Hi-
I’m back from NYC where I had to juggle some things. It was more of a personal trip than a professional trip.
So, everything had to be focused on the personal aspect.
I did have one of my favorite things before I left:
The sandwich of champions when my office was on West 45th Street.
I’m getting through my backlog of emails and information this morning so I have a bunch of links and ideas to share.
To the Tickets!
Taylor Swift boosts the tourism economy:
I’m skeptical of the stadium impact reports, but I’ve seen several studies of the impact of tours that highlight the impact of artists driving tourism to the point that I think the impact of artists on tours is big.
- Pearl Jam
- Beyonce
- Taylor Swift
- The Dead
And, a few others.
All have big fan bases that drive fans to visit new places to see their shows.
Does that change my feelings on the stadiums and tax breaks, no.
These big tours only come around for a day or two a year in a lot of cases. When they do, fans will follow.
The average game, not as much.
This means more work to be done on creating opportunities on non-tour or HUGE event nights.
Someone said Taylor Swift doesn’t do merchandise like a random NFL player:
Ummm…I couldn’t find the tweet (deleted, I’m guessing) but c’mon man.
Why do you think I was able to come up with 101 ways to market/sell/monetize an event?
Because the only limit is your imagination.
Do you think I should update the PDF? Tell me in the Slack Channel!
This is one of the only times a rebrand has to happen. I’ll likely return to this later since the idea of branding/rebranding is so prominent here.
The Federal Government has been much more aggressive on antitrust enforcement with a special focus on “competition”. The case against Amazon could be the template for a case against Live Nation.
Politico looks at this from the political POV.
While the business of Amazon is different than Live Nation, obviously.
A few parallels that could be in play:
- The claim of Amazon’s anti-discounting measures that force sellers to stay on the Amazon platform and not sell on others could be a parallel to any potential lock-in efforts on tickets.
- The claim of having to use Amazon’s logistics service if you want to be on Amazon Prime has a parallel in the way that a case could challenge the vertical integration of Live Nation’s business has venues, advertising, and other aspects that tie performers closer to Live Nation.
- The claim of Amazon’s degraded service and higher fees could also be something that the government could claim by highlighting the number of on-sales this year that have had glitches, crashes, and customer complaints like Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and others.
If I were a betting man…I do play online poker tournaments, TBF, I’d say that dropping the merch fees was part of Live Nation’s strategy to show the DOJ or FTC that they aren’t really so bad.
Caspian Turner helps me understand accessibility in the arts:
The short answer…it is great for business.
We also talk about why ALL CAPS are bad.
I’m in the ALSD this month, writing about pricing and Bruce!
Are you struggling to get people back to your events?
Are subscriptions down? Season ticket holders not renewing? You want to work with the secondary market but don’t know where to begin?
Are you a broker that wants to develop a better relationship with the primary market?
Get me your questions. I’ll take the best ones and answer them on an upcoming episode of ‘The Business of Fun’.
You can reply here. DM me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Hit me up in the Slack Channel. Text me. Send me snail mail, a smoke signal, or carrier pigeon.