Touring
New York Music Venues Can Reopen at 33% Capacity Starting April 2
The news comes as the music industry approaches the one-year anniversary of the pandemic-imposed shutdown on live events. A year ago this week, on March 6, 2020, Austin’s South By Southwest was forced to cancel for the first time in its history, and by the end of the month, physical events nationwide shut down entirely. Cuomo also sightly cut back limitations on gatherings in New York starting March 22. Residential gatherings of up to 25 people can be held outdoors, while indoor residential gatherings remain capped to 10 people. Non-residential social gatherings of up to 100 people can occur indoors, and up to 200 people outdoors. The day of the announcement, New York reported 5,323 coronavirus hospitalizations, and a positive test rate of 3.53%. The positive test rate in New Yo...
Billy Strings Run At Capitol Theatre Brings Together Streaming Era’s Two Powerhouses
Shapiro tells Billboard that the Capitol Theatre and the Brooklyn Bowl were outfitted with a multi-camera streaming system years earlier to stream shows with partners like Nugs, while the Brooklyn Bowl outlet in Nashville, which opened last year, was purpose-built for streaming. The Capitol Theatre includes a control room from which director Jonathan Healy was able to live-direct eight cameras capturing the show, while fans from home were projection-mapped onto the walls of the 95-year-old-venue. Couple that with Relix Media, which Shapiro owns and which has been a critical support vehicle for building Strings’ profile with jam fans, as well as as well as the huge email lists he’s built from both his venues and the popular Lock’N festival which help market Strings to a wider audience...
Bruce Springsteen Remembers Michael Gudinski: ‘Never Met a Better Promoter’
Indeed, Springsteen would tour many times with Gudinski, including two separate treks within a 12-month span in 2013 and 2014. On learning the sad new of Gudinski’s passing, Springsteen was effusive in his praise of Gudinski. From one Boss to another. “My friend Michael Gudinski was first, last, and always a music man. I’ve toured the world for the last fifty years and never met a better promoter,” Springsteen wrote on social media. Gudinski always had his back, and always kept Bruce entertained. “He was loud, always in motion, intentionally (and unintentionally hilarious), and deeply soulful,” Springsteen recounts. “He will be remembered by artists, including this one, from all over the world every time they step foot on Australian soil.” Read Springsteen’s tribute in full below. My frien...
Sebastián Yatra & More to Play Mexico’s Tecate Pa’l Norte Virtual Fest
The Tecate Pa’l Norte festival in Monterrey, Mexico, is going virtual this year due to COVID-19, with an online event set for April 17. Colombian pop artist Sebastián Yatra, Puerto Rico’s Guaynaa, Martin Garrix, Molotov, The Hives and more will play Tecate Pa’l Norte, which will include more than 1,000 minutes of music, produced in multiple green-screen studios with support from three-dimensional audiovisual production and special=effects companies from Belgium, United States and Mexico. You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It begins with giving you back power. Get to meet Beautiful people, chat and make money in the process. Earn rewards by chatting, sharing photos, blogging and help give users...
Taylor Swift Officially Cancels Lover Fest Concerts
Originally announced in the fall of 2019, following the release of her seventh studio album Lover, Lover Fest included 12 dates across the globe, including two-night stints in Southern California — set to be the first-ever concert at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium — and outside Boston, at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. She was also set to headline England’s Glastonbury Festival before its March 2020 cancellation due to COVID-19. Some other dates were also canceled due to the pandemic, and in April, Swift officially postponed six of the dates (including two in Sao Paulo, Brazil) until 2021. Now she has officially canceled all dates. Since the Lover Fest concerts were originally announced, Swift has released two more albums: 2020’s Folklore and Evermore. I...
Live Nation Expects to Ramp Up Business in Three Months With Government Green Light
Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino shared new information Thursday (Feb. 25) about the company’s plans for the return of live music. Once the concert promoter gets government approval to operate above a 50% capacity in the majority of territories where it hosts concerts, Rapino estimates the rehiring of employees and rescaling of the company will take three months. “We’ve been talking to our global employees about that kind of timeline when we can [promote] our first show at scale,” Rapino told analysts and investors on a company conference call Thursday for the company’s year-end earnings report. During the three-month period, the company will “start bringing back marketing, production [and] all the kind venue functions” adding that the company can expect to ramp up “between the onsale or the...
Live Nation Revenue Fell 92% in 2020 as Concerts Prepare for Comeback
The concert business had similar declines across the market. Madison Square Garden’s fourth-quarter revenue deficit was 94% following annual declines of 96% and 92% in the first and second quarters. Big Hit Entertainment, the South Korean company behind K-pop group BTS, posted 98% lower concert revenue in 2020. With the help of financial maneuvers since March 2020, Live Nation has a financial cushion of $643 million of free cash, helped by $417 million of debt raised in early January, and $962 million of available debt capacity, which the company believes is enough to fund operations until concerts return this summer. There’s good news on the horizon, though, with heightened anticipation that the recent availability of vaccines will spe...
WME’s Brett Murrihy Explores the State of Touring In Asia Pacific, ‘Electrifying’ India & More
In 2015, William Morris Endeavour acquired Artist Voice in a deal that saw Murrihy join the powerhouse U.S.-based talent and media agency, and take on duties for expanding and managing its presence in the music space throughout the region. Today, its clients include Dua Lipa, Lizzo, Nine Inch Nails and chart-leading newcomers Olivia Rodrigo, 24kGoldn and The Kid Laroi. To date, WME is the only global agency representing the Asia Pacific market. The pandemic has called a halt to pan-Asian touring, for the time being. Murrihy, however, anticipates the region’s touring circuit will open-up once vaccinations roll out, with Australia and New Zealand positioned to emerge earlier than its neighbors. Billboard caught up with Murrihy for a glimpse at the Pan...
5 Seconds of Summer Postpone ‘No Shame’ Tour of Australia
The late call was made on the same day the state of Victoria lifted its snap five-day lockdown, though limitations will remain in place as a measure to control an outbreak of U.K. strain of COVID-19. 5SOS’ global victory lap was announced back in Feb. 2020, but the health crisis nixed those plans and the dates were pushed back to 2021. “In the best interest of fan safety, we have decided to re-schedule our upcoming Australian dates to later in the year. Please hang on to your tickets,” reads a statement from the band on social media. “Sorry for the wait, but we’re so excited that the new dates coincide with our 10th anniversary and we get to spend it at home.” There’s no such change to the band’s pan-European tour dates, which are slated to start April 7 at SSE Hydro Arena in Glasgow...
Courtney Barnett, Midnight Oil & More Sign Open Letter Calling For Australian Government Support
The likes of Paul Kelly, Bernard Fanning, Courtney Barnett, Missy Higgins, Stella Donnelly, Lime Cordiale, The Presets and Midnight Oil have signed the document. In it, they say extending JobKeeper or providing direct industry support to thousands of vulnerable workers will keep the show on the road. “This doesn’t just make cultural sense, it makes economic sense,” the message continues. The numbers tell part of the story. The arts and entertainment sector contributes around A$15 billion ($11 billion) per year in GDP, employing close to 200,000 highly-skilled Australians, the open letter continues. Also, Australia Institute research has found that for every million dollars in revenue, arts and entertainment produce nine jobs while the construction industry only creates around one. Australi...
MSG Entertainment Revenue Down 94%, But Things Are Looking Up
Although MSGE’s share price fell as much as 6.5% to $94.01 on Friday, investors have faith in live entertainment: Closing at $97.02, MSGE has lost little value since it spun off from MSG’s sports division at $100 on April 9, 2020. Its shares were trading below $70 as recently as Nov. 2 — the beneficiary of a bull market as well as positive news about vaccination rollouts. MSGE’s $1.45 billion of liquidity on Dec. 31 was helped by a debt sale of $650 million in November and $20.6 million raised from the sale of some its stake in fantasy sports platform DraftKings.com. Its operational cash burn was just $64 million in the quarter and $107 million went to capital expenditures, mainly the construction of its next-generation venue, the MSG Sphere in Las Vegas, that is planned to open in 2...
Dave Grohl, Quincy Jones Join New NIVA Advisory Board
“NIVA may have been founded amidst dire circumstances, but the future of the live industry and the people who inhabit it have always been top of mind,” said NIVA executive director and managing partner of Marauder Rev. Moose. “Officially expanding our coalition to include partners new and old, allows us to innately incorporate those who have stood by our side from the very beginning, like Patronoff from See Tickets, and new voices that will help guide the future.” Advisory board members will share their diverse knowledge and professional expertise in streaming, ticketing, management and more to help NIVA and its members navigate the remainder of this pandemic and rebuild the live entertainment ecosystem in a transparent, diverse, and inclusive way. &#...
