 12% decline when compared to 2008. Front Line is now registered as a new business segment – Artist Services – and contributes $56.4m (€37.4m) to the Q3 revenues, and detracting from a 14% decline in turnover at its ticketing division that saw a drop from $339.1m (€224.7m) to $292.2m (€193.6m). The ticketing division’s adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and
The number of tickets sold online grew from 5.6 million to 8.2 million, with revenue rising from €71.1m to €95.7m, and delivering – in the ticketing division – a lift of earnings before taxes and interests from €16.7m to €25.9m. Business at Eventim’s live entertainment division improved from €223.1m over the same period in 2008, to €236.4m. Eventim also recently announced that it will be selling tickets in the UK from January 2010. Within one year the company’s share price rose from €22.00 to €33.38.
LOWER SHARE PRICE FOR MAMA GROUP The one-year share price comparison shows a drop from 4.75 to 4.25 Pence with the share peaking at the beginning of May with a value of 5.6 Pence.
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Licensing for a Live Future Lord Tim Clement Jones, the Liberal Democrat spokesman for Culture, Media and Sport in the House of Lords, speaks out for small and suffering UK venues... You may have heard that tickets for next year’s Glastonbury festival recently sold out over a weekend, and might be wondering why there is a great worry about the future of live music. But my concerns are not about the summer festivals and specialist music venues such as The O2. My fears are for live music in small venues such as pubs and restaurants whose main business is not live music. It is these venues that are not experiencing the explosion in live music as promised by the Government when the Licensing Act 2003 was going through Parliament. Small venues are vitally important to Britain’s creative culture. Many of our most successful and popular musicians started their careers gigging in bars, student unions or cafés. The decrease in live music in small venues, as evidenced by the DCMS’s [Department of Culture, Media and Sport] most recent substantive survey into the Act is potentially denying us a generation of performers. There is no evidence to suggest that live music gigs are of greater concern with regard to crime and disorder than any other form of public gathering. Indeed, one of the specific recommendations made by the House of Commons’ Culture, Media and Sport Committee in their report published this summer was that statutory guidance issued under the Act, should be reviewed and reworded to ‘remove the overt linkage of live music with public disorder’. In contrast, the Act contains an explicit exemption for broadcast entertainment. The UK’s capacity to again
dominate the global music industry is being thwarted by a piece of legislation that assumes the broadcasting of a football match in a pub presents less of a threat to crime and disorder than live music.
THREE STRIKES It is a result of these absurdities that I have introduced the Liberal Democrat’s Live Music Bill. The Bill amends the Licensing Act in three respects: Firstly, the Bill establishes an exemption for live music in small venues, which are licensed under the Licensing Act 2003. The exemption applies to a venue that has a licence for the sale of alcohol and has a permitted capacity of not more than 200 and where live music can only take place between 8am and midnight on the same day. This exemption is conditional on a new Section 177 to the Act which can trigger a local authority review and make live music in that venue licensable if complaints by local residents are upheld following the review. This is a complete answer to those such as the Local Government Association who are concerned about de minimis exemptions. Secondly, the Bill reintroduces the ‘two-in-a-bar’ rule so that any performance of unamplified and minimally amplified live music of up to two people is exempt from the need for a licence. The amended Section 177 does not affect this; it is
designed as a total exemption from licensing under the Act. Separate legislation addressing noise nuisance, however, of course still applies. For example, under the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005, licensed premises creating a disturbance between 11pm and 7am can be subject to on-the-spot fines. Pre-emptive or reactive noise abatement notices can also be served under the Environmental Protection Act. Finally, the Bill contains a total exemption for hospitals, schools and colleges from the requirement to obtain a licence for live music when providing entertainment where alcohol is not sold, and involves no more than 200 persons. This will enable schools, colleges and hospitals to perform concerts and music therapy treatments, which currently require licences.
CREATIVE PROCESS Liberal Democrats place a high value on nurturing creativity and allowing individuals to develop their talents to the full, free of unnecessary interference. The Bill seeks to put these values into practice. The Bill is supported by UK Music, the music industry’s representative body led by former Undertones singer and chair of
the Government’s Live Music Forum taskforce, Fergal Sharkey. The Forum criticised the impact of the Act on live music before being disbanded by the Government. The recent government announcement that they may introduce a new live music exemption is a complete damp squib as the early indications are that it will be limited to venues with a capacity of up to 100 and it is dependent on yet another three-month long consultation. It is also worrying that since the initial announcement for this consultation on 22 October, the Government have gone quiet and no terms of reference or timetable for consultation have been published. The absence so far of a press release or any publicity from the DCMS on this matter is also extremely unusual. I have tabled questions to the DCMS designed to find out what the Government’s real intentions are. I am hoping that my Live Music Bill will receive a secondreading debate in the House of Lords either just before Christmas or early in the New Year, which will be the first real opportunity to debate its contents. Support is building. Equity and the Musicians’ Union held a demonstration in favour of live music licensing reform in Parliament Square. Readers can make their contribution to the campaign by signing the ePetition on the No.10 Downing Street website: (http://petitions.number10.gov.uk /livemusicevents/) which has already amassed over 12,000 names in three months.
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The Diversity of Live Steve Forster, head of live at Mama Group, on why choice is always a good thing... the likes of Tesco as it can provide everything you potentially need in one place but when asked if I think that dominance by one or two organisations is a good thing, the answer is no.
A DIFFERENT ETHOS Steve Forster
One of the great things about the live music business has always been its diversity, whether that’s in terms of musical genre, venue, record label etc. But recently I have become concerned by the lack of real competition in the current market, which has created a homogenisation on so many different levels. This has happened to such an extent that the unique nature of our industry is disappearing as we lose a large proportion of our specialists, leaving fewer record companies, fewer venue operators, and more and more barriers to new entrants. If I could draw an analogy to UK high street shopping, many towns and cities have seen their high streets devastated and real specialists disappear as a consequence of the everexpanding presence of operators such as Tesco supermarkets. On a personal level, I don’t have a supermarket loyalty card and wherever possible choose to use the local alternative. I just don’t buy the angle that the big supermarkets are simply trying to improve consumer choice and value. Whenever anyone behaves in a monopolistic fashion it is bad for all parties concerned. If you have control of the supply chain both vertically and horizontally this is not good for everyone supplying that chain. Of course, like most people, I do shop occasionally in
One of the things that particularly interested me in working with Mama Group was the range of iconic venues that they owned. Some of them had been unloved and underinvested for some time but there are some great names out there. To this end, it was both a privilege and a challenge to try and reinvent each of these great venues in their own right. In attempting to do this, we have invested hugely in all our live venue estate, and continue to do so, the Borderline being the next venue to undergo a transformation (closing at Christmas to re-open 21st Jan for its 21st Birthday). So far we have opened the Picture House in Edinburgh,
re-opened the legendary Garage and completely refurbished the Jazz Café and Forum in London, opened the new Warehouse in Aberdeen and we are about to embark on The Institute in Birmingham. All of this outside of the investment in Hammersmith Apollo in London, which will lead to an increase in its seated and standing capacity and a complete replacement of all the dressing rooms. In doing this we have tried to remain sympathetic to the original design and space, rather than attempting to stamp one uniform identity across them all. Key to this decision is the recognition that nearly all of our venues are ‘destination venues’; generally we don’t open the doors unless there is an event taking place. With this in mind we have to realise that effectively we are facilitators and that we have to think of our customers and clients (the artists and promoters) and look to deliver value in all areas. Whether it is removing concession fees for artists or
reducing booking fees for customers, there needs to be a perception of value. In the current economic climate, customers are now making choices. It is not that they won’t pay a high ticket price for something, they just need to be convinced that they are getting value for money. This is just as valid for artists and I would hope that more and more agents and managers are coming to realise this.
PERCEIVED VALUE The next few years are certainly going to be interesting as sponsors are playing a more and more obvious part in their involvement with all aspects of music. I think this is creating a difficult balance as their demands increase in line with the larger sums of money involved. There are many dangers in this approach because the ‘value’ of the artist can become diminished if you are not careful, as they effectively come second to the brand, whereas from our perspective the process is that we should be second to the artist/performer. Although the decision making process of which venue to choose will undoubtedly involve heritage, earning potential etc, for both artists and customers, people don’t generally come to the Apollo just because it’s the Apollo; they come to see their heroes. Summing up, I feel that over dominance in any area is dangerous and potentially counterproductive long term. As long as people remember this and the reason that we are all in this business in the first place – the artist – I think the live music industry has a long and healthy future.
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A Formula for Success Paul Morrison, CEO of All The Worlds outlines the long road to F1 Rocks...
Paul Morrison
Our inaugural F1 Rocks event at Fort Canning in Singapore from 24-26 October brought together music and Formula One in a ground breaking new way. Artists including Beyoncé, the Black Eyed Peas, No Doubt, N*E*R*D, ZZ Top, Simple Minds, Jacky Cheung and A-Mei performed to a live audience of 27,000 fans. We produced two TV shows from F1 Rocks Singapore with LG that were broadcast in 172 territories worldwide and when all global broadcasts have taken place, we anticipate a global audience of 30 million. This delivers a broadcast value in excess of $46million (€51m) to our two principal partners LG Electronics and the Singapore Tourism Board. These results were achieved by bringing together established brands, great artists and F1s powerful TV distribution. It’s a formula that I have always tried to implement throughout my career although never before on this scale.
ticket, camping and food etc. At the time I had set up the entertainment division of a major international marketing agency, KLP Euro RSCG Entertainment, which had Scottish brewers Tennent’s as a client. Glasgow was always a vibrant music city with a famously passionate audience and I was convinced that we should have our own festival. Irish merch magnate David Bell introduced me to Denis Desmond, we had a quick chat and within days I was picking him up from Glasgow airport. Denis had previously started a festival in Ireland so had loads of relevant experience. I told him about my solid sponsor who would do things properly and promote the event heavily as a central push in rejuvenating their Tennent’s Lager brand. In those days sponsors were perceived to be uncool and I would spend hours explaining that my clients were just helping to create a great environment for artists to play in. With Denis’s agreement, DF became the local promoter of T in the Park. They were progressive thinkers when it came to brands and media. Stuart Clumpas ran a tight ship and had superb back up from Geoff Ellis. The first T-in the Park drew an audience of around 30,000 people over two days in 1994 – the festival has grown in popularity since then, drawing 80,000 in 2009.
Two years later we introduced another one of our clients, Virgin, as founding title sponsor of the V Festivals, and two years after that I made another call to Denis to ask him if he wanted to start a festival in Ireland with Guinness. This was the Witnness Festival which later morphed into Oxegen. We also advised Carling on their sponsorship of Reading and Leeds naming it The Carling Weekend, we put Ericsson together with Homelands, and worked extensively throughout Europe with Pepsi, Ballantines and Cream. Major TV events followed with The Prodigy in Red Square, Moscow, which was MTV’s first global telecast out of Europe. We also managed commercial sponsorship activities for a number of artists like the Spice Girls, Five and All Saints, but by then I was intrigued with the new buzzword: ‘Content’. The next step was Done and Dusted, which was set up with director Hamish Hamilton and two other partners, to service multi camera live shows for the likes of Robbie, MTV and Coldplay. My role was to develop brand plays like our Madonna Music launch at Brixton for MSN. Over the past five years, the festival market in Europe has matured. Major brands
seamless event and content play that would go around the globe delivering for major international brands on a number of platforms.
RACING AHEAD With media finance and content expert Becky Morgan, I set up All The Worlds. Our goal was a global touring festival incorporating digital content rights and while promoters were hesitant, brands were very interested, as was Universal Music Group International chairman Lucian Grainge, who saw sport and music as uncharted waters. Lucian and Bernie Ecclestone had the discussion about mixing the stars of motorsport with the stars of music which laid the path for Formula 1 Rocks – a multi-artist music and broadcast event that travels around the world in parallel with F1 Grand Prix. John Giddings came on board as our agent and executive promoter/booker and for our first event, F1 Rocks Singapore with LG, we also brought in financial support from the Singapore Tourism Board and title sponsor LG Electronics. The sponsorship revenue achieved via global and local partners was significant – but the return on
NATIONAL PRIDE Marrying brands and music began, for me, while standing at the side of the Reading Festival stage in 1992 watching Nirvana. I was struck by the number of Scottish flags in the crowd – these standard bearers, like myself, had come all that way for a music festival. It was a hefty investment when you totalled the cost of travel,
IF IT’S NOT BROKEN… The blueprint was inked: 1. Sponsor; 2. Event partners; 3. TV and Media.
seeking entry are finding that almost all bases are covered in terms of impactful category benefits and digital content rights are restrictive. Festival TV is also very generic – presenters in wellies outside their camper vans. It became clear that the time was ripe for festival 2.0 – a
investment from the huge global TV audience and press coverage made it a sound proposition. In 2010, F1 Rocks will continue to fuse the world’s most popular annual sporting series with iconic music stars to create an unrivalled experience for the fans of Formula One, broadcasters and brand partners.
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The Lake of Stars – Volunteering a Hand in Africa Will Jameson reports on one of the summer’s most unusual festivals...
Will Jameson
The Lake of Stars took place 15-18 October 2009 on the shores of Lake Malawi, the warm heart of Africa and was headlined by UK acts The Maccabees, Sway, DJ Nihal (BBC Radio 1) and Joe Goddard (Hot Chip) alongside an array of Malawian artists. The festival’s focus on promoting Malawian music and
tourism in the region makes it a unique date on the international festival calendar. The event offers the opportunity to enjoy live music in an exotic and beautiful location, while aspiring to have a similar impact in Africa as other charitable music events such as WOMAD and Live Aid. Proceeds from the festival are donated to charitable projects near to the festival site, such as the work done by the Microloan Foundation, a small UK-based charity providing small loans to groups of women, advocating responsible aid by offering ‘a hand up, not a hand out’. This way, as the festival expands, so too does its positive sphere of influence. I first visited Malawi in 1998 during my gap year, returning to England with a souvenir – an empty carton of Chibuku Shake
Shake beer. While studying in Liverpool I started a club night named after the Malawian drink and the rest is history – Chibuku went on to win Best UK Club in the Mixmag Awards in 2004. Using my Chibuku contacts I headed back to Malawi to launch the first Lake of Stars Festival in 2004. Taking things full circle, the Chibuku faithful were drawn to Lake Malawi by regular Andy Cato of Groove Armada. Dozens of people from the UK and hundreds from all over Malawi and southern Africa attended and it won the Malawi Tourism Award in its first year becoming one of the highlights of the international festival calendar. UK charity ‘vinspired’ – the national volunteer service – sponsored the event in 2009, a confirmation of the festival’s
ethos. An army of skilled UK industry professionals, flown out to Malawi by Kenya Airways, donated their time to run the event, and a wealth of UK companies loaned equipment for free. A state-of-the-art Funktion One sound system; lights and mixing desks from Audile; radios from Brentwood Communications; and backline and monitors courtesy of STS Touring and DB Technologies really upped the production at the festival. The stunning new Sunbird Nkopola Lodge site on the southern tip of Lake Malawi, with over 3,000 festival goers enjoying a UK band of the calibre of The Maccabees alongside Malawian acts Lucius Banda and The Black Missionaries made this ninth edition of vinspired Lake of Stars the biggest and best yet.
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Stoking its engines and pulling up anchor, the ILMC is taking a round-the-world cruise in March 2010… Anyone that went to ILMC 2009 would have experienced the mayhem first hand as delegates the world over converged on London for three days of anarchy and destruction. But next year we’re taking an entirely different tack as the ILMC crew prepares a fabulous luxury weekend cruise. We’ve swapped punks for passengers and safety pins for silverware, and once they’ve set sail, the great and the good of the live music business will find themselves back in the golden era of cruise liners and early twentieth century opulence; a far more leisurely time when crossing the Atlantic took four days and downloading was simply the act of moving suitcases below decks. In fact the ILMC weekend promises sufficient excursions, activities, dinners and events to keep even the most active delegate sprinting between decks. It all takes place at the Royal Garden Hotel in London where from stem to stern, top deck to keel, the steamship ‘HMS Borassic’ is being prepped for a voyage to remember. So ready your sea legs for March 2010 as we journey around the live music world in 80 hours.
Embarkation To keep the embarkation process as simple as possible, registration for ILMC is entirely online at www.ilmc.com. In the spirit of the last few years, once again, we haven’t gone overboard on the rates. In fact, the cost of a ticket has risen by less than inflation this year, and given that current exchange rates mean you can still buy a small English town for just less than a Euro, it’s almost offensively good value for our overseas passengers. Either way, to ensure you’ve got some change to spend on that new luggage set, take advantage of the early-bird rate and sign up quickly. ILMC has always sold out in advance so don’t leave it until the last minute – you don’t want to be standing on the dockside waving off your friends and colleagues. ILMC 22 weighs anchor on Friday 12 March, but passengers are welcome aboard
the night before, and the Min Jiang Restaurant on the 10th floor is open for dinner until late. As always, the bar will be serving a wide selection of ales, wines and seafaring spirits, and with many guests checking into their cabins during the day, Thursday night is usually a busy one.
Socialising While White Star and Cunard luxury liners of old saw passengers hobnobbing during dinner or while strolling on deck, the ILMC is more practical about networking opportunities. Just as when it began 22 years ago, one of the primary functions of the conference is to bring people together, and there are numerous ways this is achieved. Anyone signing up to the Networking Scheme will gain access to a secure area of www.ilmc.com where the contact details of other members are available in advance of the conference. We also still list the names of all delegates online, and contact details will appear in the Globetrotters Guide, which passengers will be presented with when checking in. For those taking their first ILMC cruise, there’s the New Delegates’ Orientation on Friday 12 March at 12:30 after which networking opportunities are on hand at Avo Session Basel's 'Anchors Aweigh' Opening
Drinks. And if there’s a particular passenger you’re trying to track down, there’s always the Rogues Gallery (and its virtual cousin) outside the main conference room where photos of delegates are displayed. Failing that, however, the debutante who really wants to make an impression can simply head to AEG’s Bermuda Triangle delegates’ bar and shout “all rums are on me”. A good impression is guaranteed.
Deck Games Of course, to get the most from the ILMC you simply need to get involved, and there’s a host of excursions and activities to fill up the calendar with. After a brief respite last year, the World Texas Hold ‘Em Poker Tourney is back on Friday 12 March at 22:30 as part of the Asia Sounds Casino, which also features blackjack and cabaret-style entertainment. It will be all hands on decks as passengers have a chance to win some fabulous bar tab prizes. It’s always a popular event, so competitors will need to hold fast for a chance to rope in the £100 top prize. It costs £30 to enter, and places are on a first-come, first-served basis, so email marketing@ilmc.com to get on the list. Players can always warm up at Buma Cultuur's annual encounter with the Flying Dutchmen at the Dutch Embassy from 18:00 to 20:00. Long-time supporters Berryhurst will be laying on free “launches” from their fleet of luxury coaches to take you to event, but with places limited, make sure to email ruud.berends@bumacultuur.nl for your invitation. For passengers looking to let off steam, there’s the Match of the Year Football at 19:30 on Saturday 13 March, when the UK – motherland of the old empire – tries to reconquer the rest of the world. The game is sponsored by Aiken Promotions so to get on side and not be left back, contact Peter Aiken on peter@aikenpromotions.com. And warming up for World Cup 2010, there’s also the Table Football Coupe du Monde on Friday night at 20:30, when cruisers with strong wrists and quick reflexes go up against each other late at night.
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The Captain’s Tables Deck games are one thing, but there’s one event that no seafarer would miss, and it’s a night of consummate luxury and class. In fact, just as life on the ocean is steeped in tradition, it’s the one night of the year that the great and good of the live music industry never fail to miss: The ILMC Gala Luaua & Arthur Awards. It starts at 19:30 on Saturday 13 March when our luxury liner drops anchor for the night to allow a flotilla of Berryhurst launches to ferry passengers off to a tropical island paradise – a magical place of palm trees,
stone gods and golden sands – otherwise known as The Ballroom at Jumeirah Carlton Tower. While native girls sway to the sound of distant jungle drums, a champagne reception will be followed by a sumptuous four-course ‘luau’ feast with fine wines. Later that night, the highlight of the weekend – and the climax of the year for a lucky few – is The Arthur Awards, when we hand out our Oscar equivalents to those most deserving. Categories up for grabs are the Promoters’ Promoter, Liggers’ Favourite Festival, Second Least Offensive Agent, First Venue to Come into Your Head and Tomorrow’s New Boss. There's also Most Professional Professional which recognises the industry’s finest suits, Best in Show rewards the family and theatre show element, and Services Above and Beyond is the category for tour service companies. The pinnacle of proceedings, however, is The ILMC Bottle Award, where we honour one special officer for their outstanding contribution to the live music industry. Any prior ILMC passenger or IQ subscriber is eligible to vote for The Arthurs, with voting open at www.ilmc.com/22 until 10 March. The fine dining continues the next night as passengers are invited to attend the ‘Abandon Ship!’ Nordical Dinner. Our sponsors, the Nordic export offices, promise a Scandinavian feast fit for Thor himself before
we all finally disembark for the weekend. Keeping with the maritime theme, we’re heading to HMS President on Victoria Embankment. Commissioned in 1918, the former Royal Navy boat boasts four-star luxury with spectacular views of the River Thames and some of London’s most famous landmarks. It’s a stunning venue which threatens to blow many of our previous dinners out of the water. And with a special discounted Sunday night rate at the Royal Garden Hotel (£125), there's no reason not to see out the weekend in style. Just don't overindulge on Nordic brews and end up with a Thor head on the Monday (sorry – Ed).
Lost at Sea A luxury cruise would not be complete without sampling the fine beverages and spirits onboard, and during ILMC the sun is rarely ‘over the yardarm’ before sampling begins. AEG’s Bermuda Triangle delegates’ bar is the engine room of the conference, and a place some passengers will disappear into for most of the weekend, although hopefully to be seen again. It might account for some finding themselves a little seasick the next morning, but it’s where many deals are struck and courses plotted. With subsidised beer prices and table service, it’s a truly safe harbour in which to while away some time with fellow passengers. For organised soirees, however, don’t miss AVO Session Basel’s ‘Anchors Aweigh’ Opening Drinks when guests are welcomed aboard as we prepare for departure. It takes place on the lower deck at 13:00 on Friday 12 March, and is a perfect opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues before the first conference session kicks off the the weekend. And bookending the conference is
Montreux Jazz Festival's 'Sink into the Drink' champagne farewell, on Sunday 14 March at 17:30. Because if you're going to go down, there should always be bubbles...
Sea Shanties Throughout the ILMC weekend there’s a host of music – both onboard and off-ship – to keep passengers amused. As usual, Access All Areas allows entry to some of the hottest gigs ashore, courtesy of certain UK promoters, and many of our esteemed agency friends contribute to our Off The Record showcases, which feature promising talent keen to navigate their way into the charts. Worth a mention are The Nordic Ja Ja Ja featuring some of Scandinavia’s hottest talent on Thursday evening (venue TBA) and American Talent Agency’s hip hop showcase with T-Pain at Notting Hill Arts Club on Friday 12 March. See one of our stewards at the Help Desk for more info, or check your conference guide upon arrival.
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However, for a slightly more homespun approach, don’t miss the ‘Lost at C’ Delegate’s Jam when passengers get a chance to take the stage and belt out their choice of sea shanty. Some of these performances go down about as well as the band on the Titanic, but it’s always one not to miss. It takes place on Saturday at 22:30 (when the ship’s band will be accompanying) and Sunday night from 23:00. Prizes will be awarded by Rock-It Cargo and American Talent Agency for the best performances.
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Navigating the Weekend Once it builds up a head of steam, the ILMC can pass you by at a rate of knots, so it’s good to know that all the information and updates you need are on hand. Pollstar’s Radioroom Cyber Café is open and online 24-hours a day and passengers can always get a steaming hot brew to ward off any chilly trade winds. For general information, the Help Desk is manned by our more than capable stewards while The Tour Company will be on hand to answer any accommodation or travel questions. So it really will be difficult to get lost at ILMC. There’ll be plenty of information available in advance too – just check www.ilmc.com for more info, and look out for our eNews updates and more details in the February issue of IQ.
Sending out an S.O.S. Unbeknownst to most passengers, the ILMC raises a significant amount of money for charity every year by automatically taking a
donation from every registration we receive. In exchange, delegates are entered into the Nikos Fund Prize Draw on Sunday afternoon, where some fantastic prizes are up for grabs (as long as you turn up). Funds are also raised from the Delegates’ Leaflet Table, where for a small fee, passengers can place up to two types of promotional literature, and profits from the poker are also added to the pot. This year’s charity is the International Rescue Corps, an independent search-and-rescue service that provides disaster relief around the world.
Taking the Helm The engine room of the ILMC, and what defines our course and heading, are the conference panels. Each year we poll a committee of leading professionals to gauge
the key topics affecting the business, and we’ll publish the final agenda in February once we’ve received and compiled all of the suggestions. There’s certainly plenty to discuss though and the industry continues to move further into uncharted waters as live music becomes increasingly vital in an artist’s career. This pressure brings with it questions of responsibility and what duty of care we have over the artists that employ us. And technology and the quickening pace of change also raise many issues, be it the ongoing developments in primary and secondary ticketing or the evolution of the artist/fan relationship. As customers expect more from festivals and venues, will we be able to keep up with expectations? And just what effect is the recession having on the business, and how can we further ensure that ticket sales continue? There are a host of topics for discussion, and that’s before the big merger question and the fact that there are now fewer hands on the helm than ever before. The full ILMC agenda will be published in the next issue of IQ and also online at www.ilmc.com but if there is a topic you strongly feel we should cover, please get in touch at info@iq-mag.net – we’re always happy to hear from you. In the meantime, don’t miss out on the early-bird rate and register for your roundthe-world cruise. Helping to keep the industry on an even keel, there’s a reason why ILMC leaves other conferences in its wake. Find out why at the Royal Garden Hotel from 12-14 March, 2010. GREG PARMLEY
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January • 60 people die in a New Year’s Eve fire at the Santika Club in Bangkok, Thailand, started by fireworks. • As well as being the best-selling artist of 2008, Madonna tops the TicketsNow 2008 resale chart with an average of $378 (€256) per ticket. • Live Nation launches its US ticketing service on New Year’s Day as its contract with Ticketmaster comes to an end. • Ireland’s MCD Concerts and Aiken Promotions are fined €40,000 and €50,000 respectively by Dublin City Council for breaking noise regulations at the city’s RDS arena. • Speaking during an investor presentation, Live Nation head Michael Rapino says, “In our business we don’t mind if a price of a ticket goes down; our job is to get as many bums in seats as possible.” • Ticketmaster Entertainment CEO Sean Moriarty tells Bloomberg News that he expects reduced ticket prices in 2009.
• Live Nation’s Pemberton Festival in Canada is shelved for 2009 after permission from the landowner is secured too late. • Steve Sybesma’s China West Entertainment closes the doors to its Shanghai office after five years in operation. • London’s seminal rock venue The Astoria (2,000-cap) closes its doors after 30 years to make way for a new underground station. Despite promising to build a new venue, the local council later offers a club with just a 250-capacity as replacement. • The Eurosonic/Noorderslag weekend welcomes a recession-defying 2,600 delegates to Groningen in the Netherlands. Similar figures to 2008. • South American promoters Evenpro and Mondo Entertainment form a joint venture with marketing and advertising specialists ABC Group to develop the continent’s sponsorship market. • A gang that police estimate made £1million (€1.1m)
selling fake wristbands to UK festivals is charged in court. • Irish promoter Denis Desmond sues Prince for cancelling a show at Dublin’s Croke Park in June 2008 with just ten days notice. • Singer Boy George is sentenced to 15 months in jail after imprisoning a male escort in a London apartment. • UK music retailer HMV pays £18m (€20.1m) for a 50% stake in promoter and venue chain MAMA Group, which includes naming rights to several of its London venues. It also announces plans to set up 100 outlets of HMV Tickets in stores countrywide. • Janet Jackson cancels five dates in Japan, blaming the recession. • Laszlo Hegedus reopens Multimedia Concerts in Hungary after completing the one-year non-compete term having left Live Nation.
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As sure as leaves falling in autumn, or Oasis having another bust up, Allan McGowan rounds up the year that nearly was… Well here we are – most of us anyway – almost at the end of the year, and there’s certainly still some glitter about but with the industry’s leading companies failing to deliver profits and continuing to engage in ‘low margin business’, have we been dealing in fools gold? We’ll see… The most shocking event of the year was of course the untimely death of Michael Jackson, which raised numerous questions regarding artist pressures and concert business practice. The proposed merger between Live Nation and Ticketmaster still dominates the headlines, and we all kept an eye on the recession. “The good thing about the recession is that it has finally taken the collective mind off the 360° deals
those that we have access to. In February, the first IQ survey of 50 European arenas revealed a drop in attendance at live entertainment shows of 2.3% between 2007 and 2008, with a 7.9% decline for music concerts. In his intro to the report, IQ editor Greg Parmley stated: “For many of us in Europe, it’s often frustrating that we have very little way of quantifying the state of the industry, especially compared to North America where publications such as Pollstar and Billboard are able to produce such widereaching data.” You may have noticed that IQ has tried to rectify this throughout 2009 by establishing and publishing annual reports on festivals, ticketing and arenas – so keep us informed!
and illegal file sharing and given us something refreshingly new to worry about!” Jessica Koravos –
“Either the artists’ fees and the ticket prices come
MD, AEG Enterprises
down so that more people are able to come, or there’s more product out there that’s so fantastic
But after a while, most live industry folk at all levels did what this industry does best, and decided – as I will now do with this review – to just get on with it!
The Numbers Game The bottom line is a good place to start, so let’s take a look at the figures, or at least
that people can’t bear to stay at home, but you’re lucky if you get 10 or 20 of those through the door each year.” Linda Bull – MD, EAA
Understandably, nervousness surrounded the first quarter tours, but advance sales for Britney Spears, Phish, Bruce Springsteen, and U2 were impressive. In February, Live Nation reported immediate
February • A 17-year-old dies at the Perth leg of Big Day Out festival after a reported overdose from ecstasy. • Global Spectrum Europe, the partnership between the UK’s NEC Group and Philadelphia-based Global Spectrum, launches with the opening of Spaladium Arena in Split, Croatia. The arena’s owners back out of the deal six months later. • Miami’s Langeradoo Music Festival and Scotland’s Hydro Connect both cancel, with organisers blaming the poor economic climate. • Bruce Springsteen publicly lambasts Ticketmaster after fans buying tickets for his New Jersey show are automatically redirected to secondary platform TicketsNow. • Live Nation and Ticketmaster announce the plan to merge the two largest players in the live entertainment world in a proposed $2.5bn (€1.7bn) deal. • In the UK, the Featured Artists Coalition launches with
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700 members, providing a platform for artists who believe their voice is increasingly going unheard. Kilimanjaro and K2 Agency announce Sonisphere, a travelling hard-rock festival visiting six European countries. Sonisphere is the largest festival launched in 2009. Thousands of music fans in China are defrauded after buying tickets to a fake Daft Punk show for 500 yuan each. The organisers of Germany’s Wacken Open Air festival announce plans to launch a twin site, Wacken Rocks South, at Kreuth near the Austrian border in May. Dutch company Sports Entertainment Group purchases the UK management companies, headed by Marc Marot (Terra Firma Mgmt) and John Arnison (J Mgmt), to form SEG Entertainment UK. Veteran and well-loved production manager Mick Kluczynski passes away after a short illness. Frustrated with the UK Government’s unwillingness to act against secondary ticketing, the Concert Promoters
sell-outs for the 2009 leg of Madonna’s Sticky & Sweet Tour, already the highest grossing tour in history for a solo artist, having been seen in 2008 by 2,350,285 fans in 58 cities. Pollstar’s mid-year results reported a combined $1.16billion (€0.77bn) gross for the “Top 100 tours, up $113.5million (€76m) or 10.8% over the same period in 2008.” Fears that recession-struck US punters would baulk at $100-plus tickets appeared unfounded, at least for the likes of The Eagles, Celine Dion, and Billy Joel/Elton John. Pink, Coldplay, and Tina Turner all contributed to an unexpectedly good start to the year, and AC/DC proved that rock still rules, grossing over $150m (€101m) by playing to more than 1.7 million fans in the first half of the year. But, although arena-level sales were up, theatre and club-level shows suffered. Despite heavy discounting, US amphitheatre venues experienced a decline of nearly 1.2 million tickets. And throughout the year, there were many indicators that the mid- to small-level businesses were most affected by the recession as audiences adopted ‘discretionary spending’ measures. “The bigger acts seem to be getting stronger and are selling tickets. But the acts that used to
Association launches OfficialBoxOffice.com to combat resale. • UK website, ticketing and merchandise company Trinity Street declares bankruptcy while co-founders David Robson and Andrew Murray claim they were wrongly removed from the board. • IQ’s European Arenas Report reveals a 10% drop in attendance at European arenas between 2007 and 2008.
March • The Sound Relief benefit concerts co-promoted by Michael Coppel and Michael Chugg raise A$8m (€5m) for the victims of forest fires in Victoria, selling 120,000 tickets. • Sony Music Australia forms a new touring arm, Day 1 Entertainment, and co-promotes Simon & Garfunkel with Michael Chugg. • Festival Republic’s Melvin Benn buys Hove festival from its Norwegian receivers after it went bust with debts of NOK15m (€1.8m) in December.
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do well in the mid-level are the ones suffering now.“
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Alliances & Alienations
Phil Bowdery – president of international touring, Live Nation
“Let us be lovers, we’ll marry our fortunes together.“ Paul Simon
The UK In 2007, UK collection society PRS for Music revealed that performance income had exceeded mechanical returns for the first time. At ILMC 21, chief economist Will Page revealed that the value of the UK live music industry had overtaken that of the recorded music industry for the first time – a revelation that brought the drastically altered landscape of the music business into even greater focus. Page’s report ‘Adding up the Music Industry for 2008’ estimated the total value of the 2008 UK music industry at £3.6bn (€2.4bn), 4.7% up on 2007, while it placed the value of the live music industry at £1,391m (€933m), 13% up, with primary tickets alone worth £900m (€604m). While news of such growth was positive, backing Pollstar’s worldwide and US findings, Page pointed out that the real money earners are still the heritage, big name acts, and that demand has decreased for the mid-priced touring acts.
Gwen Stefani performs at Singapore's F1 Rocks, which attracted 26m viewers in September
• Two Oasis concerts in China are cancelled by authorities after it emerges that guitarist Noel Gallagher played a Free Tibet concert in New York in 1997. • Live Nation posts a Q4 loss of $338m (€226m), including a write-down charge of $270m (€180m) due to a falling share price. • Ticketmaster reports a $1.1billion (€0.7bn) Q4 loss, reflecting a decline in the company’s share price. Weeks later, president/CEO Sean Moriarty resigns from the company. • Michael Jackson announces ten comeback shows at The O2, and then promptly sells out another 40, shifting 750,000 tickets. • Dutch concert film and online distribution company Fabchannel shuts its doors after failing to attract sufficient artists to sustain its business model. • Organisers behind new UK festival Heavenly Planet (15,000-cap) scrap the event, citing the economic
“Sure, recorded is down and live is up – but it’s recorded music that makes the primary investment in new talent, and given the damage already done to investment calculations by P2P, therein lies a ‘conveyor belt’ style question: who’s going to invest in the career development of artists to create the heritage acts of tomorrow?” Will Page –’Adding up the Music Industry for 2008’
climate as the cause. • Research released by PRS for Music during the ILMC reveals that the value of the UK live music industry has overtaken the value of the recorded music industry for the first time. • German ticketer CTS Eventim pays out a 61 cent dividend per share announcing pre-tax earnings (EBIT) in 2008 up 6.8% to €50.3m. • Academy Music Group purchases Glasgow’s ABC venue, bringing its venue total to 13 around the UK. • Secondary marketplace Viagogo becomes the official reseller for Isle of Wight, Reading and Leeds Festival tickets, adding to deals it already struck with Madonna and Michael Jackson. • US promoter Seth Hurwitz of It’s My Party files a federal antitrust suit against Live Nation in Baltimore alleging a string of anti-competitive practices. • AEG Facilities is given backing by Copenhagen Council to
Live Nation bagged the year’s first headline, launching its US ticketing service on New Year’s Day, wasting no time at all as its contract with Ticketmaster came to an end. Not only is parting such sweet sorrow, but both companies expected a year of price-cutting. In December, the firm had predicted no further growth in 2009, even though its forecast for fan attendance later rose 10%. Live Nation head Michael Rapino told investors to expect a downturn in ticket prices and Ticketmaster Entertainment CEO Sean Moriarty told Bloomberg News that he expected the same. In June, Rapino proved he would practise what he preached when LN introduced a series of discount ticketing promotions on US amphitheatre lawn seats. These later proved to be a successful innovation. “In our business we don’t mind if the price of a ticket goes down; our job is to get as many bums in seats as possible.” Michael Rapino – CEO, Live Nation
Seemingly unable to bear the pain of separation, the business took a sharp intake of breath in February when the star struck live entertainment giants announced their plan to merge in a proposed $2.5bn (€1.7bn) deal. “This merger, and the resources of these combined companies, will create a new dynamic and unique
build the new $225m (€150m) Ørestad arena, four miles south of the city centre.
April • In the wake of the Ticketmaster/Springsteen mix up, Ontario officials pledge to introduce legislation to block ticket sales on Ticketmaster’s TicketsNow platform. • The Palladium, a new 5,500-capacity purpose-built entertainment venue, opens in Dubai. • Tallinn Music Week attracts 300 delegates to its inaugural event, including 100 foreign professionals. • Canadian management company Nettwerk trial ‘honesty box’ gigs where fans pay what they like to see one of ten dates by hip hop artist K-os. • Ticketpro in the Czech Republic expands into the Baltic States, helping to shift 50,000 tickets for an August Madonna show. • Construction begins on a huge entertainment complex in
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creative platform of choice for fans across all levels of the live entertainment experience. There is nothing more magical than the bond and the intimate relationship of fans to artists.” Irving Azoff – CEO, Ticketmaster Entertainment
But, as ever, true love does not always run straight. In March, Live Nation posted a Q4 loss of $338m (€227m) due to a falling share price, while Ticketmaster reported a $1.1bn (€0.7bn) loss for similar reasons. Just weeks later, Sean Moriarty resigned from the company to be replaced in August by London-based record industry executive Roger Ames. The ‘will they?/won’t they?’ of this momentous merger continued throughout the year, as the US Justice Department continued an extended series of hearings and several politicians, rock stars and competitors expressed their disapproval. “The one thing that would make the current ticket situation even worse for the fan than it is now would be Ticketmaster and Live Nation coming up with a single system, thereby returning us to a nearmonopoly situation in music ticketing.” Bruce Springsteen
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preliminary ruling by the UK’s Competition Commission in October turned down the merger because of, “a substantial lessening of competition in the market for the primary retailing of tickets for live music events,“ and the effects it would have on CTS Eventim’s entry into the UK market. Currently consulting with its US equivalent, a final decision is due by 19 January 2010. According to Q3 business results from both companies, earnings have been affected by the ongoing costs relating to the deal – $12m (€8.04m) during the quarter –although executives are still positive. “We’re pretty confident that once the reviews are over that we’ll both be able to find that happy medium to get these deals done,” Rapino told analysts on a conference call. As for the companies’ financials, ticketing revenues dropped 14% to $292.1m (€195.8m) in the quarter ending 30 September at Ticketmaster, and for the ninemonth period also ending 30 September, Live Nation’s revenue was up 3.7%, with 10.6 million tickets sold through LiveNation.com, although it made a $60m (€40m) loss on the period.
“The music business is in far worse shape than most people realise. We cannot keep doing things that no longer work. This merger will allow the live music industry to avoid repeating the mistakes of the record business,” Irving Azoff told the US Senate’s Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights. While cleared in Norway and Turkey, a
In 2008, AEG Live reported more than $1bn (€0.67bn) in concert grosses to Billboard Boxscore – half those of Live Nation. It publicly opposed the proposed Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger, but in March shocked the industry with its own coup,
Singapore. Sentosa Island includes a 7,000-seat ballroom, numerous outdoor stages and an amphitheatre. Veteran music producer Phil Spector is found guilty of the second-degree murder of actress Lana Clarkson at his mansion in 2003, and later sentenced to 19 years imprisonment. Madonna’s application to adopt a Malawian child is turned down by officials. Patrick Jordan, MD of Mojo Barriers and a widely loved figure in the production world, dies of a suspected heart attack aged just 44. Fan services and online music marketing company Echo, that Ticketmaster bought for $25m (€17m) in 2007, is shut down. Michael Jacobsen steps down as executive chairman/CEO of Aussie venue firm Arena Management, which is placed into administration in August with debts of A$12.5m (€7.7m).
• A raft of concerts are cancelled in Mexico after venues and public events are closed due to fears about spreading swine flu. • Swiss festival Paléo Festival Nyon sells out in just over two hours, less than half the time it took in 2008. • The four owners of the illegal Swedish file-sharing site The Pirate Bay are convicted by a court and sentenced to one year in prison and to pay £3m (€3.4m) in damages. • Charges are filed against Austrian promoters Meimo Henserl and Wolfgang Klinger, claiming that the two former Rock & More directors traded the company even when insolvent. • German promoters Johannes Wessels of Music Pool and Creative Talent’s Carlos Fleischmann leave Deutsche Entertainment AG, buying back the shares in their companies. • Live Nation-owned Mojo Concerts announces that the 15,600-capacity arena it is building in Amsterdam will be
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announcing a run of Michael Jackson dates at The O2 in London. 360,000 fans registered presales applications and within hours of going on-sale, one million fans had attempted to snap up tickets for an initial run of ten concerts, which rapidly turned into 50. Immediately, as ever with an event of this import, there was controversy. A deal was struck with Viagogo, with tickets immediately placed on the secondary ticket market for up to £1,000 (€1,120), and Jackson’s last reported public announcement on his residency suggested that he felt that
Out of Adversity
Michael Jackson announces a series of shows at The O2 in London
called Ziggo Dome. The €60m-€70m Dome is due to open in 2011.
May • Glastonbury Festival’s Michael Eavis is named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine • Online marketplace Seatwave announces that it is opening in Turkey. • William Morris Agency announces that it will merge with TV and film specialist The Endeavor Talent Agency to become William Morris Endeavor Entertainment. • Norwegian singer Alexander Rybak wins the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow. • After the majority of US states previously deregulated secondary ticket sales, New York reintroduces its bill on resale, while Minnesota introduces a bill blocking primary sellers from directing ticket buyers to secondary sites. • Depeche Mode’s Tour of The Universe cancels
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managers, advisers, promoters and debt chasers had taken events out of his control, “I don’t know how I’m going to do 50 shows. I’m really angry” he was quoted as saying. The opening four nights were postponed, with the first show, on 8 July, pushed back by five nights because “more time was needed for dress rehearsals”. Many thought that a fragile man was being pushed too hard, some expected him to pull out, but few if any were prepared for the shocking news of his death on 25 June.
Josh Homme-led supergroup Them Crooked Vultures storms European festivals
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nearly a dozen European shows after singer Dave Gahan falls ill due to a malignant bladder tumour. The US tour is also later affected by his illness. The first four Michael Jackson shows at The O2 are postponed in order to allow extra rehearsal time for what organisers call “a massive and technically complex show”. Judgement is passed against former promoter Jack Utsick for $4.1m (€2.7m), not including civil penalties, for running a $300m (€200m) ponzi scheme and defrauding 3,000 investors. Utsick is not present at the verdict having fled to Brazil. AC/DC breaks the Australian record for first day sales by shifting 500,000 tickets for the 2010 tour, promoted by Garry van Egmond and Michael Chugg. The New Jersey Attorney General files lawsuits against three ticket resellers for offering tickets to a Bruce Springsteen Giants Stadium show before the on-sale date. Dutch festival Pinkpop celebrates its 40th anniversary
“The world lost a kind soul who just happened to be the greatest entertainer the world has ever known.
Strange how things can turn around in this business isn’t it?
Since he loved his fans in life, it is incumbent upon us to treat them with the same reverence and respect
Our German Friends
after his death.“ Randy Phillips – president & CEO, AEG Live
A flurry of reports followed about complicated insurance situations, ticket rebates, losses to the London economy, tribute shows, and ghost sightings. AEG Live was, on the face of it, starring at a liability of up to £30m (€33m) and a slew of holes in The O2’s diary. But it was not to be the financial disaster it first appeared. AEG subsequently sold rehearsal footage to Columbia Pictures for $60m (€40m), recouping pre-production costs for The O2 dates. The Sony division promptly produced a feature-length film, This Is It, which was released worldwide on 31 October and generated over $200m (€134m) in its first two weeks at the box office. Additional revenue for AEG and the Jackson estate also came from an agreement struck before the singer’s death with Bravado International Group, a subsidiary of Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, for concert merchandising. “Several million pieces” from a 200-item range of sunglasses, mugs, wallets, scarves and socks have already sold. Oh, and as for the ‘dark’ period at The O2, it somehow filled up, including ten nights with Bon Jovi. Neither have The O2’s in Berlin and Dublin done badly either, with both returning record figures in 2009.
when it welcomes headliners Bruce Springsteen and Placebo for the 31 May - 1 June weekend. • La Caja Majica (The Magic Box), a new complex with 3,000-, 5,000- and 12,000-capacity arenas opens in Madrid with a Lenny Kravitz concert. • Monika Bestle, owner of the 200-capacity Kulturwerkstatt venue in Paderborn, attracts over 50,000 signatures for her petition against a proposed rate hike by German collection society GEMA.
CTS Eventim, still officially Live Nation’s ticketing partner, soft launched its London operation in June to be operational by October in order to fulfil its January 2010 deadline to handle Live Nation’s ticket inventory. This was the first time a German ticketing company had set up operations in the UK and half year profits showed a 45% increase in revenues on the same period in 2008, with group revenues at €249m. “We’re now operational in 20 countries and there’ll be a couple more coming on line next year.” Rob Edwards – MD, CTS Eventim UK
Mid-level Alliances & Successes “The live music sector has its own eco-system; at the local level it needs a variety of venue types, sizes and prices. As the sector rationalises, and as the top end moves to oligopoly, the economic challenge will be to maintain a balance of large and small promotional enterprises.” Simon Frith – professor, Edinburgh University
While the giants were fighting to get their own way, others were getting on with business, and several new alliances were formed. In our review of 2007 we were wary of the competitive incursions of record companies and others. 2009 saw the entry of the beleaguered music retailers
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June • Live Nation introduces ‘No Service Fee Wednesday’ on US amphitheatre lawn seats, beginning a series of discount ticketing promotions in North America. • CTS Eventim’s Q1 results show a 47% increase in revenues, up to €119m. News of the result boosts the Eventim share by 10%. • Rotterdam Ahoy signs a multi-year deal with AEG
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Facilities to fund a major refurbishment and increase the capacity of the Dutch arena from 10,500 to 13,500. Sweden’s Pirate Party, whose agenda is based on legalising file sharing wins a seat in the European parliament after attracting 7.1% of the country’s votes. German promoter Henning Tögel sues Cyndi Lauper for $800,000 (€535,000) after she breaks her contract to perform a 13-date European tour. CTS Eventim soft launches in London, aiming to be operational by October. The office is helmed by Rod Edwards, formerly of Audience View. Ticketmaster’s secondary site TicketsNow announces that it will make buyers aware when there are still tickets available for shows on the primary market. Live Nation UK’s hard rock Download Festival sells a record 80,000 tickets and enjoys a weekend of sunshine, recovering from poor ticket sales in 2008. A Brisbane resident sues Stadium Queensland for
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and the direct-to-fan suppliers, into the live music business. On 25 January, New Kids on the Block became the first band to appear at the newly christened HMV Apollo in Hammersmith, London. The rebranding resulted from an £18.5m (€20.7m), 50% joint venture deal between the high street entertainment retailer and Mama Group, the UK’s second biggest concert venue owner. The new company now operates 11 sites across the UK, including eight in London, and aims to become a ticket agent for Mama’s ten festivals. The company also announced plans to team up with Seatem to set up 100 outlets of HMV Tickets in stores countrywide.
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“Live music is the booming part of the entire industry, so it’s logical for us to try to tap into it,
from a company that simply conveys music and merchandising to fans, to becoming a one-stop destination for all the revenues that a band deserves. And that has meant moving into the live music arena.” Simon Coates – commercial director, Digital Stores
In November, launching what looks very similar to a Ticketmaster initiative developed two years ago, CTS Eventim announced a partnership with iTunes Store through its internet portal www.eventim.de aimed at providing concert promoters with new marketing opportunities by combining promotion for albums and tickets. The tie-up began with Universal pop/rock act Tokio Hotel fans being able to pre-order new album Humanoid and receive codes that allowed them to order up to four tickets online before the tour went on sale.
harnessing the customer base we already have and also attracting younger consumers. In this market, we
“We are inviting every promoter and record label to
need to adapt.” Simon Fox – CEO, HMV
experiment with these new marketing opportunities and to reach out to new target groups. We’re open
New Digits in the Till
to every idea.” Malte Blumenthal – VP new media, CTS Eventim
The online retailers, digital distributors, and artist-to-fan suppliers, having realised that live was eminently exploitable, were often shocked by the narrow margins offered by the industry’s main product – the ticket. But adding ticketing to their inventory gave them access to that golden nugget and ILMC 21 buzzword…data!
The genuine potential for streaming gigs in partnership with the social sites was illustrated by the U2 concert stream, which generated 10 million hits during their 25 October concert at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on YouTube. And Foo Fighters gained 440,000 viewers for a web-only concert via Livestream and Facebook.
“As bands get wise to their labels’ wishes to get more Elton John's Red Piano show in Vegas closes after 241 shows over five years
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AUD$250,000 (€167,000), after she slipped on garbage on stairs during a 2006 U2 show, despite having drunk four glasses of champagne. Having already downsized its venue, German music fair Popkomm is cancelled with organisers blaming the recession and illegal file sharing. Promoters of the US Virgin Mobile Festival announce that all 35,000 tickets to the event in Columbia, Maryland, will be free this year. Michael Jackson dies of a heart attack brought on by complications with prescription medicine on Thursday 25 June. He is 50. John Giddings is announced as global promoter for a series of high profile shows tying together Formula 1 and music, F1 Rocks. The first leg in Singapore in September draws 30,000 people. Toronto’s Air Canada Centre goes dark for ten weeks for a C$25m (€16m) refit, marking its tenth anniversary.
of a slice of the pie in all they do, we have moved
“With power shifting towards artists and fans, can
• 11 people are killed and 52 injured during a crowd crush in Rabat, Malaysia, during a concert by local artist Abdelaziz Stati. • German promoter Marek Lieberberg takes resale company Ventic to court to prevent it from selling Depeche Mode tickets at inflated prices.
France, collapses. • Severe storms at Spain’s Benicassim festival see the site evacuated and Kings of Leon's performance cancelled as wind speeds reach 50mph. • A 29-year-old Slovakian music fan is killed and dozens injured when a freak gust of wind lifts and splits Pohoda Festival’s main stage tent, causing it to collapse. • The UK’s Academy Music Group adds Bournemouth’s Opera House (cap. 2,000) to its portfolio of venues, renaming it O2 Academy Bournemouth as part of its multi-year naming rights deal with mobile operator O2. • The Australian live entertainment industry records revenues of A$1bn (€0.6bn) in 2008, according to Live Performance Australia. • Ticketmaster UK is chosen as the official ticketer for the 2012 Olympics in London. • Dublin residents, angry at noise from U2’s Croke Park shows, picket the sports stadium and delay the load out
July • U2’s stadium-busting 360 Tour kicks off in Barcelona, unveiling the enormous claw stage. • Pollstar’s mid-year results report that the “Top 100 tours grossed a combined $1.16billion which was up $113.5million or 10.8% over the same period in 2008.” • The accidental death of a 22-year-old Londoner fails to dampen the crowd’s enthusiasm for the tenth anniversary of EXIT Festival (cap. 50,000) in Serbia. • Two workers are killed and eight injured when the roof of the stage being built for a Madonna show in Marseille,
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the live industry learn to fully embrace the social web 2.0 world and move towards an open source, shared risk/reward model where the real control is exerted by the fans and the artists?” Steve Machin – MD, Stormcrowd
Brands continued to seek live music partnerships in the face of recession. Mama Group reopened London’s Garage venue as the Relentless Garage on 26 June, as the first project in a brand partnership for “the next three years and beyond” with Relentless, the Energy Drink brand, in which the Companies will “Co-promote activity across live and festival channels.” In January, O2 announced that it was pairing up with Brixton Academy owner Academy Music Group to rebrand 11 venues under the phone giant’s name. Meanwhile, the last 12 months have seen Live Nation US unveil “official” hotel, soft drink and tequila partners (Starwood Hotels, Coca Cola and 901 Silver Tequila, respectively). “There has definitely been a ‘professionalisation’ of the live music industry. Punters get a better experience now. As the number of regular gig-goers swells, the sector has begun to shake off its association with dingy venues, broken glass and sweaty dance floors.” Dean James – co-chief executive, MAMA Group
Organise to Stay Alive Throughout the year, many paid lip service to the importance of the smaller venues as being crucial to the future of the industry as
by eight hours. • Live Nation enters into a strategic alliance with South African promoter Big Concerts. • Sony Music Entertainment purchases a 49% stake in the classical division of German promoter Deutsche Entertainment AG for a double-digit, million-Euro figure.
August • Pink’s Funhouse tour smashes a series of Australian records by shifting 650,000 tickets and playing 58 sold-out arena shows, including 17-dates at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne. • Live Nation posts a Q2 loss of $27.2m (€18m) with expenses relating to its proposed merger, but states having sold 500,000 tickets through its No Service Fee Wednesday promotion. • Ticketmaster announces veteran record industry executive Roger Ames as the new CEO International.
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the “breeding grounds” for new talent, but in difficult times, with little aid from elsewhere, this sector struggles to help itself, but sometimes finding strength in numbers to lobby for its continued existence. On 22 June, Monika Bestle, booker for the 200-capacity Sonthofen in Germany raised 50,000 signatures for an e-petition demanding an investigation into collection society GEMA’s policies, particularly on rates for small venues. This number of signatories allowed her to have the case considered by the German parliament, the Bundestag. German promoters association, IDKV, is also in negotiation with GEMA regarding rates. In the UK, after a long but successful battle to save her own small venue, the Boileroom’s Dominique Czopor set up we:Live, a new association for independent promoters that seeks to represent the smaller players in areas such as licence review, noise abatement, environmental health and licence conditions.
“[Small venues] are disappearing because of shortsighted licensing legislation, and that vital creative ground, that has served music so well over the years, will disappear forever. They cannot be replaced by X Factor, which merely clones existing entertainment stereotypes. We desperately need music pubs and music clubs. They are a vital part of our cultural landscape.“ Sting – The Guardian (9 November 2009)
In October, Network Europe, the international association for agents, bookers promoters and talent buyers, announced several new networking activities and changes in
“It’s more important than ever that agents listen to the experience that the small venue managers have and ensure that the demands they make are reasonable enough to allow the venues to survive.” Mark Davyd – The Forum, Tunbridge Wells (UK)
The UK Licensing Act 2003, which came into force in 2005, continues to hamper live music in small venues, and a group of Members of Parliament resolve to change things for the better. (See Comment piece by Lord Tim Clement Jones Pg14)
Ames will be based in the London office. • Les Paul, whose guitar design helped shape the course of modern music, dies aged 94. • Columbia Pictures agrees to pay $60m (€40m) for the footage of Michael Jackson’s This Is It rehearsals, covering promoter AEG Live’s costs and moving it into profit. • CTS Eventim’s half-year profits show a 45% increase in revenues on the same period in 2008 with group revenues at €249m. • A Pearl Jam tour of Australia is marketed through its own TV station, with fans buying recordings bundled with tickets .
September • Chinese officials ban the performance of 14 foreign acts at the Modern Sky Festival in Beijing. • Madonna’s Sticky & Sweet world tour winds up as the second highest grossing tour ever, after earning $408m (€273m) across 87 concerts.
Take That's Circus tour becomes the fastest selling in UK history, shifting £35m tickets in one day
• A high profile tribute concert to Michael Jackson, organised in Vienna with the blessing of the late singer’s brother Jermaine falls apart when most of the confirmed artists deny they will perform. • After widespread pressure, the UK’s Metropolitan Police revise Form 696, its controversial risk assessment form for clubs and venues that had previously asked for personal details of performing artists. • Filling the void left by Popkomm, Hamburg’s Reeperhbahn Festival launches The Campus, a conference for music professionals that attracts 1,000 delegates. • Live Nation launches a Club Passport scheme in the US that gives fans access to unlimited club shows for the rest of the year for $49.99 (€33.40). • A report by the Association of Independent Festivals reveals that its 19 member festivals contributed £16.9m (€18.9m) to their local economies and generated £139m (€155m) in total.
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2010 aimed at stimulating business opportunities for its members. The association also aims to grow beyond Western Europe with the introduction of four different levels of membership. Another association facing radical change is the UK’s Music Managers Forum (MMF) whose members continued to make the whole of the music industry aware of their increasingly pivotal role. In June, the MMF released the results of a comprehensive questionnaire completed by 225 managers and entrepreneurs – the most comprehensive survey of UK music managers ever undertaken. It revealed that 85% are looking to live concerts and merchandise to sustain their artists and that 73% expect recorded music to be less than 50% of their artists’ earnings in 2009. The survey also revealed that the growing emphasis on live music has thrown up key issues that need to be addressed: 90% want an overhaul of current industry ticketing practice and 92% want to reduce merchandise concession fees at venues. IQ and the MMF cooperated on the first of a possible series of networking events that brought managers and agents to better understand their current working practices.
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Festivals Stay Firm “As a purely discretionary pastime, festivals have to strike the right balance between price and value – that could be difficult this year.” Christof Huber – Leonard Cohen's controversial concert in Israel sells out in one day
• U2’s Giant Stadium show breaks the attendance record set by Pope John Paul II in 1995 when it welcomes 84,472 fans.
October • The UK’s Competition Commission turns down the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger in its preliminary findings because of the effect it would have on CTS Eventim’s entry into the UK market. • AEG Facilities announces its move into Turkey by partnering with football club Galatasaray SK to manage its new 52,500-seat Turk Telekom Arena Stadium in Istanbul. • French promoters complain about concert insurance premiums, which have begun carrying an additional premium at 10% of show costs to cover swine flu. • The European Arenas Association welcomes London’s The O2 into its fold, changing the membership constitution to allow directly competing members.
general secretary, Yourope
• A 3D holographic tour by German rockers Tokio Hotel heads across Germany for 12 shows without the band members needing to be present. • LG Arena, formerly the NEC Birmingham reopens in the UK after a £29m (€32m) refit. • With a capacity of 2,100, the BDG Tallinn Concert Hall opens in Estonia, filling a void for a mid-level venue. • Ticketpro launches in Belarus, through a new franchise model developed by founder Serge Grimaux. • One year after opening, Berlin’s 17,000-capacity O2 World reveals that it has welcomed 1.48 million people to 138 events. • Michael Jackson’s This Is It opens in cinemas. • Beyoncé pulls out of a planned show in Malaysia for the second time amid protests from Muslim groups about her “skimpy attire” and “immoral” behaviour. • With its 40th anniversary approaching, Glastonbury sells out all 137,500 tickets for its 2010 event in five hours.
Most organisers, as reported in IQ’s second European Festival Report, were apprehensive about the effects of the recession, but although the year did have its casualties, (Miami’s Langeradoo Music Festival and Scotland’s Hydro Connect were both cancelled, with organisers blaming the poor economic climate) overall, the failure rate appears to be in line with what might be expected from any expanding industry and generally things didn’t look too bad in 2009. Average attendances dropped by only 3% on last year’s figures and the larger festivals fared well with tickets for the UK’s Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds selling out in record time. “The sector has been thinned out a little, but there’s a way to go. There are still too many festivals. On the popular music side, there’s still a bit too much fat on it.” Melvin Benn – MD, Festival Republic
The release of more figures evaluating the worth of events to local and national economies highlights the increasing importance of festivals as economic and cultural assets. ‘Biggies’ like Glastonbury and T in the Park have been mentioned before, but apparently John Giddings’ Isle of Wight Festival puts £15m (€16.8m) into the island’s collective purse, and a report by the Association of Independent Festivals lists surprisingly high benefits for many other festival locations. Perhaps the best indicator of the current international status of the music festival is the nomination of Glastonbury’s Michael
• Norway’s Quart festival is declared bankrupt for the second year running, after the 2009 event sinks NOK15m (€1.8m), only marginally less than the 2008 losses. • Czech promoter Serge Grimaux leaves Live Nation to focus on his ticketing business, Ticketpro, and to become an independent promoter again. • Agents Paul Franklin and Georgina Spencer Holmes defect from Helter Skelter to the London office of CAA. Franklin’s roster includes Amy Winehouse and Charlotte Church. • After a three-year relationship, Australia promoter Michael Coppel pulls out of the Virgin Group’s V Festival. • Australian street event St Gerome’s Laneway Festival announces it is expanding internationally in 2010, to New Zealand and Singapore. • Venue firm SMG Europe signs a deal to run a new £78m arena in Leeds, UK, which is set to open in 2012 and generate over 300 jobs.
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Eavis as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine! Increasingly unpredictable weather still presents huge risks for outdoor events, this year many of those usually afflicted with rain and mud were spared, whereas Spain’s Benicassim, usually guaranteed sunny skies, was battered by severe storms and 50mph winds led to the site being evacuated and Kings of Leons’ performance cancelled.
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“Since 2006, we’ve insured all our festivals against weather. Due to climate change, the weather
Tutankhamun – His Tomb and Its Treasures. Semmel Concerts new venture attracts 800,000 visitors in five months
conditions are much more unpredictable. Years ago, if you had a rainy festival you knew it, and you could
piecemeal into pre-existing events. It seemed kind of
plan well in advance. Nowadays the whole world can
haphazard and also very difficult some of the time
be turning upside down within a quarter of an hour.”
because of the geographical locations.” John
Folkert Koopmans – FKP Scorpio
Jackson – MD, K2 Agency
The festival sector continues to reinvent itself as organisers take on new roles as local and national development partners, and even variety producers as the entertainment on offer broadens. In some cases organisers are adopting an A&R role, as evidenced by Yourope’s connection with the European Talent Exchange Programme. And apparently there is still room for new large-scale formats. In February, with backing from AEG, Kilimanjaro’s Stuart Galbraith and John Jackson unveiled Sonisphere, a new touring festival format. The tour failed to break even but made enough to be back in 2010.
Preparing for a New Decade
“I always had this idea of creating a truly global festival touring brand, rather than booking my acts
November • German promoter FKP Scorpio launches two new festivals in a holiday camp on the Baltic coast at Weissenhäuser Strand – Rolling Stone Weekender and Plage Noire. • AEG Facilities wins the contracts to run the new 15,000seat Danube Arena in Bratislava, Slovakia (opening 2010) and the 40,000-capacity Söder Stadium in Stockholm, which opens in 2012. • The former business partner of Irish promoter Denis Desmond takes him to court, alleging the MCD chief owes him €3.8m – his profit share from events between 2001 and 2006. • Live Nation agrees to sell 17 UK theatres to Ambassador Theatre Group in a £100m deal, making it the largest theatre group in the UK. • The UK’s Competition Commission postpones its final decision on the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger until 19 January, giving it time to “explore all possible remedies”.
“The climate seems to be changing now – and as the balance shifts, we will see who adapts and who becomes a victim of natural selection. I think we can expect to be surprised.” Jessica Koravos – MD, AEG Enterprises
This review is, as usual due to the restrictions of the printed page, a snapshot of what went on during a year in which, as some wag said, “bankers made promoters look respectable”. Much was left out – secondary ticketing, sorry ‘dynamic pricing’ as it was christened at a record-attended ILMC 21 (1,000 delegates, a good sign don’t you think?), many important territories went unmentioned, but as ever, news and
• The second UK Festival Conference attracts over 300 delegates to Vue at The O2 in London, for panels including IQ’s ‘future-focussed’ session. • Music industry and showcase event Eurosonic announces a 40% rise in registrations in advance of the 13-16 January event in Groningen, Holland. • Live Nation’s Q3 results state that healthy sales of concert tickets upped revenue 14% to $1.81bn. • Ticketmaster’s Q3 results show revenue rising 3% to $349m, although the figures for both companies are affected by $12m in merger expenses during the quarter. • Britney Spears’ Circus tour hits the news in Australia when a national paper claims fans are walking out due to her lip-synching. • CTS Eventim’s Q3 earnings rise 43% on the same period in 2008, led by ticketing revenues that generated ?95.7m • More than 60 people are hurt during a crowd crush in Birmingham, UK, when 20,000 fans try to watch
comment on all of these can be found in all your 2009 back issues of IQ. Considering the amount of trepidation that attended the beginning of this year, we seem to be coming out of it with an industry mainly intact, albeit with a few loose ends, including a certain merger still to be tied up. Certainly an air of caution presides, which, considering the gung ho approach of the mid-decade years, is no bad thing. The fact is, recession will still be a threat in the final year of the first decade of the twenty-first century, but the industry appears to be prepared, and if divine intervention is required, it should be noted that in September, U2’s Giant Stadium show broke the attendance record set by Pope John Paul II in 1995 – so there! We’ll continue the discussion in March at ILMC 22… ALLAN MCGOWAN
Sugababes and X Factor celebrities JLS. • Promoter Tony Hollingsworth loses his appeal against the Singapore Tourist Board over a failed 2006 charity show and is ordered to pay S$6.66m (€3.2m) in damages. • AEG is confirmed to run the new Stockholm Arena, a 30,000-seat stadium with a retractable roof which will open in 2012. • UK venue Manchester Evening News Arena (cap 23,000) sells out a 20-date residency by comedian Peter Kay in under an hour. • Pink and Green Day both announce summer stadium shows in Europe, becoming the latest acts to join a new stadium elite that also includes Muse and Coldplay. • Live Nation team up with iTunes to offer exclusive audio and video recordings of concerts at its network of 80 ‘wired’ venues in North America.
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WELCOME TO THE HOUSE OF FUN Alecia Beth Moore – stage name Pink – is the latest to join the stadium elite, and her Funhouse arena smash has helped put her there. Greg Parmley reports…
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In a period of the music business when executives are decrying the dearth of new stadium artists, and the public increasingly settles for chart acts that mime, Pink is something of a contradiction. Her fifth and most recent album, Funhouse, has provided the latest growth spurt in a career that’s followed a consistently upward trajectory since she went solo in 2000. The first album to feature five worldwide singles, Funhouse has added 7.5 million album sales to a career tally of around 32 million. It’s an impressive figure, particularly in today’s market. (As her German promoter Peter Reiger says: “The record company thinks they’ll sell a million copies here, which for these days is unbelievable.”) Being backed by Antonio ‘LA’ Reid’s Sonyfunded imprint LaFace Records helps, but ask many in her camp what’s made the difference, and why on this campaign she’s doubling up ticket sales and prising open new markets, and they’ll give you the same answer. When you see Pink live, you don’t get a prepackaged saccharine lovely, flouncing about to a backing track. What you get is an accomplished performer whose energy levels leave those around her struggling to keep up. “As an artist who sings live, and not to track, she is second to none. A great deal of her success is due to word of mouth from audiences as to how good her show is,” says manager Roger Davies, who has represented Pink since 2001. Of all her previous outings, the Funhouse Tour is the most successful. Since it kicked off in Nice, France, on 24 February, it’s played over 160 shows, sold in excess of 2 million tickets, and laid waste to most Australian concert records (see page 42). While the arena shows wrap up in December, a string of outdoor dates was recently announced for summer 2010, in Germany, Austria and the UK, and discussions are ongoing about adding more territories to the mix. The Funhouse Tour is currently the tenth most successful of the year, and with Pink’s performance including a bungee jump from the arena roof, high wire acrobatics and being dropped into a tank of water while singing, you get the distinct impression that she has ample energy to keep the tour
rolling; it’s perhaps just the crew’s sanity that has put a time limit on it. “You’re not just watching a band playing live on stage, you’re watching a performance,” says lighting director Trent O’Connor. “This is a theatre cum rock ‘n’ roll show.”
Getting the Party Started Initial discussions about the Funhouse Tour took place in September 2008, shortly before the release of the album. Davies met with lighting designer Baz Halpern who designed Pink’s previous I’m Not Dead Tour, and they both met with veteran set design wizard Mark Fisher. “I’ve worked with Mark many times before on Janet Jackson, Tina Turner and Cher, but the concept of the show came from Pink who worked closely with Baz throughout,” Davies says. “On the second round of meetings we brought in Bill Buntain, the coordinator of my tours, for discussions on concert dates and budgeting, along with production manager Richard Young.” Young cut his teeth as the production manager for Radiohead, and while the music might be poles apart, he says the touring philosophy is almost identical: “Working with Pink and Roger Davies’ management team requires an awful lot of hard work and exacting demands, so while on this tour we’re doing flying and have dancers and costume changes, the attention to detail and
“A great deal of her success is due to word of mouth from audiences as to how good her show is.” – Roger Davies, manager
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Chris Madden
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SOUNDING OFF Given that Pink spends parts of the show spinning in mid air, and even underwater while mic’d up, maintaining a consistently professional sound quality is no mean feat. The job falls to Chris Madden (FOH) and Horst Hartmann (monitors), alongside four sound crew and two trucks of equipment. While Madden is baffled by how Pink manages to deliver a vocal performance in mid air, he says it has presented few problems. “The only time we struggled a bit was when she hurt her shoulder because she couldn’t raise her arm so was singing across the mic, not into it,” he says. Sound equipment comes courtesy of Clair Audio including its proprietary i-5 line array system, a Digidesign Venue D-Show console and Yamaha PM1D. “They’re making use of Clair’s support around the world and are carrying very little equipment with them,” says Clair’s Andy Davies. “We’re picking up the same spec of gear for each leg.” Davies says that elements of the show took a little longer to plan than normal. “Dunking her underwater added to the work that had to be done beforehand in terms of how well the radio mic worked,” he says. “And Sennheiser worked with her really closely on custom headsets and handhelds.”
“When she’s hanging upside down swinging from the roof, she’s singing. It’s remarkable…it’s baffling to me that she can do it.” – Chris Madden, FOH engineer
management style is the same. Radiohead want it exactly the same and perfect every night and so do Roger Davies and Pink.” Having already chaperoned a string of Pink’s summer festival dates in 2008, Young was glad to be asked back, and particularly pleased to be brought in early. “To be involved right at the beginning is almost unheard of in the production world,” he says.
“We planned a European tour as you would for an artist of this size, but the reaction was phenomenal. We soon decided to come back in the autumn.” – Barrie Marshall, Marshall Arts
“I was very fortunate to be able to look at the design with Baz and Mark Fisher, and come up with something that worked both logistically and from a budget point of view, and then present it to the artist and the management.” The result is a show that packs an arenasized punch but fits into 12-trucks. “The Britney [Spears] tour is 30 trucks and doing the same sized venues,” Young says. “Regardless of whether it’s a good show or not, we’re doing a third of the number of trucks and still delivering a quality show. In today’s economic environment, it’s a very important factor.” Into 12 trucks fits a carnival-inspired set, giant inflatable evil clowns, trapeze equipment, a double bed, a chaise longue, custom-built HD screens and enough production to support a live backing band, a troupe of dancers and a star who also likes to take a turn solo with an acoustic guitar. And having plotted Radiohead’s eco-tour of 2008, Young says that while the Funhouse Tour might not be going to such extremes, keeping it compact has environmental benefits. “This tour won’t be documented on its carbon output, but having less trucks has less of a negative effect,” he says.
Ahead Start
Barry Marshall
Veteran promoter and agent Barrie Marshall works with all of Roger Davies’ acts, and Pink is no exception. On the Funhouse Tour his company, Marshall Arts, booked and promoted the UK dates, co-promoted Europe with various partners and co-promoted in the US with AEG Live. He’s an integral part of her team, but like many, was surprised by the voracity of fans when the first European leg – 41 dates around nine countries – went on sale in October last year. “We planned a European tour as you would for an artist of this size, but the reaction was phenomenal,” Marshall says. “We soon decided to come back in the autumn.”
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Photo: Louise Stickland
In Germany, one of her strongest markets, Peter Rieger still can’t quite believe it himself. “We sold 320,000 tickets this year; 29 concerts, all sold out in advance,” he says. “This was the plan, but there’s always hope on one side and reality on the other.” As well as Pink’s availability for promotion and interviews around the on-sale, Rieger believes a good old-fashioned big-budget campaign worked wonders. “We promoted it like a stadium tour,” he says. “The target was to sell out as soon as possible; to go on sale with the second leg before the first had started. We promoted very strongly, and it was very cost intensive, but at the end of the day we get it paid back.” Thomas Johansson
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“She’s an established rock ‘n’ roll artist here now, and it’s happened on this tour.” – Thomas Johansson, Live Nation
“It’s a unique situation,” he continues. “Normally I wouldn’t promote a tour based on an album that is two years old, but we think she’ll still be in the top 20 or 30 [with Funhouse] next year.” “We’ve been sold out since Spring this year,” says Olivier Toth of the 5 December date at Rockhal in Luxembourg. “This is the third time she’s been here, but the first in the arena. We’re extremely excited about it.” Given that even the kangaroos were fighting over tickets in Australia, as territories go, it’s something of an anomaly (see page 42), but
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in Europe, there’s the sense that Funhouse is a watershed move for an artist breaking far beyond the hot spots of Germany and the UK. “She’s an established rock ‘n’ roll artist here now, and it’s happened on this tour,” says Live Nation’s Thomas Johansson, her Scandinavian promoter. “When you start to sell out the big arenas in small markets – and these are relatively small markets – it means you’ve broken through on a very wide scale. This is her third time back here and it has really exploded.” The Netherlands, Belgium, Paris (although not the rest of France), Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg, Hungary and Czech Republic have all fallen under her spell, but Marshall says there is still work to do in the southern climes. “Spain, Italy and Portugal are a challenge,” he says. “It’s very hard to get a strong foothold in Italy, and we haven’t really worked Spain and Portugal. With a tour this big it’s financially difficult to visit a country unless you can sell out several arena dates.” Of course the irony of Pink’s success on this European run is that having blown open so many new markets, when she next returns there’ll be fewer available dates. Particularly now that her home crowd is listening. “America was her first arena tour and it was a complete success,” Marshall says. “I’m fired up about all of it but I’m especially enthused about America, because it was great for her to go home, play arenas and deliver the show she wanted to deliver. “Chicago [All State Arena] was fantastic, sold out; Boston [TD Bank Gardens] went clean; [New York’s] Madison Square Garden went, and her homecoming show in Philadelphia [The Wachovia Center] was such a hot show I think they’re repainting the walls,” he jokes. “We never concentrated on touring in America although she has had huge success there with record sales and radio airplay,”
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LIGHT RELIEF
Davies says. “My feeling is that she’s not like your normal-packaged pop act, and that may have been a bit threatening for US audiences, rather than the more accessible, warm-andcuddly norm. But America now appreciates how good Pink is as a live act.”
“Funhouse is bigger, more technical, and tighter than any tour we’ve done with Pink before but it’s run really tight which makes the daily gig easy and enjoyable.” – Nick Cua, tour director Waiting for American audiences to catch up must have been frustrating, particularly since Australian, German and British audiences have long related to her ‘what you see is what you get’ ethos. In fact, Pink has been writing what she feels since 2001’s Missundaztood – the album that marked her departure from the pre-packaged pop route – and with Funhouse’s frank lyricism dealing with her troubled marriage to motocross racer Carey Hart, it’s no less candid a release. Coupled with her energetic live shows, this honesty, and politically aware tracks such as Dear Mr President, have played no small part in opening up her music to a wider demographic, and Marshall reports that whereas the 2006/07 I’m Not Dead Tour was mostly a hot draw for 13-16-year-old girls,
With Baz Halpern titled as show director and lighting designer, and having included Mark Fisher Studio into the tour plans from the off, the lighting and set of the Funhouse Tour are very much integrated. “He’s got a few Trent O’Connor titles,” jokes lighting director Trent O’Connor, the man on the ground during each show. “Barry pops in now and then. He likes to keep tabs on what’s going on and it’s got to be the same show every night.” Helping to ensure this is PRG, who supplied all the lighting for the show, as well as the rigging package through its specialist brand Summit Steel. With offices in Australia and the US, and a stock of duplicate kit, PRG has been able to ensure that little equipment needs shipping. “Baz is always specific about the rigging he wants and certain equipment that he loves,” says PRG project manager Yvonne Donnelly-Smith. “We’re supplying a LowPro truss, which is a pre-rig truss that comes on dollies. The lamps are attached to the truss, and the dolly folds down and stacks away so it makes the load-in really quick, and Baz gets the orientation on the moving lights that he wants.” “This is a big rig and it’s very finicky, but the way it’s been prepped, it goes up quite fast and it’s usually a three-hour get out,” says O’Connor. Brilliant Stages has provided the 1930s funfair-themed set including the ‘waltzer’ risers, and the heart-shaped bed and chaise longue set pieces. Yvonne Donnelly-Smith
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GOD IS A VJ When it comes to video on the Funhouse Tour, it’s a case of less is more. “The production values are very high,” says XL Video’s Phil Mercer. “It’s not huge amounts of equipment but it’s very well used, like the central screens which aren’t that big, but are HD.” XL supplied the tour with its new 7mm F-LED, a remarkably thinner system. “It’s a development of the existing 11mm product but it had never been road tested before,” Mercer says. “It’s so compact and packs into such a small space that it wasn’t an issue to freight it, but everything else – apart from the server – we picked up locally.” Video director Larn Poland presides over the live feed from six cameras (including an aerial unit) with footage projected onto side screens and also cutting into the playback content on the rear screens which was shot by
Olivier Goulet from Canadian company Geodezik. “Pink was one of the first people I worked with as a director and it overlapped with the Tina Turner tour I was on, but I really wanted to be involved,” Poland says. “I helped put together visuals for the tour, then joined it in Australia.” Poland also directed the Funhouse: Live in Australia DVD with a 12-camera crew over two nights. The concert film shot straight to Number 1 down under, and was released worldwide in early November.
Larn Poland
the Funhouse crowd is older. “I’d say 10-15% of the audience are under 15, but the rest are older, going up to 40,” he says. “There are more couples too.” “When we put the spring tour on sale we had standing and seating, and the standing went straight away while the seats were slower. [On the second European leg] the seats went as fast, if not faster, which said that the show is three-dimensional...you can have a seat and still be entertained. It was indicative of how audiences have grown up with her and how it’s getting wider.”
Community Support It’s a platitude to say ‘the proof is in the pudding’ but Pink’s success does speak for itself. By marrying her with high quality production elements and a road crew that they consider to be one of the best, Davies and his team has created a sure-fire hit that could play well into the next decade if they chose. It’s a process that has taken time, and just as Pink has honed her live performance over her four arena tours, it’s also been a gradual process to refine her team. “We’ve gone through a lot of variations of band and crew and we’ve put together the best of everything,” says tour director Nick Cua, who has worked with Davies since Cher’s Living Proof tour in 2002. “Right now we’re firing on all cylinders. Richard’s a great production manager, and the band, crew and dancers are all terrific. Funhouse is bigger, more technical and tighter than any tour we’ve done with Pink before but it’s run really tight which makes the daily gig easy and enjoyable.” Cua is not alone in thinking that Funhouse is a well-oiled operation. Many of the tour’s suppliers agree that behind the former gymnast from Pennsylvania lies about as professional a team as you can get. “I’ve seen a lot of teams in my time and Pink has one of the best I’ve ever seen. This is a group of people who are at their absolute peak,” says MGR’s Ed Grossman who’s been lending his expertise on European tax. “It’s a privilege to be working with the UK promoters Marshall Arts, Roger Davies, and her crew, tour coordinators and US business managers.” “They don’t even know how to spell the word ‘attitude’,” says Jörg Philipp at Beat the Street bussing “Everybody knows what their job is, they want to do it, they’re all grateful to be there and it’s a really good atmosphere. Nick [Cua] and Richard [Young] are both very experienced and there are always very clear instructions – unlike some tours there are never any last minute surprises!”
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MOVING THE SHOW With this in mind it was perhaps inevitable that Britney Spears was going to run into problems when her similarly themed Circus tour hit Australia just nine weeks after Pink left. The fact that Spears lip-synchs during the show is well known, but following so closely after Funhouse and its tenet of live performance must have felt like trying to win over a big top crowd when the lions have already left town.
Summer Carnival
One Foot Wrong It would be ridiculous to suggest – with 41 crew, 19 drivers, 20 musicians, dancers and the A-party – that the Funhouse Tour has circumnavigated the globe without a hitch. And for Young, the most difficult aspect of the tour has been the performer flying – the sequences throughout the show where Pink and up to three dancers are either swinging from a trapeze, or suspended and spinning above the stage. “It was a new thing for me,” he says. “Dealing with local permits in Germany has taken a lot of time; to make sure we comply with local health & safety. There’s been a few hoops to jump through, but we have a system that works well.” The system needed more attention when Pink separated her shoulder at the start of the US leg and was unable to use the trapeze. “We’ve modified that number in the show,” Cua says. “She’s in rehabilitation to get her shoulder back in shape and training on it every day. I expect she’ll be flying again soon before the tour is over.” But even with the injury, Pink still bungees from the roof and delivers a pitch-perfect live vocal while whirling in mid air. “When she’s hanging upside down swinging from the roof, she’s singing. It’s remarkable…it’s baffling to me that she can do it,” says FOH engineer Chris Madden. “There isn’t a single note you hear her sing on any night that hasn’t come out of her mouth.”
As much as Funhouse could continue to slay arenas well into 2010, there’s a limit to the stamina of any crew, even if its star could carry on regardless. “The most difficult aspect is that it has been a very long tour, physically gruelling, with lots of travel,” Davies says. So to limit Pink & co working the same schedule well into the New Year the November announcement of the first outdoor summer shows was perhaps just a matter of time. As IQ went to press, six UK stadium shows, and five open airs in Germany had been announced, but Davies says that the Funhouse Summer Carnival tour has 30 dates in mind. “To go from club to stadium level in eight years is incredibly impressive,” says Peter Rieger. But regardless of the speed with which she’s forging an international career – the size of which some industry cynics thought could never be developed again – those around her know that Pink will be the last to drag her heels. “We’re just trying to keep up with her!” Cua exclaims. “It keeps me motivated and on my toes, and it forces me to be better at what I do.” “No one works harder than she does,” Young adds, “and if she’s working hard, then she inspires everyone else to work hard as well.”
GREG PARMLEY
Without huge fleets of busses and trucks, and running almost everything on Euro 4 or Euro 5 engines, the environmental impact of the Funhouse Tour is minimised. McGuinness Trucking is providing all 12 trucks around Europe, and is well acquainted with being green on account of having previously worked with Richard Young on Radiohead’s eco-touring. Logistically, a few hands are added on some dates to comply with EU regulation 24or 45-hour breaks, but only one driver per truck is needed full-time. “We’ll have covered about 10,000 miles at the end of the tour,” says Frank McGuinness, “But working with a production manager like Richard Young makes life easy. If a problem arises, he gets on with it, solves it and moves on. Because of that, the atmosphere on the tour is far better.” Austria-based Beat the Street has worked with Pink for several tours, and on the current European run it’s providing six 45foot over-length busses for band and crew, and one star bus. “Most of the time it’s just one driver, but the star bus is double driven permanently because Pink may want to delay her departure or have promo to do,” says MD Jörg Philipp, who adds that it’s one of his favourite tours to date. “Everybody knows what their job is, they want to do it, they’re all grateful to be there and it’s a really good atmosphere,” he says. And for the bits that wheels won’t cover, freight forwarder Sound Moves has been on hand to bounce the production between continents. As an example, it freighted 35,000kilos for the Australian leg, including a three-way split of the cargo into Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. “From the commencement of the tour in February 2009, right through to the planned dates in summer 2010, we have and will be on hand to ensure complete delivery,” says UK MD Martin Corr. Beat The Street bus interior
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GOING OVER DOWN UNDER Funhouse may have taken Pink to a new level in Europe and the US, but the Australian tour propelled her to a whole different league. Lars Brandle reports...
The term ‘superstar’ doesn’t quite do justice to Pink’s status in Australia. Down under, her album sales are a class apart, and no one comes close to touching her in box office terms. Her 58-date Funhouse Tour has been destroying records up and down the country this year, selling 658,000 tickets and generating a total gross of A$80million (€49m) in just three months on the road. No other solo artist in the history of Australia’s touring business can boast such figures. Put in perspective, the figures are enough to make one’s head spin. To illustrate the point, if you rescaled Australia’s population of 21 million with the United States 304 million, then Pink’s tour would have shifted 9.5 million tickets to her compatriots and generated a staggering ticket gross of US$1billion (€676m). You get the picture.
pink
“It went to a level none of us could believe,” says Michael Coppel, the veteran promoter who masterminded the historic outing with Pink’s astute manager, Roger Davies. “Even with 58 shows and 650,000 tickets sold, my feeling is that we were 15-20 shows short of what we could have played.” Across the entire stretch, 99.23% of all venue capacity was sold-out. The Funhouse Tour was nothing short of a “freak of nature,” notes Michael Harrison, tour co-ordinator for Michael Gudinski’s rival promoter, Frontier Touring. “The last time we saw something like that was her previous tour, and then before that Dire Straits in the mid-80s. I wish it would happen more often. It was a freak thing where an entire country embraces an artist across the board.” There was a time, however, when the Pink ticket wasn’t so hot. In April 2004, Pink hit the road for her first national headlining tour of Australia. Then, as now, Coppel – owner of Melbourne-based Michael Coppel Presents – orchestrated the visit. “We virtually had a disaster,” he recalls. “It was meant to be a 100,000-ticket tour and we only sold 25,000.” On that run, no house was more than two-thirds full and, ultimately, a number of shows were cancelled. “People were saying I should cancel the tour because it was going to be a messy financial loss,” Coppel says. “But I thought she had something special. And I figured the money was already spent so I’d carry on and try to build something for the future.” And build something he did. Coppel and Davies went back to the drawing board and got to work on creating a tour for the record books. Come April 2007, a dozen dates were pencilled in for Pink’s I’m Not Dead Tour. And then tickets “just exploded,” Coppel says. “We were going to play another 12-date tour but we ended up doing 35 shows and selling more than 307,000 tickets. The shows were so great, the word of mouth spread and we just kept adding shows.” Each time the performances would sell out, so Coppel would add more dates. They too would sell out. “We criss-crossed the country three times. At that point it was the biggest tour by a female artist in Australian touring history.” By the end of the tour, the Pink show had been on the circuit for eight weeks. The spectacular outing was rewarded at the 2007 Helpmann Awards – the Australian live entertainment sector’s annual gala – where it won the best international contemporary concert category. “When we looked at the tour for this year, Roger Davies and I mutually agreed if we did 250,000 tickets that would be fantastic,” Coppel says. “We thought the 2007 tour had
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been a high water mark on the beach. We wouldn’t get back there.” But the Funhouse Tour outsold I’m Not Dead on the presale. Richard Young Central to its success was the model of return visits. Word of mouth from Pink’s performances would percolate so that the next time she was in town, tickets flew. “Some people came three, four, five times,” Coppel says. “Even though it is a much more expensive way of doing it, there was always a huge buzz when we came back.” Merchandise sales alone raked in an estimated A$10m (€6.2m).
Making Her Move Records are meant to be broken and Pink has made a habit of smashing them in Australia. Her fourth studio album I’m Not Dead (LaFace/Sony Music) was the second-best selling record in 2006, and again in 2007, according to labels body ARIA. Funhouse was the second-best seller in Australia in 2008, beaten only by Kings Of Leon’s Only By The Night (RCA/Sony Music). Each album has sold upwards of 600,000 copies in a market where platinum certification is recognised at 70,000 by ARIA. On the live front, Pink has demolished a swathe of Australian venue records. Her latest three-month itinerary included 17 nonconsecutive, sold-out dates at the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne and ten shows at the Sydney Entertainment Centre – all of them records. She also became the biggest-selling artist in the 23-year history of the Brisbane Entertainment Centre (BEC) when she performed 11 concerts to more than 127,000 fans. “The undoubted highlight of this year was Pink breaking records for both the number of shows undertaken and the number of patrons attending,” says BECs general manager, Tricia McNamara.
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In fact, when Pink returns to Brisbane Entertainment Centre, she’ll have her own throne waiting for her. The AEG Ogdenmanaged venue celebrated her recordbreaking achievement by naming and redecorating a set of toilets, which are now affectionately known as the “P!NK Ladies.” “By the way,” she told the audience during a Brisbane date in late August, “if anyone needs to pee later on, I have a toilet upstairs dedicated to me. I want you all to christen it”. It’s this good nature which has won Pink the hearts of a nation. “Australians like people who are genuine, people who’ve got tickers on themselves, who are realistic about what they are and who they are,” Coppel says. “The persona you see in the interviews, it doesn’t get manicured, it doesn’t get trained or spun, or produced. She’s really a normal person.” For all her tomboy charm, Pink thrives on a competitive streak and a fierce determination to be the best in her game. “What kept her going in Melbourne was breaking the John Farham record (which stood at 13),” Coppel explains. “The last four shows, which were added on, basically sold out in a day. We did 17 in total, but how many more could we have done? Another two or three at least. Maybe four.”
"We thought the 2007 tour had been a high water mark on the beach. We wouldn’t get back there.” – Michael Coppel, MC Presents
Good Influence
Michael Coppel
challenge. Kuy Thurman, team leader with Stage and Screen Travel Services that took care of all travel and hotel requirements says it’s the longest tour he’s ever worked on. “It was certainly a challenge due to the mammoth volume of information and the extended duration requiring intense attention to detail,” he says. “However, the professionalism of the international touring parties made it an absolute pleasure to work on this tour.” Domestic Telco Optus sponsored the Australian leg of the Funhouse Tour and contributed a high-profile TV ad campaign where the singer mixed it up at a pool party with a CGIrendered penguin disc jockey. “We were a fraction nervous doing a TV commercial and getting a lot of mainstream free-to-air coverage which could contribute to a (consumer) burnout,” Coppel says. “That didn’t happen. The entire tour was a rare occasion we had such huge success and not a hint of criticism or backlash.” There’s an extra incentive to lure Pink back down under. Ticket sales across all her Australian shows to-date are approaching the seven-figure mark. “The first show of the next tour will be the millionth ticket she sells,” Coppel enthuses. And when might that show take place? “My guess is that 2012 might be possible,” he suggests. And for many in the crew, quite what was achieved is still sinking in, even three months on. “It was surreal,” says production manager Richard Young. “It’s very difficult to appreciate how big she is there when you’re in it. It became a source of humour at one point. ‘Oh, it’s back to Melbourne, is it?’ And they’d know where you liked your desk set up. It was an amazing thing.”
Coppel describes the artist as driven and supremely fit – a gym rat who does a two- or three-hour workout each day before diving into a two-hour performance. “She’s intense and hyperactive, very energetic and she can wear you out,” he laughs. Indeed, for many associated with the tour, keeping up with Pink has been the hardest
LARS BRANDLE
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1979: Alecia Beth Moore is born on 8 September in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. 1995: Forms the band Choice and is signed to LaFace Records. Band splits and goes solo as Pink, still signed to LaFace Recordings. 2000: Releases the album Can’t Take Me Home which sells 5 million copies worldwide. Album is certified double platinum and produces two US top ten singles.
FROM PHILLY TO FUNHOUSE: PINK TIMELINE
2001: Releases the album M!ssundaztood, which sells 13 million copies worldwide and is certified gold or platinum in more than 20 countries. The album spawns a top five single in the US and Just Like a Pill goes to No.1 in the UK. Support act for ‘N Sync on the No Strings Attached Tour Wins MTV Video Music Awards for Best Video from a Film for Lady Marmalade. 2002: Support act for Lenny Kravitz. Heads out on the Party Tour which included 35 US dates and 5 in Europe. Wins MTV Video Music Awards for Best Dance Video, Best Pop Video and Best Female Video. 2003: Releases the album Try This and sells 3 million copies worldwide. Album is certified platinum and enters top ten album charts in the US. Wins a Brit Award for Best International Female Artist. 2004: Try This tour plays 63 dates in Europe and six in Australia. Wins a Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance with Trouble. 2006: Releases the album I’m Not Dead, which sells 6 million copies worldwide and is certified ten times platinum. The release produces six top five singles, reaching No. 1 in Germany and Australia, top five in the UK and top ten in the US. The Australian leg of the I'm Not Dead Tour grosses $41.5m (€27.7m) and plays 98 European dates. 2007: Support act for Justin Timberlake’s FutureSex/LoveShow. 2008: Releases the album Funhouse which sells over 86,000 copies in its first week. The album shifts 7.5 million worldwide and spawns five worldwide singles. 2009: The Funhouse Tour breaks Australian concert records, selling out 58 arena dates. 2010: Pink is set to move into stadiums with the plan to present 30 outdoor European summer shows.
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TOUR DE FRANCE
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France’s live music market is one of the most sophisticated in Europe but while facing the economic crisis, there are fears that rising artist fees and a dearth of tour support is undermining the business. Emmanuel Legrand reports... Back in the 70s, Elton John allegedly said it wasn’t worth touring France because the industry couldn’t organise a concert in a toilet. True or false, it was a commonly held view at that time – of a country with an embryonic live industry, a scarcity of proper infrastructures, few serious promoters and a mere handful of festivals. These days it’s anything but, and Sir Elton now tours France regularly with frequent success. This year saw sold-out stadium tour stops by the likes of U2, AC/DC and Bruce Springsteen and fans flocked to hundreds of festivals, some of them among the biggest in Europe (see sidebar). In fact, most concert promoters admit that France has come a long way since the 70s. Leading promoter Gérard Drouot recalls that while foreign acts would historically only play Paris and maybe one other city, a few years ago he put together a 36-date Deep Purple tour. “We did all the concert halls you can think of,” he says. “Obviously that would have been impossible 20 or 30 years ago because we did not have the infrastructure.” In Paris, promoters now have access to a range of venues including the Zenith (6,000), POPBBercy (up to 17,000) and the city’s two stadiums, Parc des Princes (45,000) and Stade de France (70,000). And the infrastructure has also benefited local acts. For the past four decades, rock icon Johnny Hallyday (currently on his ‘farewell’
tour) has regularly embarked on tours of over 60 dates in France, playing to up to 500,000 with each outing. The reclusive French singer Michel Polnareff, who lives in Los Angeles, broke a three-decade touring gap in 1997 and played 12 sold-out nights at Bercy, to 180,000 people. One of 2008’s best selling acts, newcomer Christophe Maé, played to over 300,000 fans. “Local acts have become a driving force of the business,” says Jules Frutos, MD of concert production company Alias and president of trade body PRODISS. “There’s a new
“Tour support has vanished and several subsidies have dried out. We have to be careful in our investments.” Geneviève Girard, Azimuth generation with the likes of Bénabar, Olivia Ruiz or Vincent Delerm that is driving crowds into concert halls and it’s quite healthy.”
Trading Power The maturity of the market is reflected in the development of PRODISS, which has around 300 members from three sides of the
business: concert producers, local promoters and venues. (The board is split equally between the three groups.) “We now truly represent the vast majority of the players in France,” Frutos says. PRODISS MD Nicole Tortello Duban says the organisation is pushing for a series of changes and has sent the government a five-point memo outlining its requests: 1) A radical review of the fiscal regime of the live industry. 2) A clarification of the statute of artists because current law makes the artist the employee of the concert producer. 3) The promotion of international tours. 4) The modernization of heritage venues to adopt sustainable methods. 5) The creation of intellectual property rights to benefit the sector, including giving promoters rights images from concerts they have promoted. “We would also like France to take the lead in Brussels and give a major political impulse for a European policy on live music,” Tortello Duban says. Frutos, like his colleagues at PRODISS, says that one area where huge progress has been made is with venues. At the beginning of the 80s, the majority of venues were underequipped and poorly funded but with the advent of the socialist government in 1981, and under the impulse of then-minister of culture Jack Lang, a significant network of arenas under the label Zenith was built, the first of which was set up in the north of Paris.
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Diving with Andy – an act developed by Azimuth. Photo: Franck Honoré
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ROCKING WITH THE TAXMAN Usually, the notion of concert promoters requesting a tax on concert tickets, and applauding when it is doubled would be seen as sheer madness. But France has seen just this happen, and it has become one of the pillars of the economy of the Gallic live music industry. The tax was first introduced in 1986 at the rate of 1.75% of the ticket’s face value. Its purpose, which is still valid today, was to re-inject money generated by live music into the sector. In 2002, the government and the live music business doubled it to 3.5% and created a new public body, the Centre National des Variétés, de la Chanson et du Jazz (CNV) to administer it.
There are now 17 Zeniths in France, although some question the wisdom of having 5,0007,000-capacity venues in markets where the potential audience can be just a few hundred thousand people. One promoter suggests that these venues are “economic heresies” in that they hardly ever fill up and cost local authorities huge amounts.
La Vie en Rose
Catherine Giffard
“The system was conceived in complete consensus with the industry,” explains CNV’s MD Catherine Giffard. The proceeds of the tax go into two different pots. One is called “droits de tirage”, which is open to all concert promoters and allows them to reclaim up to 65% of the sums that their concerts have generated in tax proceeds. If, for example, a stadium concert grossing €10million generates €350,000 in tax, it gives the concert promoter a line of credit with the CNV of €227,500. “It is almost like a forced saving,” says Giffard, who adds that promoters have now fully integrated this system into their budgets. The remaining 35% is used to fund a series of schemes, from venue construction and renovation to tour support for up-andcoming acts. “There is a will from the community to contribute to the overall economy of the sector,” says Giffard, who continued on page 51...
One venue that has constantly won kudos from the business and the audience alike is the revered Paris music hall Olympia. Managed by impresario Bruno Coquatrix, in the 50s it became the main concert venue for several generations of artists from Edith Piaf, Jacques Brel and Gilbert Becaud to the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan in the 60s. The 2,600-capacity venue was acquired by Universal Music in 2001, which Olympia MD Arnaud Delbarre says has strengthened
it. “There were serious issues with the economic model of the venue,” Delbarre says. “We moved from a craftsman model to a more industrial model. And without Universal’s investment, I am not sure we would have been able to pull it through.” The Olympia is Universal’s only major investment in the live sector, and no other majors have made any similar significant moves. Both Sony Music and Warner Music (through its acquisition of JC Camus Productions) – have concert promotion licences, but are regarded as normal players. What has changed, though, is the promotional investment in tours. “Tour support is gone,” says PRODISS’s Frutos, “and the whole process of marketing and promoting an artist live is no longer supported by record companies, even if it is written in the artists’ contracts.” Olivier Montfort, CEO of EMI Music France, says live music remains “an important part” in the strategy of developing and establishing artists, but says funding tours has now become the exception rather than the rule, and that there are conditions attached to it. “It has to be either as part of a co-production or through a 360-degree deal,” Montfort says, “and it has to be recoupable. Why would I put money into the marketing of a show and not get anything in return?” Lack of tour support is just one aspect that worries PRODISS about the future. The first half of 2009 has seen a 20% drop in business, and according to Tortello Duban, this is primarily affecting small operators. “Big companies can always adjust and adapt, while small structures feel the impact [of the drop] immediately,” she explains.
“Local acts have become a driving force of the business.” Jules Frutos, Alias
Nicole Tortello Duban
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Figures show that the audience has concentrated on major events: festivals and top touring stars. “There’s been a drop in attendance at some concerts,” Drouot admits. “Purchasing power is an issue and people are far more careful in what they buy.” But overall, Drouot says that business has been very good for him this year, particularly aided by AC/DC, Bruce Springsteen and U2 (in co-production with Live Nation). He reveals revenues in excess of €30million for 2008, and says 2009 is shaping up to be “probably the best year ever in the history of the company.” Responses to the current situation vary according to the size and history of the company. While Live Nation France and the likes of Drouot concentrate on big names, others choose a different path.
Boutique Craft After 30 years in the business and various incarnations (Rosebud, Scorpio, Canal Productions), Alain Lahana decided that small was beautiful and that the race for growth and for the biggest names were not worth his efforts. He returned to his craftman’s roots and in 2003 created Le Rat des Villes (the city’s rat) in Paris, a one-man operation he is entirely satisfied with. “I did not want more than I could digest on my plate,” says Lahana, who works with an accountant and a production manager, then staffs up for shows. Annual revenues at Le Rat des Villes vary between €3m and €15m with Lahana mostly
working with international acts fuelled through a long-term friendship with UK agent John Giddings and artists such as David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Patti Smith. “There is a crisis – it’s hard not to see it,” he says. “Of course tickets are too expensive. We forget sometimes that the primary people who have been sponsoring us for ages are the public, and I have the feeling that they are not really taken into account. But what worries me the most is the arrival of global entertainment companies that can outbid us. Who would have thought, just ten years ago, that a live music company would be publicly quoted? It’s nonsense, and I fear that we’ll soon reach a tipping point and there will be a crash.” While Lahana goes it alone, other small to mid-size companies have chosen to pool resources. Set up in 2006, Live Boutique is an umbrella company for 15 French live music companies, among them Auguri, Azimuth, Bleu Citron, Blue Line, Caramba, La Prod JV, Les Visiteurs du Soir, Mad Minute Music, Pbox, Pyrprod, Yapucca, and Zamora. Paris-based Azimuth’s co-MD Bernard Batzen calls the initiative “our answer to the crisis and to the corporatisation of live music”. He says that altogether these companies represent over 400 artists and organise over 6,000 concerts a year, with combined billings exceeding €45m, which puts them among the leading players in the market. “We all have more or less the same profile,” Batzen says. “One of the conditions is that you have to do a certain amount of
“We would like France to take the lead in Brussels and give a major political impulse for a European policy on live music.” Nicole Tortello Duban, PRODISS
Popopopopop – an act developed by Azimuth. Photo: Richard Dumas
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adds that at the request of the industry, a board meeting in September 2009 validated a new scheme to help companies facing financial difficulties due to the economic crisis. Sums of €750,000 have been allocated for 2009 and 2010. “On average, we collect €17-18m each year,” says Séverine Morin, head of CNV’s resources and communications department. “There was a slight drop in 2008 over 2007 because there were less tours from high notoriety acts.” By extension, the CNV has also become the main source of economic data on the live music business in France. In 2008, it monitored 40,317 shows (34,094 paying concerts and over 6,000 free), which attracted just over 16 million people, for a total box office of €415.2m. Compared to 2007, revenues have dropped 12% and the number of tickets sold fallen by 6%. According to CNV, this decline is due to the economic situation but also to a smaller number of major acts – especially local artists – touring in 2008. In 2007, the 15 biggest tours generated €131.8m in revenues for over 3 million tickets sold for 596 shows. In 2008, the top 15 tours made €74.2m, for 2.2 million tickets and 797 shows. On average, each show attracts an audience of 470 people, and the average ticket price is €28. Over 40% of all shows are concentrated in the great metropolitan area of Paris. Festivals account for 17% of the overall box office receipts and 11% of the total number of shows.
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Festival des Vieilles Charrues. Photo: Jean-Michel Roignant
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“What worries me the most is the arrival of global entertainment companies that can outbid us.” Alain Lahana, Le Rat des Villes new talent. We can make significant economies of scale by negotiating advertising rates on behalf of the group, or with printing companies. And we share a lot of information.” Together, they have a site (Live-Boutique.com), which exposes their artists, and this year saw the group organising concerts outside France, with projects in the UK and Germany. It already employs a full-time staffer and Batzen says another person will be hired to set up a ticketing service common to all partners. “It’s not easy,” says Azimuth’s
co-MD Geneviéve Girard, “because we all have a tradition of working on our own. It’s not in our culture, but everyone is making efforts and it has worked so far.” Azimuth’s flagship artists are Canadian chanteuse Lynda Lemay (who has already performed 50 concerts at the Olympia in Paris); veteran chanteur Michel Fugain; and rocker Louis Bertignac, as well as world music acts such as Raul Paz, Calypso Rose and Natacha Atlas. But Girard insists that the real raison d’etre of the company is “to develop new acts. But it is becoming more and more difficult. There are fewer partners than before. Tour support has vanished and several subsidies have dried out. We have to be careful in our investments.”
Local Heroes
Alain Lahana
National promoters also heavily rely on a very strong network of local promoters (who can also be not-for-profit) either buying shows from them or co-promoting.
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VIVE LES FESTIVALS 54
France’s festival sector is beating the economic crisis, and most festivals showed stable or improved attendance figures in 2009 over 2008. Such is the case of Festival des Vieilles Charrues (230,000 against 220,000 in 2008), Rock en Seine (97,000 against 76,000), and Francofolies de La Rochelle (80,100 against 81,000 but with one day less), among others. The largest French festival is Les Vieilles Charrues (the old ploughs), held in the small town of Carhaix, in the heart of Brittany, over 300 acres of land. Now in its 18th year, it gained international attention this year after securing an exclusive headline slot with Bruce Springsteen. “It definitely put us in the major league of festivals,” explains director Loïck Royant.
Loïck Royant
To book international acts for festivals, most organisers tend to go through the local promoter rather than contacting the acts’ agents in the UK or US, but Royant says that by regularly adding bigger names to the lineup, promoters and agents in France and abroad have started to take the festival seriously. “It’s certainly opened up doors for us,” he says. One festival that has for a long time booked superstars is les Eurockéennes, near the eastern city of Belfort. The 2009 edition featured Kanye West and Slipknot, as well as La Roux, and Florence and the Machines, who played to a total of 93,000 paying attendees over three days, two of which were sold out. Festival director Jean-Paul Roland says the biggest threat is that it takes place on a weekend during which there are at least
40 similar events in Europe. “There is a lot of competition for audiences, and also for talent,” he says. “There’s obviously a battle for the top names, so it has become really important for us to start booking artists as soon as possible. We booked our first act for 2010 only two days after the 2009 edition was over.” Another successful festival is Francofolies – created 25 years ago by broadcaster Jean-Louis Foulquier it features mostly francophone acts. It takes place around the 14 July national holiday in the city of La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast. Overall, 81,000 festival goers attended Francofolies in 2009, with 130 concerts spread over five days. “I was a bit anxious this year because of the crisis, but we did sell out,” admits Gérard Pont, founder of Parisbased TV production company Morgane, which took over the event in 2004. Pont froze ticket prices this year and despite the inflation in artists’ fees kept his A&R budget stable. “We don’t follow the trend,” he says. “I’d rather pass on an artist that I think is too expensive than put the economy of the festival at risk, or be forced to increase the price of tickets.” One of France’s oldest festivals, Trans Musicales de Rennes, has responded to a changing environment by steering clear of expensive stars. And given that the 30th edition attracted 50,000 fans to the Parc des Expositions on the outskirts of the city in 2008, it’s a policy that’s paid off. “With the drop in record sales, artists tend to ask for higher fees,” says festival cofounder Béatrice Macé. “Between December 2008 and August 2009, we noticed an inflation of 15-20% of the fees. Like any festival, we had to make choices. But I am sure that even the biggest festivals have now learned to say no. You have to set priorities, and work within your budget, otherwise, you can compromise the economic foundations of the festival.”
Claude Cyndecki
One such promoter is Claude Cyndecki, founder/MD of Cheyenne Productions in the city of Tours. His footprint covers the Loire Valley with cities such as Angers and Nantes all the way to Brittany. “I view my job not just as a sub-contractor for national promoters but also as someone who can come up with ideas that will enhance the visibility of artists,” he says. “For example, most national promoters will look at the region and be interested in two or three key cities. My role is to be able to say, ‘Let’s do 15 gigs in the region rather than three’! Over the past 20 years I’ve built a good network of venues and local contacts so I can deliver, but to get there you have to be patient and tenacious.”
surprisingly good so far,” he admits, suggesting that people in the provinces are probably more starved of occasions to go out so respond positively when a concert is on offer.
“Why would I put money into the marketing of a show and not get anything in return?” Olivier Montfort, EMI Music France Like any other promoter, Cyndecki says he is feeling the impact of the recession, but that since early September his shows have been 90% full. “It’s been Festival des Vieilles Charrues – Bruce Springsteen
And international producers are also reporting strong figures from the market. Harlem Globetrotters has 15 games booked for spring 2010, and COO Jeff Munn says that with the help of his partner Gerard Drouot, France is always a solid tour stop. "It has always been a fantastic market for us,” he says. “The Globetrotters have played nearly 300 games in this great country over the last 14 years and our popularity continues to soar.” For Cyndecki though, it’s about more than just ticket sales “We are doing the most beautiful job in the world,” he says. “Even if it is tough, we are selling joy to the audience and we take pleasure in doing so, so there’s no reason to cry…life is beautiful!” EMMANUEL LEGRAND
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Applause and Effect Pyros, lasers, confetti, inflatables…there’s a multitude of ways to shock, wow and impress your audience, and technology is making it more affordable than ever, as Adam Woods reports… News that The Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas described the concept for his debut solo UK tour as a “Pink Floyd laser light show” will have delighted fans of good old-fashioned stage effects. “It could be a Stonehenge disaster but I’m going for it,” he explained. You presume he hasn’t read the saga of The Wall in the December issue of UK music magazine Mojo, in which Roger Waters shudders a little at the cost of a real old-school Pink Floyd show (in 1980/81 the band are said to have lost $600,000 on the album’s 31date, four-leg tour). And then again, perhaps he has. “Things have changed – the technology is a lot cheaper now,” said Waters, who is even now planning a Broadway version of The Wall. The falling costs, the continued strength of the live sector, the fact that music has seemingly made a return to the effects-heavy 1980s – all of these things have contributed to a strong year for stage effects companies. Pyro, lasers, haze, cryogenics, ground fog, confetti, even inflatables, are everywhere. They never truly go away, but they’ve also never been so ubiquitous.
LPG flames, big ice cannons, a waterfall brace, silver jets, three Arctos Laser Systems – the biggest and best we can get. In terms of pyro, it’s a little bit different because the DJs are quite static, so they are looking for continuous effects throughout the performance.” This is the kind of thing an effects professional likes. It is not necessarily the standard job, as most band shows limit their use of pyrotechnics to a few big numbers. “We are doing ten or 15 [pyro hits] through the set, as opposed to the usual three or four,” says Murray. “We get a certain amount of leeway to recommend stuff we think would work with their music, but we also talk to them about stuff they like; stuff they have seen. They are good on referencing things, because they play all over the world.” Swedish House Mafia’s pyro, lighting and laser set-up in Brixton is more or less a case
“DJs are quite static, so they are looking for continuous effects throughout the performance.” – Adam Murray, BPM SFX
DANCE LEADERS At London’s O2 Academy Brixton in earlyNovember, Adam Murray, MD of UK pyrotechnic specialist BPM SFX is surveying an extensive set-up on the day before a pair of shows by Swedish House Mafia, the dance music supergroup comprising DJs Axwell, Steve Angello and Sebastian Ingrosso. “It’s quite a big production,” he notes. “They have got a big flame system, propane
study in what is currently possible, safe and legal in an enclosed space. Shifts in the dance music power balance are making such shows increasingly common, and while the US is recognised as the global leader in pyro innovation, the new trend for effects driven shows, in venues rather than clubs, is being led by European DJs. “The whole DJ thought process has evolved in the last three years since Tiesto
really started pushing his production to another level,” Murray says. “If you look at him in comparison to all the other ones, those guys like Armin van Buuren and Paul van Dyk were just as big as him, but he really pushed his production, and now, without doubt, he is the biggest grossing dance act in the world.” And that’s partly, if not entirely, because of his effects. As the spell cast by superclubs has weakened and live music has boomed, DJs have increasingly joined the ranks of the standalone touring acts. And given that they are not usually much of a spectacle in their own right, that means jobs for effects professionals. “You roll into a guts venue like the Academy and they have got nothing,” says Murray, whose other clients include Kylie, Basement Jaxx, Tom Jones, Snow Patrol and numerous festivals. “So you have to put something in there.”
FLAME-HEADS Besides DJs, rockers are the other reliable pyro freaks. Metallica are currently on tour with perhaps the biggest pyrotechnic arsenal in the business, supplied by Ontario’s Pyrotek. The same company furnishes flames and fireworks for Kiss’s Alive 35 tour, which began in March 2008 in Melbourne and finally finishes on 15 December in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario. Kiss’s bag of tricks includes a propane system that propels fireballs and flame columns; flame projectors; airbursts and spinners strung along the trusses; a nitrocellulose fireball; red and white
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BPM SFX light up Snow Patrol
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flash mortars; concussion mortars and a guitar-mounted firework fountain. But pyrotechnics aren’t just for the heavy acts or those who need some stage backup. Pyrojunkies technician Shane Caulfield says his proudest tour was Busted in 2004, when he single-handedly marshalled more than 250 separate pieces of pyro every night, including a cannon that blasted out 10,000 ping-pong balls. “The nature of that band is that they are not choreographed,” says Caulfield. “They are just running around the stage all the time. Even on the last show, Matt Willis was standing with a flame projector between his legs and I could have just completely fried him. “You couldn’t have any faith in them,” he laments. “You’re like, ‘You have done this 20 times and you still don’t know where to be’. So you are permanently on edge – I’m not joking, your heart does 120, 130 through the whole show. And it only needs to go wrong once and you are in the papers the next day.”
THE LIGHT FANTASTIC Perhaps given their fashionable 1980s connotations – allied to the fact that technology has made major progress in recent years – lasers are experiencing a hot moment of their own. The white-light lasers of times past, which needed to be refracted through coloured lenses have been replaced with lightweight colour-mixing systems, and the greater flexibility has led to a markedly higher uptake for live and TV work. “The most high-profile thing I’ve done recently is supply four RGB [red green blue] laser systems for Robbie Williams,” says Toby Macknight, technical manager at UK-based Laser Grafix. “He used them on his performance of Bodies on X-Factor and for the BBC’s Electric Proms at the Roundhouse.” In the last two years alone, an almost immeasurable amount has changed in the laser world as technology has shrunk to sizes that would have been inconceivable even in very recent times. “In the past, we were lucky if we could use two or three systems to produce the effects, just because of their size,” says Macknight. “Now, as the newer, smaller units are so much easier to rig, we use multiple lasers, fixed in different locations. “Older control systems could only handle two or three lasers, but the systems we use now can control up to 30 lasers independently from one controller, which can be DMX-triggered if we need to. The software now allows us to do laser shows like
Pyrojunkies try not to singe Westlife
we never dreamed we could.” Neil Dickinson, director of effects rental company Arcstream AV, says he has largely moved out of music and into new areas lately, focusing instead on touch-screen hardware for retail, conference and exhibitions, but lasers are one category that keeps him connected to the touring business.
“Matt Willis [Busted] was standing with a flame projector between his legs and I could have just completely fried him.” – Shane Caulfield, Pyrojunkies “I would say there are more people using lasers for rock ‘n’ roll and pop touring shows than ever, because the technology has improved so much,” he says. “You don’t need three-phase power and a mains water supply anymore, which you used to. You used to have to draw enough power to run a small town just to run a not-thatgreat laser show. Systems that would have taken a long-wheelbase Sprinter van, full to the back doors with equipment, you can now put on the passenger seat of your car, and the effects are miles better.”
SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL The cost savings for touring productions are not just those of technology hire, or even freight. These days, complicated laser shows can easily be run as a one-man operation, whereas they would previously have required two or three staff, all of them needing flights, hotels and food. “A friend of mine is currently on a world tour with Muse,” says Dickinson. “He has got
seven systems and he is doing it on his own.” Certain acts are clearly manna for the stage effects industry, and Muse is one of them. Macknight ascribes a surge in demand for laser systems in 2006 to the band’s performance of Starlight at that year’s MTV Europe Music Awards in Copenhagen. “The laser show we did for Muse back in 2006 was a big show for us,” he says. “As far as I know, it was a world-first to use 23 laser systems networked together for a band’s TV performance.” A laser-saturated collaboration at last year’s Brit Awards between Rihanna and The Klaxons – another Laser Grafix job – likewise led to a spike in interest. “I would definitely say that lasers go in and out of fashion,” says Macknight. “At the moment, demand is high, but who knows where it will go? Unfortunately, health and safety surrounding lasers has made it a lot harder to do the type of shows people used to see back in the days when crowd-scanning was commonplace.” An incident in Russia last year illustrated just why lasers continue to terrify those with responsibility for crowd safety. Around 30 people were hospitalised with retinal burns after excessively powerful lasers were scanned or somehow reflected onto the audience at the Aquamarine Open Air Festival in Kirzhach, 110km north-east of Moscow. Those who take a responsible attitude to the use of lasers insist that they need not be dangerous things, though they have a bad reputation, and one that sticks. “It has always been the same,” says Dickinson. “You pull a laser out of the van and everyone goes, ‘oh my God!’ When in actual fact, registered cases of eye damage at a [British] venue is virtually nothing, especially if you compare it to the number of people who have fallen off a ladder while
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putting a light up.” In the wider effects business, of course, the event that looms over the sector’s health and safety record is the tragedy at The Station nightclub in Rhode Island, NY on 20 February 2003, when 100 people died in a fire caused by two badly-positioned gerb fireworks during a set by US rock band Great White.
SAFETY FIRST These days, safety in the US is so stringent that productions coming from across the Atlantic very rarely trouble the authorities for long. In the UK, new effects require at least 21 days for approval from the relevant council, and many productions submit their applications several months in advance to be on the safe side, though there are never any guarantees. “The problem with new effects in England is getting the HSE [health & safety executive] to sign it off,” Murray says. “It is one thing having a safe effect and it is another thing being able to appease an environmental health authority. When you come up against councils that don’t know much about it, they fear it. And obviously, if you fear something, it is a lot easier just to say, ‘you’re not doing it’.” Mike Roberts, director of The World Famous, a fireworks and pyrotechnic art specialist based in Kent just outside London but active around the world, says the UK is tough, though it is not necessarily the worst. “In this country, every local licensing officer has a different point of view on what it takes to make these things safe, which is quite a challenge,” he says. “There are a few HSE regulations on things like pressure vessels, but in one theatre something might be absolutely fine, and in another you might need to introduce all kinds of sometimes spurious safeguards. Internationally, this can be magnified a thousand-fold. Taking effects to New York is particularly challenging.” Nonetheless, the innovation never stops. BPM has recently ordered two units from an SFX inventor in the US that Murray says will create an incredibly realistic indoor lightning form and it is also developing a laser curtain “with a massive amount of diodes for a really famous DJ”. Pyrojunkies, meanwhile, has bought 24 flame projectors from German manufacturer TBF Pyrotec. “They do clear flames and things like that, but unfortunately they are quite poisonous to handle, so I want to get a feel for how people are getting on with them around Europe before we start putting them into our shows,” says Caulfield.
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FULL OF HOT AIR Obviously, effects don’t all have to be either dazzling, hot or loud to give something to a show. Pink’s current tour features three huge inflatables: a striking pair of sinister-looking clowns and a Baron Samedi figure from Haitian voodoo culture, created by UK-based inflatable specialist Air Artists. Over the past 25 years, the company’s output has included many of the most memorable inflatable figures in rock ‘n’ roll history, including the Rolling Stones’ Steel Wheel’ girls Angie and Ruby, various Rosies for AC/DC, a herd of elephants for Bryan Adams, grotesque Bush and Blair figures for
is like throwing a balloon out to the party. It lifts the mood; it is a gift, really.” Lately, the market has in fact been relatively quiet, says Harries, who acknowledges that increasing amounts of competition are coming from elsewhere, and particularly the Far East. “There are more and more people making inflatables – Chinese manufacturers, all sorts,” he says. During the pre-Christmas down period, Air Artists is making a large snow dome, 16 feet in diameter, as “a fun winter project,” according to Harries. “We will light it up and blow lots of stuff around in it,” he adds. “It will be useful for the festival circuit." Given the growth of that circuit, plenty of
The World Famous with TerraFolk at SO Festival Skegness – Photo: C John Byford
“There are more people using lasers for rock ‘n’ roll and pop touring shows than ever, because the technology has improved so much.” – Neil Dickinson, Arcstream AV George Michael and a floating pig for Pink Floyd. “Just thinking about all the Berlin Wall celebrations at the moment – 20 years ago we made quite the biggest inflatables we have ever made for the Roger Waters The Wall [his 1990 benefit concert at Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz] that happened after the wall came down,” says company founder Robin Harries. “They take about six weeks to make, if you include the model-making process,” he adds. “I think they do serve a different function to big screens or other effects. If you throw a big inflatable balloon up on stage, it
pyro and effects companies get involved in the mainstream live industry in the summer that only have limited involvement for the rest of the year. The World Famous does much of its work at arts festivals, outdoor displays and theatre shows, but it has also had a presence this year at the Big Chill, Camp Bestival and Bestival. “The last couple of years we have been moving a bit into the music festival scene,” says Roberts. “We did big sculptural bonfires at the Big Chill fireworks and a big firework thing at Bestival. That is purely because there are just so many festivals out there, and they are all trying to find something a bit different to set themselves apart from the others.” Which is what you could say about every production that reaches for the flames, lasers, inflatables and fireworks. Some succeed, some just do enough, but as long as there are crowds to be stunned and amazed, it is unlikely that live music will ever break its effects habit. ADAM WOODS
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Focus IInnFocus
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Winners of AGreenerFestival’s 2009 Award congregate at the UK Festival Conference in London on 19 November to collect their awards. This year, 37 events picked up the award, 5 more than 2008. 13 events gained ‘outstanding’ status.
Britney Spears accepts an award from Acer Arena after selling a record-break ing 66,247 tickets across four nights. Pictured (l to r): Paul Dainty (Dainty Consolidated), David Humphreys (Acer), Spears and Don Elford (Acer).
Marking their first headline show at the venue, Kasabian are honoured with a Wembley Arena award. Pictured are the band, agent Mike Dewdn ey (top right) and Live Nation staff includi ng Steve Guest (bottom left), Andy Copping and Jo Headland (both top middle) and Wembley’s John Drury (bottom middle).
Around 100 international delegates participated in Finland’s oldest music business event, Musiikki & Media, which celebrated its 20th annive rsary in October. Pictured (l to r) on the Live Around the World panel are Stefan Juhlin (Pitch & Smith Agency, Sweden), Martin Rabitz (Trinit y Concer ts, Germany) and Carter Adams (Windish Agency, USA).
Rob Hallett, president of international for AEG Live, presents Beyoncé with a plaque after her 7th sold out show at The O2 in London to mark the sale of over 500,000 tickets across her I Am... European tour.
During the 4-5 November Billboard Tourin g Conference and Awards, the keynot e Q&A discussed the behind-the-scenes story of Michael Jackso n’s This Is It tour. Pictured (l to r): Ray Waddell (Billboard), and AEG executives Randy Phillips, John Meglen and Paul Gongaware.
IQ’s panel at the UK Festival Conference in London on 19 November drew a 200-st rong audience for its topic of ‘Festival Futures’. Pictured (l to r): John Giddings (Solo), John Probyn (Live Nation), Daniel Mathieson (Barclaycard), and Greg Parmle y (IQ).
Perth’ s inaugural One Movement confer ence attracted 850 music professional s including international delegates from 15 countries. Picture d, Coldplay manager Dave Holmes (right) conducts a two-hour mentoring workshop.
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The Green Room 61 Rob Da Bank
Duncan Turner
Countdown to Copenhagen
Q&A Bestival won an ‘Outstanding’ Greener Festival Award this year, so IQ caught up with Duncan Turner and Rob da Bank… Q. How did Bestival gain its ‘Outstanding’ credential this year? A. This year we worked even harder to encourage Bestival goers to use public transport (coaches in particular) and our car-sharing scheme; we ran a stage purely on solar power and offered free solar powered mobile phone recharging; we had more composting loos than ever before; we recycled more than ever before (while promoting awareness of the Isle of Wight's innovative waste-to-energy plant) and we worked harder to procure product locally and also increased the number of local food stalls and farmers’ markets on site. Q. What's your team best at when it comes to this work? We’d like to think we do a pretty good job providing advice, information and acting as a role model for our patrons, both via our website pre-event and via our Green Team and green areas at the event itself.
With the UN Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen approaching, live music is playing an important part in the proceedings and music industry greening group Julie’s Bicycle (JB) is presenting a united front at a meeting of European creative industries, the Culture/Futures symposium. The Copenhagen negotiations, under the heading COP15, are intended to create the framework for climate negotiations post 2012 when the 1997 Kyoto Protocol expires, and set ambitious reduction targets. Sixty world leaders have stated that they will attend including US president Barack Obama, his presence signaling strong intent, despite his own domestic constraints from the US oil lobby. “It is highly unlikely that COP15 will result in a legally binding treaty on climate change, which makes it more important than ever to keep up the pressure; the subsequent 12 months are critical and need to generate the global governance framework we desperately need,” says JB’s Alison Tickell, who has organised an open letter to be presented from the UK music industry which states that it is “deeply concerned that international cooperative action is nowhere near the scale of ambition required either to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions or to adapt to climate change impacts.” Tickell hopes to have over 100 signatures by the time the conference begins on 7 December, and companies Gogol Bordello
Q. How central are green efforts to the Bestival ethos? A. They are very important to us. We are very aware of the impact an event such as ours can have on the environment and in our need to reduce these as much as we can and in educating our patrons to do the same within their own lives all year around. Q. What’s next for Bestival’s environmental work? A. We made a commitment this year to use Julie's Bicycle's Industry Green Tool to help us quantify our CO2 emissions so we can set a benchmark from which we can work on reducing them year on year. And we have recently signed ourselves up to the 10:10 campaign to reduce our CO2 emissions by 10% in 2010.
already signed up include Live Nation, Festival Republic, SJM Concerts, AEG Live, Academy Music Group, HMV and UK Music. Far from simply expressing concern, all signatories have pledged to take positive action towards their carbon emissions from January 2010, in what JB calls its ‘Industry Green Spring’.
MUSIC TARGETS During the two weeks that COP15 runs, a number of activities are planned to highlight the world’s climate challenges and future climate solutions. Held in the City Hall Square, organisers say that Hopenhagen LIVE will “act as a cultural rallying point”, and a stage will feature numerous local and international artists, with shows produced by Roskilde Festival, in partnership with Danish booking agencies, Live Nation Denmark, Beatbox and others. “We will deal with the music production, and make it as energy saving as we can,” says coordinator Elin Witschas. “We expect a few thousand people every day.” Artists confirmed include Gogol Bordello and local acts Electrojuice, Malk De Koijn, Nephew, Outlandish and Young Elite. The main focus on the City Hall Square will be a gigantic, elevated, 20-metre-wide globe, showing a rotating image of the Earth, its colour and health affected by the audience at the square and via global websites and mobile technology. Meanwhile, the mood in the square will presumably be affected by the talks themselves, which aim to extend the original Kyoto Protocol, set new targets for industrialised nations to reduce carbon emissions; agree new targets for poorer nations to limit greenhouse gases, and secure funding for developing countries to reduce emissions and adapt to a changing climate.
GREEN INI CLEANIS Tipping Point Sustainable Waste Management The goal is to generate as little waste as possible, avoid purchasing commodities that will result in a lot of leftover waste, and recycle as much as possible. • Reduce trash on site by introducing reusable dishes and bottling systems. • Reuse goods from year to year. • Choose expendable goods made of recycled materials wherever possible (eg toilet paper.) • Provide clearly marked waste stations with simple instructions.
• Introduce an easy to manage waste separation system (eg separating glass, PET and metal) for festival staff, suppliers and as an option for campers. • Make sure there are enough waste bins and that they are emptied often. • Hand out waste bags to all guests, and provide qualitative information on how to sort the waste. • Allow only ordinary camping equipment.
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Your Shout! 62
… With the ILMC setting sail on a round the world cruise, we asked
“If you were stranded on a desert island, what couldn’t you live without?” John Giddings – Solo Agency Autosport, because F1 makes the music business look nice... Jon Webster – MMF My share of the bar, my right hand, Harvey Goldsmith, an agent and an artist. Herman Schueremans – Live Nation Music. Martin Goebbels – Apex Insurance One of those lovely thick wads of an insurance policy, so I could make a paper mache raft and sail back to civilisation. Perhaps after a week or two of peace and quiet. Zeynep Arman – BKM The answer would be MUSIIIIIC. Nabil Touzani – Maroc Cultures Water, sex, music & ILMC. Willie Robertson – Robertson Taylor A bottle of rosé! David Urban – D Smack U Promotion Claudia Schiffer. Paul Kramer – Hit Sheet My Sat Nav, my Blackberry and my issue of IQ. Justin van Wyk – Big Concerts My Blackberry and a healthy stash of white chocolate. Matt Bates – Primary Talent My Blackberry! Henning Toegel – Moderne Welt It would be great to have a high-speed internet connection on this island. But if this is not allowed I would like to be in the company of three Nobel Prize winners to discuss the topics of the planet.
Thomas Ovesen – AEG Live The ability to sell admission to the experience, upselling tickets to the VIP Lounge, getting more radio plugs than scheduled, taking F&B commissions and getting those “I was there” t-shirts sold….you can take the promoter out of promotions but not promotions out of the promoter. Guido Janssens – Emagic I couldn’t live without a serious guarantee that the island wouldn’t disappear because nobody is really taking global warming seriously. I couldn’t live without being able to convince myself that I had some really good reason to end up on a bloody desert island in the first place. Mark Harding – Showsec My children's laughter, ear buds, new shoes, Scotch eggs, American Dad, ice cold Chablis etc... In fact, it really is worth putting up with the travel delays, indifferent service and inclement weather here! Jorge M Lopes – Portoeventos If I were stranded on a desert island I couldn’t live without my family, although the music industry is also my family… I love it. Allan McGowan – ILMC A photo of Simon Cowell, a dartboard, darts, and of course oxygen! Roger Edwards – Palladium I am in the desert of Dubai, although it’s not quite a desert
island, but more an events island that makes you realise just how good and how much choice is offered by theatre and concerts at home in the UK. Ian Congdon – ACC Liverpool Life just wouldn’t be the same without a phone call from John Cornwell now and again! Gillian Park – MGR Media I am cut off from civilisation. Although I’m in the mountains of North West Murcia, not a desert island. I doubt I’d survive without Ed Grossman’s regular telephone calls. As we know Ed is unique – a genius and clinically insane in equal parts, which is why I love him! Gary Howard – Marshall Arts Live Nation: They have offices everywhere so will surely have one on the island. Dan MacDonnell – Verve Mince pies in July, goats’ cheese, the plastic pimps of our industry, the big promoters to who we “aspire” to be, my new roller boogie business, the Irish weather and the fact it’s either too hot, or pissin’ rain, or snowing in May, my current wife’s voice and of course IQ...as in the chance to use it, not the mag. Masahiro Hidaka – Smash Corp. My bicycle clips. (eh? – Ed) Andy Lenthall – PSA On a dessert island, I'd probably need a spoon. Michael Muldoon – IQ A long-range, tripod-mounted sniper rifle. Ben Challis – AGreenerFestival How can you expect me to remember all of their names?
If you would like to send feedback, comments or suggestions to future Your Shout topics, please email info@iq-mag.net
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