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These Artists Are Moving Merch In A World Without Concerts
From puzzles to sweatpants to a unisex fragrance, artists are maximizing online merch sales for fans shut in by the pandemic Perusing the more than 275 artist storefronts at online retailer Hello Merch is like visiting a music merchandise wonderland: Diet Cig is selling branded playing cards, Tori Amos has turned T-shirts into handmade face masks, and Low Cut Connie is offering an all-natural fragrance, among other unusual finds. The choices haven’t always been as wide-ranging. Prior to the pandemic, merch was “second, third or fourth on artists’ minds,” says Mike Lentz, who handles artist relations for Hello Merch. But now, “they’re worried about getting through their tour, playing shows every night [and are] too busy to have the time to deal with it.” A T-shirt will never replace a conce...
StockX: Merch’s New Billion-Dollar Player
How a sneakerhead site created a secondary market for some of music’s biggest stars — and how they can deal themselves in When The Weeknd’s fourth album, After Hours, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in March, merchandise was at the heart of the biggest first sales week of 2020 to date. Over half of the total 444,000 album equivalent units — 275,000 — were album sales, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data, spurred on by merch and ticket bundles, with The Weeknd packaging After Hours with more than 80 items. Fans could buy the album alongside everything from hoodies, T-shirts and face masks to flasks, playing cards and ash trays, most available for just 24 hours. But for those who failed to act before that 24-hour window slammed shut, within a day many of the items were available for sa...
Warner Music CEO Stephen Cooper Discusses the ‘New Era in Music Entertainment’
“Music has gone way beyond singles, albums and videos,” he said during Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia conference, touching on TikTok, gaming, streaming expansion and more. Warner Music Group (WMG) CEO Stephen Cooper discussed the now publicly-traded company’s streaming-fueled growth and future outlook during Goldman Sachs’ virtual Communacopia conference Thursday, envisioning that music’s continued application to social media, fitness, TV and film and other businesses will ring in a “new era in music entertainment.” “Music has gone way beyond singles, albums and videos,” he said. “Subscription streaming is just the beginning.” Specifically, the executive pointed to Peloton, TikTok and video games (including in-game p...
Kaskade Loses Bid to Thwart Financial Subpoena in KAOS Nightclub Lawsuit
A U.S. magistrate judge has rebuked an effort by Kaskade to withhold information on concerts the DJ played in the wake of the closure of the KAOS nightclub is Las Vegas and ordered the performer to pay the hotel’s attorneys’ fees for the cost of enforcing a subpoena. Ryan Raddon, who performs as Kaskade, is suing F.P. Holdings, a limited partnership connected to the Palms Casino Resort, for breach of contract over his residency deal at the KAOS nightclub, which closed in November after six months of operation. KAOS was supposed to anchor a $690 million renovation of the Palms and host a residency by global superstar Marshmello, but the club lost nearly $50 million, according to a Nov. 6, 2019, quarterly earnings call, and shut down permanently. Raddon was ma...
Executive of the Week: RECORDS CEO Barry Weiss
This week, 24kGoldn and iann dior’s record “Mood” climbed into the top 10 of the Hot 100 in its fourth week on the chart, reaching No. 8 with the distinction of top airplay and streaming gainer honors. The track, released by RECORDS/Columbia, has been boosted by an unusual multi-genre appeal, which sees it spending its second straight week at No. 1 on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs and Hot Alternative Songs charts, while maintaining a slot at No. 5 on the Hot Rap Songs chart. And that’s helped RECORDS CEO Barry Weiss earn the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week, for helping shepherd the song to huge gains across the board. And while this is the first top 10 for 24kGoldn, Weiss isn’t expecting it to be his last. “He’s been building through old-fashioned artist...
Hipgnosis Songs Buys Big Deal Music
Merck Mercuriadis‘ Hipgnosis Songs has acquired independent publisher Big Deal Music, Billboard has learned. A formal announcement is expected as soon as Thursday. Under the deal, Big Deal will keep its Los Angeles-area office and staff, rebrand under the Hipgnosis banner and operate as Hipgnosis’ full-service U.S. office, a source familiar with the situation tells Billboard. Big Deal’s catalog includes songwriters Teddy Geiger (Shawn Mendes, Niall Horan), Kamasi Washington, Gary Numan, Ross Golan (Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande), and Sleater-Kinney, among others, as well as joint venture deals with Ricky Reed (Lizzo, Jason Derulo) and Diplo‘s Mad Decent. The company was founded by publishing vet Kenny MacPherson, whose resume includes founding Redhead Music Publishing...
BMI Posts Record Revenue Despite Pandemic Hit to Licensing
Collections from April to June fell by an estimated $60 million, but a digital boost helped make up the difference. BMI generated $1.311 billion in revenue in the year ended June 30, 2020, a 2.2% increase over the $1.283 billion it reported in the year earlier period. Distributions were up too, totaling $1.233 billion — a 3.1% increase from the $1.196 billion paid out to songwriters and publishers in the prior fiscal year. Domestically, the performance rights organization collected $961 million, increasing 1.9% from the year-earlier period. Foreign receipts grew 2.9% to $350 million. As a percentage of revenue, that breaks out to 73.3% domestic and 26.7% foreign, a 0.2% shift in favor of international collections compared to the prior year. BMI estimates that its fourth quarter reven...
The Players Behind DaBaby & Roddy Ricch’s ‘Rockstar’: See the Full Credits
DaBaby’s “Rockstar” feat. Roddy Ricch officially finished out the season at No. 1 on Billboard’s 2020 Songs of the Summer chart, having led the tally for 13 out of 15 tracking weeks. The annual chart tracks the most popular songs based on their cumulative performance on the weekly streaming-, airplay- and sales-based Billboard Hot 100 chart between Memorial Day and Labor Day. In addition, “Rockstar” was the most streamed song of the summer, having racked up 514.6 million streams, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. It topped the Hot 100 for a total of seven weeks. Explore the team of musicians, producers, engineers and more behind the track with recording credits provided by Jaxsta below. ArtistsMain Artist – DaBabyFeatured Artist – Roddy Ricch Songwriters:Composer Lyricist &#...
Building A Better Livestream: Crucial Lessons From Artists Who’ve Figured It Out
Practical advice from the players behind virtual concerts by Kane Brown, Dropkick Murphys, H.E.R. and Lissie. The first time singer-songwriter Lissie tried a livestream, in late March, she was at her then-boyfriend’s house in northern Virginia, and she had just managed to thank those in attendance — two dogs in the kitchen — before the camera fell to the floor. “This is so professional!” she declared. But over the months, both her equipment and her savvy became increasingly sophisticated, with the response to her ticketed streams strong enough to cover personal costs and make a charitable donation each time. (She also broadcast her rehearsals for fans who couldn’t afford a ticket.) On Aug. 2, she performed with a band and a dozen sound and lighting crew members at an empty Parkway The...
What’s a Livestream Worth?
How much is that concert in the computer window? Six months into the pandemic, here’s how artists are experimenting with pricing to see what consumers will pay. In April, Dutch DJ Oliver Heldens cruised the canals of Amsterdam in an open-air boat outfitted with turntables, blasting a set of future house music that was streamed on YouTube. The spectacle cost between $5,000 and $10,000 to produce, but Heldens made it free for viewers. He thought of it as a marketing expense to stay in fans’ minds as coronavirus lockdowns became the norm around the world, his manager, Dave Frank, tells Billboard. In the five months since, livestreamed concerts are slowly becoming a source of revenue, as well as promotion. These days, Frank, of management firm Milk & Honey, gets several livestream offers a...
With 100 Million U.S. Subscribers, Streaming Services Declare: ‘We Are Fully Part of This Industry’
The topline stats in the new “Streaming Forward” report from trade group the Digital Media Association (DiMA) are reason enough to sit up and notice. By the end of 2019, there were 99 million active streaming subscribers — procured from 87.5 million paid users — in the U.S. alone. And over the previous two years, paid subs jumped 74.6% and revenue rose 57.7%, fueling optimism for a long-suffering industry and turning streaming services, labels and publishers into hot investments. It’s no wonder Spotify’s stock is soaring and Warner Music Group had a successful IPO in the pandemic’s early days. Streaming has made music hot again. But the 43-page report, conducted by MiDIA Research for DiMA, begs the question on why they would fund such a market research study. ...
ICM Models, Bella Hadid, Hailey Bieber & More to Return Fraction of $1.7M Fyre Fest Promo Fees
A dozen of the agency’s models appeared in a video promoting the disastrous event that defrauded attendees and investors. ICM Models and its clients Bella Hadid, Hailey Bieber, Alessandra Ambrosio, Chanel Iman, Elsa Hosk, Shanina Shaik, Nadine Leopold, Hannah Ferguson, Alyssah Ali, Rose Bertram, Daniela Lopez and Gizele Oliveira have reached a settlement over a combined $1.7 million fee they received for promoting the disastrous Fyre Festival in 2017. In total, they will have to repay $150,000 to a settlement account set up for the festival victims. Baldwin, Bieber, Iman and the other IMG models appeared in bathing suits in a promotional video that announced the festival, promising two “transformative” weekends that “would exceed all expectations.” While the models, along with social...
