Our job is to build a company for the future that can meet the demands of the artist and fan of the future.
Michael Rapino
Madonna would not have done a 360 deal with us just because of our touring capability. We had to prove to her and others that we have been working on and built a very good execution capacity at Artist Nation.
The better job we do of getting the right fans in the right seats at the right time, the more money our clients are going to make.
Jay Z is one of the world's preeminent touring artists.
Corporate America couldn't be more excited about the demise of the record companies.
In the U.S., we were slow to evolve and build a festival capability.
Drake has become a mega-star, with sell-out crowds around the world.
The touring business is obviously critical to selling records, building fan bases, selling T-shirts, fulfilling sponsorship commitments.
Going into 2010, we didn't expect the consumer pullback that happened. We all thought that the theory that concerts are recession-proof was true.
I got lucky when I was a teenager when we were booking bands at university. Those gigs were the greatest two hours in my life and there was nothing else I wanted to do. I knew my passion early, which is always the tough part of life, figuring out what makes you tick.
We spend a great deal of time getting the fan to buy the ticket. Why shouldn't it be: 'Buy the concert ticket and bundle in the t-shirt, or join the fan club?'
The concert industry lags dramatically behind the great hospitality businesses out there, whether they're theme parks or hotels or sporting events.
We have not had a ton of innovation and marketing in the concert industry, much like the record industry. We have been a fairly old-school business compared to Coca-Cola and the big packaging/marketing companies.
I have no problem if you bought a Justin Timberlake ticket and you decide to go sell that ticket to somebody. We would first and foremost want to make sure that the first ticket sold, that the fan has a shot to buy that ticket.
Everyone loves to criticize Ticketmaster, but the real asset of Ticketmaster is that it's the third-largest e-commerce site in America.
Rihanna can sell just as many tickets in Cape Town as she can in Detroit.
House of Blues has soul right down to the chef in the kitchen.
Part of calling ourselves Live Nation was about starting to shift the way we think, to be first and foremost fan-focused.
I can hope that the economy gets better, or I can seek a more proactive approach to protect our employees, reward our shareholders and better service artists and fans.
History has shown that even in a recession, consumers go to shows.
At a very young age in Canada, I had mapped out that my mission in life and my passion was live events.
In my business, the cheaper the ticket price the better. I'd love for more consumers to walk into an amphitheater, park, have a beer and eat a hot dog. There's no advantage to me to have anything but sold-out shows.
You'll see an erosion of rock 'n' roll for sure... if you're playing a mainstream festival, you don't want to be the rock guy when everyone else is talking about Swedish House Mafia.
No matter where the price of gas is, the consumer's still got to get out. They've still got to save their money to go see Tim McGraw.
Every city's got a famous rib place or coffeehouse or dessert place.
Bono. He still is somebody who, and I don't say I'm starstruck in that sense, I'm always in awe of. It doesn't matter how many times I've been with him, he's still an exceptional man that continually inspires me in many ways in life.
Clinging to old ways and fighting change is not the answer.
The biggest cost of my business is competition - promoters bidding against each other to get a tour.
When a fan buys a ticket, we learn an enormous amount about them: What bands they like, where they live, how much they are willing to spend. Someday, a fan will be sitting in a bar and his cellphone will text message 'Sonic Youth are playing tonight. Do you want to go?' He'll buy his ticket over the phone and walk to the concert.
Our business model rises or falls on our ability to serve the artists. If others can do it better, the artists will go elsewhere.
EDM is here to stay. If you're 19 years old, this is your rock 'n' roll.
It's cheaper to buy and use and place ads on Facebook than it is to buy print and radio.
I probably go to 100 shows a year.
Vice has done a great job at talking to millennials.
It's a very competitive market. AEG has a ticketing platform, Stubhub has grown their marketshare, Vivid has come out of nowhere. It's not like venues don't have options. If you're a venue you can pick any ticket platform you want, and we have to provide a better product and win that business fair and square.
In our business we don't mind if a price of a ticket goes down; our job is to get as many bums in seats as possible.
One of the strengths of Michael Cohl is he's a big thinker, strategic, great with relationships, artists and big deals.
A hit is a hit, and when you have a hit great things happen.
My kids, my health and my job are all equally important.
A promoter needs to be in the e-commerce ticketing business. In a fundamental sense the promoter's job is to buy a show and go and market and sell the tickets.
As an industry, YouTube and digital content have a huge upside to creation and virally reach fans, and there's a multi-billion dollar business of advertising attached to that.
Calling the new company Live Nation Entertainment is a big statement. Let's make sure we send a strong message from the first investor call.
We believe that the Internet is the live concert promoters best friend although it might have crippled the record label business.
Adding C3, the leading festival portfolio in North America, to our global portfolio of Insomniac, Festival Republic and Country Nation provides Live Nation with the world's largest festival platform.
The history of the ticketing business was about barriers to entry, which kept Ticketmaster protected. That has changed.
Hosting over 35,000 concerts and festivals each year, Live Nation has the opportunity and responsibility to provide our artists and fans with a live music experience that protects our planet. The adverse effects of climate change are undeniable, and we want to use our place on the world stage to be part of the solution.
To be a great concert marketer, we are shifting our focus from traditional media to online and mobile as direct ways to reach consumers.
We can't say to a Ticketmaster venue that says they want to use a different ticketing platform, 'If you do that, we won't put shows in your building.'
In early days of Live Nation, we really believed it was important to be a direct-to-consumer business, which the labels aren't and no promoter was at the time. By merging with Ticketmaster, we could we give the artist a direct relationship with the fan.
I'm known for having a very small to-do list and a big don't-do list.
