Halfway through 2018, three words clearly are ringing in the ears of promoters, agents and building managers: packages, packages, packages. Clever, powerful and must-see combinations of classic acts making their final runs, performing together for the first time or playing in rotating combinations has emerged as one of the keys to filling seats.
Promoters and venues are also keeping a closer eye than ever on dynamic ticket pricing and on-sale flexibility in order to avoid spooking pocketbook-sensitive patrons and ensure that as many tickets as possible are leaving the box office before showtime, even if it means putting a show on sale more than a year in advance.
For Nederlander Concerts CEO Alex Hodges, his company’s success so far this year comes down to a word he repeats often: diversity. “Diversity is working in new and productive ways,” he said. “When I look at venues in certain communities, I always strive for a diversity of shows to serve a broad audience.”
He pointed to Papa Murphy’s Park, a soccer stadium in Sacramento, Calif., as an example of the power of mixing things up, pointing to a sold-out show last September with Latin superstars Gloria Trevi and Alejandra Guzman that he was unsure about since it was the first major gig Nederlander booked at the stadium. This spring, he booked heavy metal act Slayer, touring with Lamb of God, Anthrax and Behemoth on what is being billed as possibly Slayer’s last major tour.
After expanding capacity several times, the May 13 show ended up selling 14,000 tickets and could have done 2,000 more, Hodges said.
“You put deals together with certain objectives, and since we more than doubled our objective, everyone was very happy,” he said of the show, which grossed more than $800,000. “It’s just a tremendously well-packaged harder rock show and we did another indoor one at SAP (Center) in San Jose and we extended the capacity there, too.”
In addition to packaging, Hodges said, shaking up the norms has also proved profitable for Nederlander, as he learned when he booked parody singer “Weird Al” Yankovic at the Crest Theatre in Sacramento and The Theatre at Ace Hotel in Los Angeles, where the comedic singer sold out multiple shows in markets where he would normally play bigger rooms.
“It speaks well of our marketing team and the chances agents are taking to say, ‘Why don’t we play where we didn’t last time … and instead try for the cool move like the Ace Hotel?’ The audiences realized that, because when they see the same artists playing the same venue and selling out they may not get as excited as when they see them play a new venue, and some people who might have stayed home might come out.” Changing up spots also lends a sense of immediacy to what for Weird Al was a bit of an underplay, keeping things fresh and helping the artists reinvent themselves for what might be fresh fan eyes.
Nederlander has also seen resonance with political comedians like “Daily Show” host Trevor Noah, who sold out the Vina Robles Amphitheatre in Paso Robles, Calif., last year and looks to do so again in July thanks to the relentless news stream out of Washington D.C. Also on the rise: podcasters who can sell major tickets for their live programs. The “Welcome to Night Vale” team, whose podcast offers updates on the odd events of a fictional desert town, has already booked a show for March at the City National Grove in Anaheim, and as long as podcast teams keep their ticket prices reasonable, Hodges said, the lower-cost productions could be a real growth market.
Because Nederlander doesn’t buy whole tours, Hodges said, the company also has the advantage of looking at each of its markets and talking to agents to price shows to the specific market, which overall so far in 2018 has made for what he called a spectacular year for the company. It does more than 300 shows a year in addition to more than 180 special events at The Grove in Anaheim.
Bob Roux, Live Nation president of U.S. concerts, said his company has focused more on ticket pricing this year, working hard with artist partners to cut down on some of the difference between base ticket prices and the traditional pricing on the secondary market. “A year ago we recognized that over the course of 2016-2017 we were looking at about a billion dollars in arbitrage between what we were selling our tickets for and what they were reselling for on the secondary market,” he said. “So we’ve been working with artists to educate everyone on what is happening in the secondary and looking in some instances to get better seats priced to fair market value and capture some of that spread.”
As far as Roux can tell, Live Nation has done a pretty good job with that project, with the average ticket sales up by what he called a substantial amount in amphitheaters and arenas, and overall ticket sales improving on a year-to-year basis. Live Nation is also homing in on its most efficient marketing spend for its tours and artists, having conversations with them about how they can keep chasing potential customers throughout the sales cycle by continuing to spend marketing money as long as reasonable returns are coming in. A few years ago negotiations with managers or agents led to a fixed marketing budget, but now, through retargeting, digital marketing budgets can be tweaked throughout the sales cycle if tickets are still available.
Live Nation is also spending more time educating artists and their teams on what their tickets sold for on the last go-round and on the secondary market and what similar tickets are going for in those markets, to help them maximize their ticket volume. Similarly, Live Nation is doing a fair amount of flex pricing based on demand for its amphitheater shows, speaking to artists and managers throughout the sales cycle about potential opportunities to push prices based on momentum. They can flex up when possible or price down if there is lagging momentum and reserved seats are not moving as anticipated.
While stadium business has been generally flat over the past three years — in the range of 100 to 120 shows — Roux said a method that has been working more and more is, as Nederlander had done, mixing things up. He pointed to tours by Jay-Z and Beyonce and the Eagles, which are hitting a mixture of venues. The Eagles are slated to do 40 arenas and 10 stadiums, maxing out in markets where they’ve been paired with a complementary artist that has strong drawing power. He pointed to the 40,000 tickets the Eagles sold in Houston at Minute Maid Park with support from country superstar Chris Stapleton and 50,000 sold at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas — as well as four co-headlining stadium dates with another sure-fire summer superstar, Jimmy Buffett.
A cost-saving measure that has worked is back-to-backs to shave production costs, such as Def Leppard and Journey playing right before the Eagles and Zac Brown in San Diego and San Francisco in September. The two productions are not linked in marketing, but they will use the same staging, reducing the costs of stagehands and floor covering at Petco Park and AT&T Park for a potential $500,000 upside.
A number of acts are playing what are likely to be their final tours, with Southern rock giants Lynyrd Skynyrd opting to play only Friday and Saturday gigs on their swan song, which has provided the advantage of negotiating with separate support acts.
Like a number of experts VenuesNow spoke to, Roux said Live Nation is using a variety of data points to map out appropriate routes and venue plays, including an artist’s social media following, YouTube views and Spotify numbers in addition to the traditional album and airplay tallies. That mix explains why someone like rapper Post Malone — whose latest album was streamed a record 78 million times on its first day, thanks in part to his exploding social media presence over the past year —has been doing sellout business in amphitheaters across the country even though he’s a relatively new artist.
Sometimes it comes down to comfort. For Allan Vella, president and CEO of Atlanta’s 4,800-capacity Fox Theatre, being in a saturated market can be tough if you don’t focus on your advantages. With more than half a dozen competing venues, Vella said, being a historic, all-seated venue that can do everything from concerts to full Broadway productions and gigs by YouTube stars gives his room an advantage.
“We’re in the Bonnaroo radius, there are big players like AEG Live and Live Nation here, but we know that certain artists like to play this size venue and we always try to elevate the event. We call it our ‘grand sense of occasion,’” he said. Making it special has landed the Fox some unique shows that have already paid off, including two sold-out gigs with Alabama and the Charlie Daniels Band, which could have played amphitheaters but, given their audience’s older demographics, chose to book multiple nights in a comfortable, seated venue.
“We’re all seeing more traffic — performing arts centers and theaters — and everyone needs to be out there working to generate income, it’s always a dogfight, but luckily a lot of artists know what the appropriate venue is for them and no one can rest on their laurels … no one is the only game in town,” he said.
A lesson Vella learned from the Broadway smash “Hamilton” was the effort by its team to curb secondary market inventory by releasing tickets throughout the run, including putting tickets on sale in April for a May-June run to take a bit of steam out of the resale market.
Like the Skynyrd dates, the Fox had a special evening with R&B star Anita Baker, who did three nights (May 10-11, 13) that moved 12,000 tickets and could have extended to a fourth given demand. “She hadn’t toured for quite some time and there was definitely a nostalgia and momentum. And during the first set each night the audience sang constantly from the very first song and gave her such a warm welcome, which bodes well for Alabama.”
If the Fox does have an advantage, Vella said, it is the significant boost in grosses by playing multiples at the theater, given the high cost of touring these days. “Many artists are accustomed to amphitheater and arena budgets, so they can have a first-class show and still get significant grosses over two or three nights and give fans something special,” he said. “Especially ones with aging audiences, who want to be comfortable, want to be treated well and know they will have a good experience and first-class service here.”
Tom Cantone, Mohegan Sun senior corporate vice president of sports and entertainment, can boast a recent schedule at the signature Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn., that includes gigs by Bon Jovi (who broke their own record for their highest-grossing concert), Pitbull, two sold-out shows by red-hot comedian Sebastian Maniscalco, Thomas Rhett, Keith Urban and Justin Timberlake, to name just a few. But for Cantone the emergence of young country acts who can move lots of tickets such as Cole Swindell and Brett Eldredge selling out on their initial onsale was a revelation, alongside the expected quick sellouts from the likes of Ed Sheeran, Bon Jovi, Britney Spears, Timberlake, Bruno Mars and Kevin Hart. “The new breed is going to be in the K-pop market of artist, especially as we expand our brand into Asia with our 15,000-seat arena in South Korea,” he said of the raft of South Korean pop artists who are quickly gaining a rabid audience stateside.
Cantone also saw the advantage of strong packaging during a co-headliner between Chicago and Earth, Wind and Fire, who both had powerful sets of non-stop hits, but also shared the stage and performed each other’s songs that led to a finale that inspired a rousing standing ovation. “That’s a real live stage show, not overly produced with special effects and dancers. Just raw talent,” he said. That said, the packaging of double A-list talent has resulted in the average ticket price for such shows moving up, with Cantone always keeping an eye on avoiding pricing a show out of the market.
One of the trends Cantone has seen so far this year is a tweaking of the on-sale window dictated by the type of tour, with some acts looking at up to a year out, and others opting for much shorter windows. With one of the busiest box offices in the country — with 80 to 90 shows on sale at any given time and 320 days of live entertainment at the Connecticut property — the company’s five national venues combined drew more than 1 million people to 600 shows (including 160 sellouts) over the past year.
While the ever-widening exclusion zones from neighboring festivals has resulted in the difficulty of booking certain shows, Cantone said some of the slack has been taken up by an increase in private shows for invited guests only. “It has really created more value, which also keeps our arena busy with programming we would not normally book,” he said. “The risk-reward model works almost every time and is consistent with our marketing objectives to create a great guest experience. The artist sees a full arena they may not have played to in years and they feed off of that energy and don’t want it to end. Everyone wins.”
The lengthening of the on-sale has had a major impact for Brooklyn’s BSE Global according to Keith Sheldon, executive VP of programming for Barclays Center and NYCB Live: Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. “Recently we’ve found that many major tours are planning further and further in advance and putting their on-sale further in advance than ever before,” he said. Because of the limited availability of dates due to the two major league tenants at Barclays, that kind of planning is a big help for major acts looking to land a coveted date at the arena, which is already well into booking acts in 2019 before final 2019-20 NBA and NHL schedules are even released. “It’s definitely a strategy for major acts to get into a busier building and make sure certain dates are locked down.”
Getting out that far ahead also allows the acts and their teams to monitor sales and pricing and adjust as necessary depending on inventory, giving Sheldon’s team a chance to apply more analytics to its schedule to program around major shows that are not able to shift for the sports teams or other potential conflicts. Unlike some venues that find themselves bumping up against festival radius clauses that pinch their offerings, Sheldon said BSE has great relationships with both the Panorama and Governors Ball promoters. While they might lose a headliner here or there to the events, whenever an act is booked at both Barclays and one of the local festivals, they work together to help promote each other’s dates and coordinate.
“The festival business has definitely added another element, but where some see a challenge I try to look at it opportunistically,” he said, adding that, if anything, he hopes that they are making New York even more of a destination for live music fans that could help add more people to BSE’s databases.
“One of the things we pride ourselves on at NYCB and Barclays is having great relationships we can tap into when necessary… media partnerships, relationships with our advisory board and venue partners, so that if we ever have a pain point with a show that needs an extra lift they’re quick to jump in,” he said. “We never let a promoter or agent feel like they’re on an island fighting that fight by themselves.”
It’s hard to complain when you’re in the middle of a historic run by someone like Billy Joel. MSG Live Executive Vice President Darren Pfeffer boasted that Joel is about to play his 100th lifetime show at Madison Square Garden and the 54th of his monthly franchise residency — which started in January 2014 — with more than 1 million tickets sold. That’s not to mention solid runs at MSG recently by fellow heritage acts the Eagles, as well as Bob Weir and Phil Lesh at Radio City Music Hall.
At the same time, Harry Styles played a one-off at Radio City in September and then sold out two nights at MSG, a sure sign that newer acts can also move the needle, including Imagine Dragons, Kendrick Lamar and Logic at MSG and Khalid, G Eazy, and comedians John Mulaney and Maniscalco at Radio City. Pfeffer also said packaging has been key to capacity shows, pointing to success with the Def Leppard and Journey co-headliner, Hall and Oates with Train, Enrique Iglesias and Pitbull and Lionel Richie and Mariah Carey.
“Two major areas of focus for The Madison Square Garden Co. that we’ve seen resonate with fans is our strategy of booking residencies and multinight engagements and an increase in comedy offerings,” he said. “Especially at MSG, we have a challenging calendar because of the two teams that play in the venue, so we’ve had to get creative with dates.” As an example, he pointed to Katy Perry, who they wanted multiple shows with, which, because of the sports schedule, ended up being on a Monday and a Friday.
Comedian Mulaney did a sold-out, seven- show run that was turned into a Netflix special, and Maniscalco did five sold-out performances, which will also be turned into a Neflix special that can only shine a brighter light on the brand. “Something that was really exciting for us with John Mulaney specifically was how he was able to incorporate the Music Hall itself into his special – the venue was basically a character and it introduced an iconic venue to a whole new audience,” said Pfeffer.