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LIVE MUSIC INTELLIGENCE

Issue 56

A n I L M C P u b l i c a t i o n . N ov 2 0 1 4

Dealing with Drugs Are festivals being blamed for society’s failings?

TOURING EXHIBITIONS CASHLESS EXPLODES ED SHEERAN ON TOUR POWERING UP AT FESTIVALS LATIN AMERICA - PARTE UNO

Cover photo © Slobodan Junior Anđelković

Contents IQ

Mag az in e I ssu e 5 6

News and Developments 6 8 1 6

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I n B rief The main headlines over the last two months I n D ep th Key stories from around the live music world T ec h n o Files Revealing the hottest new technology in live entertainment

Features 1 8

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T o u rin g E x - c item en t The touring exhibitions sector continues its rapid growth rate D ig ital Mo n ey Chris Austin explores the various cashless systems being used by festival promoters S h eer Class Ed Sheeran’s artistry takes arenas by storm D ealin g w ith D ru g s Robert Ashton investigates the impact of drugs on the festival scene T h e Ch arg e o f th e L ive B rig ad e The battery of companies keeping festival fans’ phones charged L atin Am eric a – P arte U n o The first of our duo of market reports on the Latin American live industry

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Comments and Columns 1 2

Mak e a N o te to S tay S ec u re Nicholas Zinas wants global unity on accident reporting

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B est P rac tic e f o r Festival S o c ial Med ia Will Page details a survey linking Spotify to festival activity R I P th e AT M at Festivals 2014 heralded the death of festival cashpoint machines, claims Serge Grimaux Mo d ern - D ay Co liseu m s AEG’s Brian Kabatznick hails the proliferation of state-of-the-art venues Mem bers’ N o tic ebo ard Keeping you posted on what ILMC members are up to Yo u r S h o u t With Halloween approaching, what do you find scary in the live music industry?

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IQ Magazine November 2014

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Issue 56 LIVE MUSIC INTELLIGENCE

Making Headlines Drug deaths at music events always make for sensational headlines, but Gordon Masson argues that festivals are statistically among the safest places to be…

Whenever there is a death at a festival – and sadly, it does happen all too often – the media storm that follows, in my opinion, goes way over the top. It may just be the British tabloid media, but the witch-hunt that inevitably follows and the need to find somebody or something to blame, often ends up pointing the finger at the event’s organisers.

While nearly two dozen deaths worldwide so far this year are, obviously, two dozen too many, taken in context, the numbers are very low. In fact, if you take a look at the welfare set-up and counsellors that are usually onsite at major events, you could argue that it’s safer to be in a festival field than it is to be at a friend’s house. Human nature dictates that some people will take risks to achieve a high, but festival organisers know that and take a lot more steps, both with education and prevention, than they are ever given credit for in the mainstream press.

Robert Ashton eloquently addresses the emotive subject of drug deaths at events on page 44, along with various experts, so be sure to give it a read.

Also festival-related in this issue is our special feature on the explosion in the use of cashless payment systems (page 28), which truly seem to be enjoying their breakthrough moment with scores of events all over the world switching on to the benefits that such technology can deliver. On the consumer side of things, Christopher Austin also talks to the various concessionaire newcomers who are providing fans with the tech-driven solutions with which they can keep their mobile devices charged for the duration

IQ Magazine November 2014

of their festival experience (page 48).

Taking on our second annual report on the emerging touring exhibitions sector (page 18), Eugenia Durante learns from the market’s pioneers that technology may be changing the way that they present their exhibitions, but content remains king, and without a compelling concept, no amount of bells and whistles will sell tickets. Get it right, though, and there are a host of copycats waiting to exploit your idea themselves.

And talking of international success stories, I take a peak behind the scenes of Ed Sheeran’s phenomenal arena tour (page 32) and learn about the various technological firsts that his production crew are using to help one man and his guitar make even the biggest indoor venues on the planet seem like an intimate club show. And what a show it is.

Finally, this issue also sees the first in our two-part market report on Latin America (page 52) where Adam Woods runs a health check on the live music business in South America and speaks to the main players on the ground in those territories to find out about the opportunities and challenges that exist for touring productions.

Part two of our Latin American spotlight, focussing on Argentina and Brazil, will appear in the next issue, where, if you organise a festival, we’ll also be running our annual European Festival Report, this year with the help of music industry analyst Chris Carey.

So this is an early reminder to complete our survey and help us gather as wide a swathe of data as possible to identify trends across the continent.

THE ILMC JOURNAL, Nov 2014

IQ

Mag azi n e

Unit 31 Tileyard Road London, N7 9AH info@iq-mag.net www.iq-mag.net Tel: +44 (0)20 3743 0300 Twitter: @iq_mag

P u blish er

ILMC and Suspicious Marketing

E d ito r

Gordon Masson

Asso c iate E d ito r Allan McGowan

Mark etin g & Ad vertisin g Man ag er Terry McNally

D esig n

Martin Hughes

S u b E d ito r

Michael Muldoon

E d ito rial Assistan t Eugenia Durante

Co n tribu to rs

Robert Ashton, Chris Austin, Serge Grimaux, Brian Kabatznick, Emmanuel Legrand, Will Page, Adam Woods, Nicholas Zinas

E d ito rial Co n tac t

Gordon Masson, gordon@iq-mag.net Tel: +44 (0)20 3743 0303

Ad vertisin g Co n tac t

Terry McNally, terry@iq-mag.net Tel: +44 (0)20 3743 0304

To subscribe to IQ Magazine: michael@iq-mag.net An annual subscription to IQ is £75 (print) or £60 (electronic).

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News

ILMC Launches Bursary Scheme THE INTERNATIONAL Live Music Conference (ILMC) has announced the launch of an annual Bursary Scheme for young professionals and start-up companies. Supported by Robertson Taylor W&P Longreach, at least 10 delegate places to next year’s event will be made available, including some distributed exclusively via selected industry associations.

“The scheme came about from various conversations with ILMC members after this year’s conference,” says ILMC head Greg Parmley.

“It’s designed to encourage younger companies and individuals who have not yet been to the conference, but who should be attending and who have a voice to add to the mix.”

Robertson Taylor has signed up as patron of the scheme. “We’ve been ILMC members since its first meeting, so fully appreciate the scheme’s significance and the opportunities it provides to all delegates,” says Martin Goebbels, director of UK & Europe. “We’re delighted to be

involved in encouraging future leaders of the music industry to attend and participate in the most important annual gathering of the global live industry.”

While anyone fulfilling the criteria is welcome to apply, a number of places are earmarked for members of industry associations including Yourope, the Association of Independent Festivals (AIF), the International Music Manager Forum (IMMF) and the UK’s Music Managers Forum (MMF).

Applicants will still need to complete the usual nomination process for ILMC membership, and then fill in a short application form, which will is available at www.ilmc.com.

The closing date for application is Friday 30 January, and successful entrants will be notified in the first week of February.

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Ticketmaster UK managing director Simon Presswell has left the company after a year in charge. He has been replaced by Andrew Parsons who was VP of music and comedy.

Former record label executive, Sefton Woodhouse, has made a successful switch to the live side of the business by taking on the general manager’s role at Cato Music in London.

Woodhouse was previously vice-president of artist relations and event management at EMI Music.

Matt Bates has joined the board of directors at Primary Talent International. He started his international agency career at Primary in 2005, bringing with him one client, Babyshambles, but in the nine years since has developed the careers of acts including The 1975, alt J, Two Door Cinema Club, Azealia Banks, Metronomy and The Libertines.

Fruzsina Szép has taken on the post of director at Germany’s Berlin Festival, having resigned her position as programme director at Sziget Festival in Hungary. Szép had been at Sziget for six years, prior to which she established and ran the Hungarian Music Export Office.

Ron Doroba has been appointed vice-president of North American sales for eps America. The veteran production manager has more than 20 years’ experience in the event production, tour promotion and business management side of the live entertainment industry.

The Madison Square Garden Company has appointed David Goodman as its new president of productions and live entertainment. He was previously president of live experiences at CBS. Sheelagh Allen, who spent the last 32 years working for Glastonbury Festival, has retired. Paying tribute to his personal assistant, festival organiser Michael Eavis says Allen was “a key part of the fabric of the festival and the farm – and always will be.”

MaMA Celebrates Five Years THE MAMA event in Paris has confirmed its status as one of the emerging contenders in the international conference and showcase calendar by attracting 4,372 delegates from 67 countries to its latest edition in October.

Celebrating its fifth year, MaMA featured more than 60 conferences, debates and workshops for its attendees, while its innovative speed meetings secured more than 1,200 face-to-face encounters to help delegates find new business partners.

MaMA’s keynote inter-

Movers and Shakers

views included sessions with Live Aid trustee John Kennedy and Glastonbury Festival’s Michael Eavis, while IQ’s Gordon Masson moderated a festival-oriented panel session that discussed the growth in importance of the summer shows to artists’ careers and income.

Chuck Morris is doubling up on his normal responsibilities of running AEG Live’s Rocky Mountain Region office, by also overseeing the Pacific Northwest operation, after its leader Alex Kochan departed the company.

Dean James has launched a new music business called Sixth Plc, and is seeking key acquisitions in the live, data analytics and artist partnerships domain across the UK, India and Asia Pacific.

Former MAMA Group leader James has partnered with former Shazam business affairs chief Matt McCann, while Nettwerk co-founder Dan Fraser will be a non-executive director.

Dean DeWulf has departed his AXS role in London to return to the United States where he will now run the ticketing company’s music business development.

AEG Live’s Goldenvoice division in the UK has hired former Metropolis Music promoters Laura Davidson and Oscar Tuttiett. While Tuttiett retains his promoter role, Davidson will take up the position of vice president at Goldenvoice/AEG Live. Among the acts she has worked with are Ellie Goulding, alt-J, Disclosure, Sam Smith, Alabama Shakes and Jessie Ware.

Tuttiett has promoted Palma Violets, Drenge, The Strypes, Fat White Family, Eagulls and The Wytches.

IQ Magazine November 2014

Comment

RIP the ATM at Festivals Serge Grimaux, CEO at access control and cashless payment specialist Intellitix, explains why he sees 2014 as the year that said goodbye to cash machines at festivals.

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his article was going to be about the future; but after the last few weeks, I know that the future I was going to refer to has already arrived. Recently, we landed back at Intellitix’s Montreal HQ from Atlanta’s Chattahoochee Hills, where we partnered with ID&T and SFX Entertainment to turn the mecca that is TomorrowWorld festival 100% cashless for the first time.

It was our largest deployment since we introduced our cashless system, IntelliPay, 15 months ago. Over 160,000 attendees wore RFID wristbands, becoming the sole payment method across the entire festival. Over 500,000 transactions were made across the three days – with peaks of six transactions every second. That same weekend we deployed 100,000 RFID wristbands at Scotland’s Ryder Cup. There again providing a cashless environment, together with brand amplification.

It’s very exciting when you realise you are changing forever the landscape of a business field you have worked in all your life.

Those who know me may have heard my pool party analogy.

You’ve been to a pool party? You have a bunch of people around the pool, and they are all waiting for the first person to jump in.

Two things might happen; you have a brave person who jumps in first, or somebody gets pushed. Results are the same. After five minutes the pool is full. A year ago, that’s what was happening with cashless payments. We’ve witnessed that nervousness disappear in front of our eyes. Why? First of all, let’s clarify – what is cashless? There seems to be some confusion with events calling themselves cashless, or providers claiming they are providing cashless services, when the stalls still take cash and/or plastic money. That’s not cashless! Cashless is not simply adding the ‘option’ to pay using a method other than cash or cards, like after a meal at the restaurant. Cashless is where the technology deployed offers the only method of payment at the event site, in our case RFID. The second thing we should clarify is the differences between the two main types of cashless systems; open loop and closed loop.

With open loop you need to connect with the outside world. With closed loop, you function as if you were your own country, trading your own currency. You don’t need to be ‘online’. Furthermore, closed loop provides full control of the money to the one taking all the risk: the event organiser. This is why we developed a fully secure and reliable closed loop cashless technology.

Then come the concerns about security and reliability – when you and your patrons’ money is at stake, it is an easy concern to understand. With this in mind, before even launching it, we had IntelliPay certified with the Common Criteria EAL3+ meaning its security is certified as on a par with that of Apple, Microsoft and IBM.

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From Scandinavia to Rio de Janeiro and from NYC to Central Europe the vision has come to fruition: before the end of this year two million people will have acquired goods at events paying via IntelliPay.

“There seems to be some confusion with events calling themselves cashless, or providers claiming they are providing cashless services, when the stalls still take cash and/or plastic money. That’s not cashless!”

So what has changed this year? Simple – trust, awareness and understanding. People have now seen cashless in action at some of the biggest events in the world. The benefits for all involved are simply too great to ignore. Faster service, increased revenues, improved security, management tools, reliability. The list goes on.

The industry will continue to embrace this cashless revolution. There is no way back!

As well as TomorrowWorld, this year we worked with Canada’s first ever cashless festival Digital Dreams, and America’s first cashless festival Mysteryland USA. These are massive events and proof that – as the title of this article states – 2014 truly signifies the beginning of a new era which will soon see the death of the ATM at festivals.

We’ve been asked if technologies like Apple Pay will spell the end of RFID cashless payments just as they have become accepted, but we don’t believe so. NFC payments have been here for several years already. Nothing beats a closed loop environment and it will continue to offer the best choice for organisers looking to go cashless. In fact, we are extremely happy Apple decided to put emphasis on something we have been claiming for more then a year: paying with a tap of the wrist is the way to go!

When linked with access control and social media – and the data this can harness – RFID truly delivers. This is what we thought when we started that revolution four years ago.

We have been proven right! The live music industry is a close community – people talk. Cashless is the topic on everyone’s lips. Say hello to the future. Look forward, not in your rear mirror! The road ahead is coming fast.

IQ Magazine November 2014

Sheer Class There may only be one man and his guitar on stage, but, as Gordon Masson discovers, the number of people performing ‘live’ behind the scenes to make Ed Sheeran’s global arena tour such a success, pays tribute to the close-knit crew, who are having the time of their lives on the road…

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t’s appropriate that Ed Sheeran is represented by artist management company Rocket Music, such has been his rise to headliner status. A combination of fantastic songwriting and a tireless work ethic have seen the 23-yearold touring pretty much constantly for the last five years. But the results are there for all to see.

His second studio album, X (pronounced ‘multiply’) is the biggest seller in the UK this year. But his stardom around the world is equally as impressive, as sales of his ongoing arena tour prove. A slew of 19 dates across North America, promoted

by AEG Live affiliate, The Messina Group, has been followed up by a 49-date routing around the UK and Europe, while the untitled tour will cross oceans to Asia, South America and Australasia in 2015, making it a truly global affair.

Paying testament to Sheeran’s love for live performance, the jaunt in North America was immediately preceded by a number of festival appearances, including the likes of Rock in Rio Lisboa; Pinkpop in the Netherlands; Southside in Germany; Glastonbury and T in the Park in the UK; Switzerland’s Montreux and Pukkelpop in Belgium.

What makes Sheeran stand out from other headliners is an unfailing ability to transfix a room, whether it be in an intimate jazz club, or the The O2 arena in London, where, over four sold-out nights, more than 60,000 witnessed his artistry, alone on a giant stage. Indeed, when told about Sheeran’s solo performances, this writer (probably like many others) assumed that there would be at least some element of supporting musicians, backing vocalists or dancers to complement the artist’s on-stage presence. But no; what you get at an Ed Sheeran gig is Ed Sheeran, his guitar and an ingenious, high-tech loop station, controlled on stage by the young troubadour.

Or at least, that’s how it appears on the surface. Because while the impressive spectacle is just Sheeran and his layered loops, his loyal crew, by necessity, are also tasked with performing their own duties ‘live’, reacting to what the star of the show is doing on stage.

Summing up the feat that Sheeran manages to pull off, night after night, city after city, Spanish promoter Barnaby Harrod borrows the words of another observer: “I came to see one of the shows at The O2 in London and somebody said to me that they haven’t seen anybody with just a guitar mesmerise an audience like that since Bob Dylan,” reports Harrod, whose Mercury Wheels operation is promoting Sheeran’s debut Spanish shows, in Barcelona and Madrid, in late November.

London shows promoter Steve Tilley, of Kilimanjaro Live, states, “Artists that can capture the moment come along once every ten years and Ed’s ability to effortlessly mix the R&B and urban worlds with the acoustic and folk side of things, makes him truly unique.”

And AEG Live’s Simon Jones adds, “I think Ed has taken other people by surprise, but not the promoters, agent or the record label, because we all knew there was a lot more in the tank from the last tour. The fact that he can have 15,000 people in an arena eating out of his hand is so impressive to witness.”

Artist manager Stuart Camp comments, “Ed makes records so that he can perform live, not the other way around. We do have a strategy for his live work, but the fact is that he just loves performing to a crowd, so it’s not a complicated strategy.”

One Man Band

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f course, taking a truly solo act from clubs and theatres to arena and shed level is no mean feat, and one of the main challenges for those helping Sheeran to maintain the personal, intimate shows he has become famous for, has been exactly that – how can one man on stage in a room with 10,000 fans and more, still deliver that warm and cosy performance?

“A lot of other tour managers are saying we have an easy job because it’s just Ed on stage on his own, but the opposite is true – it’s harder designing a show around just one person on stage than the standard band,” says tour manager Mark Friend.

According to production designer Mark Cunniffe: “The challenge is how to build a production behind Ed that does not kill him. There are moments in the show that have to be huge – You Need Me is a real assault on the senses, for example. But there are also moments that have to be small and intimate.”

One of the options in designing the production for the arena tour was to look at a configuration in the round, putting Sheeran in the centre of the room. “Ed did not fancy it,” says Cunniffe. “So the solution was to put the screen behind him, rather than at either side. But the screen is broken up into 14 screens of different shapes and sizes that move around during his performance.”

Production manager Chris Marsh notes, “The This is a preview of some content from the latest issuekey for Markofwith the screens has been to design things so that you’re IQ Magazine. To get instant access to the magazine’s notcomprehensive looking at relay screens rightnews, or left.

Ed Sheeran has the features, research, analysis and comment, talentyou to pull off playing on his an arena,about but we on will need to subscribe.

For own moreto information the production crew have to have simply the skills to subscribing to IQ Magazine, clickand this creativity box. deliver that to the entire audience. The person at the very back

Photo © Ben Watts

IQ Magazine November 2014

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LATIN AMERICA Parte Uno A h e a d o f a ps e ci a l f o cu s o n L a t i n A m e r i ca a t n e xt ey a r ’ s I L MC, I Q i s r u n n i n g a t w o - p a r t r e p o r t o n t h e b u si n e s i n t h e S o u t h A m e r i ca n co n t i n e n t . I n P a r t I , Ad am W o o d s i n ev ts i g a t e s t h e d i v e r se r a n g e o f m a r ke t s o u t si d e o f t h e b i g t w o ( A r g e n t i n a a n d B r a iz l ) …

FOR ANY AGENT who wants to know how a secondary South American market is bearing up, there are usually worse places to start than the global news pages of a major newspaper.

In post-Chávez Venezuela, where the currency is hitting new lows and departing US corporates are having their factories seized, we can take it this isn’t a great moment for a couple of shows. In Peru, where growth has averaged 6.4% annually over the past decade, or Colombia, where kidnappings have fallen by 92% since 2000 and even the once notorious second city of Medellín is booming, we might accurately assume there are deals to be done.

It is well-known, of course, that Brazil and Argentina are the markets that dominate the South American live business from an international perspective, with Chile a solid third.

But elsewhere, territories such as Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Uruguay – The Economist’s ‘country of the year’ in 2013, no less – are too vibrant to be dismissed out of hand.

Certainly, plenty of major tours have touched down in those spots in recent years. Just for a sample, Metallica visited Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Chile and Paraguay this year; Madonna and Beyoncé have both set the seal on Medellín’s reinvention with major shows at the city’s Estadio Atanasio Girardot; the Rolling Stones’s 2015 South American tour (widely rumoured but not confirmed at the time of writing) is expected to land in Peru, Chile, Uruguay, Colombia and Costa Rica, in addition to the dates in Brazil and Argentina that are now standard for a major touring act.

It’s no surprise, of course, that there is money to be made in a continent of 387.5m inhabitants, sprawling over 17.8m square km and containing 47 cities of more than a million people. But that very scale is also what makes South America’s emerging markets a challenging proposition, and equally makes touring circuit growth hard to find.

Freight and transport become expensive and airborne as you leave the safe ground of the established Brazil-ArgentinaChile circuit, where most of a tour’s revenues will always be

generated. And, Brazil aside, the heavily centralised nature of most of South America, where large proportions of any given country’s population inhabit the capital city, means that local tours within countries are uneconomical for most international acts.

“That’s actually the big problem with South America,” says Christian Krämer of Medellín-based CK Concerts, which also has offices in Ecuador, Chile and Peru as it builds its touring business. “We have a huge continent that’s as long as Norway to Central Africa and as wide as the UK to Afghanistan or so. And then we have basically seven cities you can play,” he laughs. “More or less. Maybe ten or 12, but not much more than that.”

In terms of that circuit’s expansion, Brazilian cities beyond Rio and São Paulo (such as Curitiba, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre and other increasingly visited spots) are often more likely to make their way onto more ambitious itineraries than more northerly capital cities, though the biggest and most intrepid travellers – Paul McCartney and Iron Maiden are particularly avid South American tourists – can often find a way to get off the beaten track.

The two largest Latin American promoters, the Mexican giant Ocesa and Fernando Luiz Alterio’s Brazil-based Time 4 Fun, are both active wherever they need to be across the continent, and they both maintain long-standing partnerships with Live Nation. The former maintains an office in Bogotá, and the latter has an operation in Chile to add to its heavy presence in Argentina and Brazil.

In addition to numerous local promoters and entrepreneurs, Move Concerts, formerly Evenpro, is the largestThis independent in South with bases is a previewpromoter of some content fromAmerica, the latest issue in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican of IQ Magazine. To get instant access to the magazine’s Republic, Peru features, and Puerto Rico, to add to its head comprehensive research, news, analysis andMiami comment, office.youReturning Argentinian giant Daniel about Grinbank, will need to subscribe.

For more information meanwhile, who to hasIQscooped upsimply the Rolling subscribing Magazine, click thisStones box. once more, has offices in Chile, Uruguay and Peru.

Left: Lollapalooza founder Perry Farrell on stage with Jane’s Addiction at this year’s festival in Chile

IQ Magazine November 2014

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