More than 200,000 people attended Lollapalooza 2014 in Chicago. (Photo by Nick Simonite)
Months after rumors of the deal first leaked, Live Nation has announced the completion of a deal to acquire a controlling stake in Austin-based C3 Presents, the promoter behind Lollapalooza and the Austin City Limits festivals.
C3, fronted by the “three Charlies” — Charles Attal, Charlie Jones and Charlie Walker — not only promotes several international editions of its signature Lollapalooza festival (in Berlin, Buenos Aires, Santiago and Sao Paulo), as well as Orion Fest in Atlantic City and Counterpoint in Rome, Ga., but also more than 1,700 North American concerts a year.
"The Charlies have proven they are among the most successful entrepreneurs in the concert industry. I have long admired what they built and now I look forward to working alongside them as they continue to build a world class festival company," said Michael Rapino, Live Nation president and CEO, in a statement.
The purchase begs the question: what does it all mean for C3 and Lolla? While the principals have remained quiet on their future plans, at press time it appeared as if LN would allow the Charlies to keep doing their thing in a similar fashion to the way they’ve allowed other recent acquisitions to continue business as usual. Albeit with much more muscle behind them, of course.
The purchase adds C3 to an increasingly bulging portfolio of formerly independent boutique promoters, including EDM powerhouse Insomniac and UK-based Festival Republic (Reading and Leeds festivals). With the addition of C3, LN now boasts the largest festival platform on the planet, with more than 65 festivals. (LN and C3 declined to comment for this story.)
While he’s only been in the festival game for a few years, Bunbury founder Bill Donabedian said he has a sense of what it feels like to go from indie to being part of a much larger organization.
“If you look at any industry, they go through cycles where there’s a niche found, it grows, then the big players come in and consolidate,” said Donabedian, the Xavier University MBA graduate who scrappily grew his three-day fest in Cincinnati for three years before Columbus, Ohio-based PromoWest Productions stepped in in December to buy both Bunbury and the country-focused sister fest Buckle Up.
Donabedian, who also co-founded the city’s MidPoint Music Festival before selling it to the local weekly, said the current talk among some in the space is that there are too many festivals. But he thinks companies like C3 are poised to use their newfound muscle to own the next trend in the area: microfestivals.
“I think you’ll see smaller markets filling in the last remaining spaces,” he predicted. “In my instance, I knew after year two that I needed leverage and some people who might have deeper pockets. Every company has to look out there and ask, ‘is this a good return on investment? Is there a lot of growth left out there?’ They [C3] can be a leader in this [microfestival] space and I’m sure the offer was hard to pass up.”
Financial terms of the C3 deal have not been released, but the Wall Street Journal reported that the purchase of a 51-percent stake in the Texas promoter cost LN around $125 million. After folding C3 into its group, LN can now boast more than half a dozen festivals that have draws of 100,000 or more. At press time, it was unclear how the deal would impact C3’s ticketing service, Front Gate Tickets, given LN’s ownership of ticketing industry leader Ticketmaster.
“We're really happy for C3. SXSW has worked with Charles Attal since 1996, when he opened Stubb's,” said Daren Klein, director of special projects for the 27-year-old Austin festival that has remained independent as its local economic impact has risen to more than $200 million a year.
“I don't even think Stubb's Amphitheater had a roof when we booked The Fugees there at SXSW '96,” he continued. “To see Charles, along with Charlie and Charlie, build C3 into a premiere international promotions company is really impressive. I'm sure they'd credit the city of Austin as having a lot to do with it. We have amazing musicians and music fans in our city, which helped them grow into what they've become.”
The company’s slow but steady growth extended well beyond its hometown as well. Donabedian recalled years ago when Attal was struggling to sell out shows at Covington, Kentucky’s 1,200-capacity Madison Theater. “And look at him now … years later. It’s incredible. That’s a hell of a return on investment.”
Contacted for this story: Bill Donabedian, (877) 889-1809; Darin Klein, (512) 467-7979