Touring
ASM Global Taps Jason Oberlander as Chief Commercial Officer
Venue management company ASM Global is expanding its partnership division with Jason Oberlander, who has been hired as chief commercial officer. Oberlander will be tasked with expanding ASM’s naming rights and marketing partnerships for the company’s arenas, stadiums, theaters and convention centers. “We have the scale, consumer touchpoints and ability to integrate brands in—to music, sports, business, tech and more—that will drive value for the brands, content providers, venue partners and guests,” said ASM President and CEO Ron Bension in a release. “Jason’s extensive experience, particularly with IMG in forging new national partnerships with Fortune 1000 brands, will provide far and away the most diverse and enriching opportunities the industry has ever seen.” Oberlande...
Maná Sells Out First Forum Shows, Adds Two New Dates: Exclusive
Maná’s residency at the Los Angeles Forum is growing. Last week, the Mexican rock group announced a “residency” that would have them performing exclusively in 2022 at the Los Angeles Forum, with shows to be added as long as the group sold out existing dates. Now, after selling out their first four announced shows, amounting to 45,000 tickets in just two hours, the group is adding two new shows, set to take place June 24 and 25. Tickets will go on sale Nov. 23 at Ticketmaster.com. Explore Explore Maná See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news With the four sell-outs, Maná becomes the act with most full houses at the Forum – 15 – since the venue’s reopening, besting the record previously held by the Eagles with 12. Produced by Live Nation, tickets to the run of sh...
How One of Live Nation’s Core Business Strategies Backfired at Astroworld
Travis Scott encourages his concert audiences to “rage,” so his Astroworld festival, which this year drew 50,000 fans on Nov. 5 to NRG Park in Houston, needs to be organized in a way that keeps attendees safe. But ScoreMore Shows, which produces and promotes the event, set it up in a way that several concert business sources say may have inadvertently contributed to the crowd surge that resulted in 10 deaths and hundreds of injuries, and that parent company Live Nation rarely exercises the kind of oversight over events organized by its subsidiaries that might have flagged these problems before it was too late. Explore See latest videos, charts and news The hands-off approach is by design. Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino runs the company with a decentralized management strategy that encourag...
Maxwell Takes ‘Off’ with New Single; Closes Album Trilogy with ‘blacksummers’NIGHT’
“From announcing a new partnership with BMG for my label Musze to receiving the Legend Award at the upcoming 2021 Soul Train Awards, I couldn’t be more excited to share this new single with loved ones offering a glimpse into NIGHT,” Maxwell said in a statement. The three-time Grammy winner is also partnering with the Black Promoters Collective (BPC), a coalition of African American independent promoters, to present the NIGHT 2022 Tour. Featuring openers Anthony Hamilton and Joe, the 25-date arena tour begins in Dallas on March 2 with stops in Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta before concluding in Miami on May 8. Pre-sale starts Nov. 22 with tickets going on sale to the public on Nov. 29. Calling Maxwell one of the most respected artists in the industry, Black Promoters Collec...
Scott Clayton Joins UTA as Co-Head of Global Music Division
Throughout his career, Clayton has worked with John Mayer, Zac Brown Band, Kings of Leon, Dead & Company, Train, My Morning Jacket, Michael Franti, Rodrigo y Gabriela and many others. He worked at CAA for 17 years as a co-head of their Nashville office, served as the co-chair with the Mayor of Nashville of the city’s Music City Music Council, and is a member of the Nashville Public Radio Board of Directors. “Scott is the epitome of what we look for in a leader at UTA: he is a strong advocate for artists and has a long history of supporting and mentoring colleagues,” said UTA CEO Jeremy Zimmer in a release. “Sam and David have done a great job building a world-class team and we are very excited for Scott to join us as we continu...
Luke Combs Sets Stadium Tour Dates for 2022
“This song means a lot to me personally,” Combs said via a press release. “Not to recite the lyrics, but for me, it’s truly about playing country music for a crowd, whether that’s 70 people or 70,000 people, and playing country music with my buddies in the band. It really doesn’t matter where we’re playing or how many people we’re playing for because it isn’t about the fame, the fortune, the name, or the glory. It’s about getting to make and play country music.” Combs also noted the swirl of career happenings over the past few days, saying, “This week has been a whirlwind – got to debut a new song on the CMAs, release the song and music video to my fans, and announce three stadium shows at NFL stadiums. Talk about a week! It will be hard to top this one.” Ticke...
Disco Donnie Commits $1M in Ticket Donations to Veterans Groups
“Our first responders and veterans are the ones who keep us safe and they’ve had a rough year. We wanted to show them some love, honor their work, and spark a little joy, by welcoming our heroes to our best festivals and club shows. We invite other promoters from all types of music to join us in this effort,” said Estopinal in a statement. Disco Donnie Presents previously paid tribute to first responders, military service members and their families by donating $150,000 worth of tickets to its 2021 Freaky Deaky Texas festival, which took place this past Halloween. The company has also made donations to local groups, including $10,000 to the Houston Food Bank and $10,000 to the Texas Association of First Responders, as well as $25,000 to Americares for Hurricane Ida relief. In tota...
Travis Scott’s Unruly Concert History Raises Red Flags in Astroworld Lawsuits
“This put everyone on notice: ‘This is what has happened, and there is no reason it can’t happen again,’” said John Werner, a lawyer in Beaumont, Texas, who is not involved in Astroworld cases. “They know this is a situation that can get out of hand.” “This tragedy was months, if not years, in the making,” wrote Houston lawyer Steve Kherkher in a lawsuit demanding more than $1 million for a man trampled in the melee, which he said was “predictable and preventable” given the rapper’s history. More than a dozen lawsuits have been filed so far against Scott and several companies, including entertainment giant Live Nation, concert promoter ScoreMore, and a nonprofit managing the Houston-owned venue. The complaints allege that organizers failed to take simple crowd-control steps, to staff prope...
Vance Joy’s Travels Are Just Getting Started With New Music, Tour
“It’s funny how that song came along at the last moment of my studies. It came along at that important moment when I was deciding how I was going to spend the next year. That was fortunate. For whatever reason it opened-up at exactly the right time.” In music, timing is everything. “Riptide” was the zeitgeist. It topped triple j’s Hottest 100 poll, won APRA’s song of the year in 2014, caught the attention of TayTay, and it changed the artist’s life. To date, Joy’s singles, which include “Mess is Mine,” “Georgia,” “Fire and the Flood,” “Lay It On Me,” “I’m With You,” “Saturday Sun” and “We’re Going Home,” have been streamed more than 3.2 billion times. The legal community’s loss is the music industry’s gain. With the prospect of a career behind a desk in the rearview, Joy has re...
Justin Bieber’s Saudi Arabia Performance Slammed by Human Rights Foundation
The Formula One event will also feature performances from A$AP Rocky, Jason Derulo, Tiesto and David Guetta, and HRF says that it also sent letters to these performers as well as Egyptian singer Mohamed Hamaki about performing in the event. (The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to HRF for additional comment.) “We are writing to urgently inform you of the human rights crisis in Saudi Arabia; to explain the role that the regime of MBS [Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman] has played in violating the rights of tens of millions of Saudis; to ask that you consider the unfortunate implications of your engagement with the brutal dictatorship of MBS; and to respectfully request that, in light of your status as a global personality, you take this opportunity to positively influence human rights poli...
Post Malone In, Travis Scott Out of Day N Vegas Lineup
The late switch was made when Scott scrapped his scheduled performance, in the wake the tragic scenes that unfolded during his set over the weekend at Houston’s Astroworld festival. “Travis Scott will no longer be performing at Day N Vegas,” reads a separate message from organizers. Following the disaster that unfolded in Texas, during which at least eight concert-goers died and 300 were injured, Day N Vegas producers assuaged ticket-holders concerns for this coming weekend’s party. “The security and safety of all attending Day N Vegas has been and is always top priority in our festival planning,” a separate statement reads. “We continue to work hand in hand with law enforcement, medical personnel and public safety agencies on our protocols for the weekend.” Malone’s addition will be...
Survivors Mourn Astroworld Disaster: ‘It Was Like Hell in There’
The shrine of votive candles, flowers, photos and handwritten cards stretched along Westridge Street, about 100 yards away from the site of the disaster. As videos posted on social media showed, Scott continued to perform while fans were screaming at him to stop the show. Scott told fans on social media Saturday that he was “absolutely devastated by what took place.” Rodriguez, Tavera and their friends criticized festival security staff, and Scott, for not recognizing the danger signs and allowing the show to go on. “It was like they didn’t care,” Rodriguez said. Another friend added: “They did not have enough people there.” The eight who died in the crush ranged in ages from 14 to 27, including a 21-year-old University of Dayton engineering studen...
