THE OPEN FORUM: THE BOSSES LEVEL Chairs: Phil Bowdery, Live Nation & Greg Parmley, ILMC Guests: Michael Rapino, Live Nation; Michael Gudinski, The Mushroom Group/Frontier Touring; Rick Farman, Superfly; Mike Greek, CAA; James Sandom, Red Light Management; Lucy Dickins, ITB.
THE DANCE CLUB: THE BEAT GOES ON Chair: Maria May, CAA (UK)
Chair: Jon Webster, MMF
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ILMC MD Greg Parmley launched the 28th edition of the conference by sharing the stage with Michael Rapino, who hammered home the theme that artists need to be braver in how they price the house, suggesting that it is possible to charge $4k for a great seat on the front row. “I’d rather the artist had the $4k and think about subsidising the [other] fan,” he said. “That is how we are going to solve secondary.” He gave the example of a Kid Rock gig that charged $20 a ticket and massively grew the artist’s average venue size from 8,000 to 18,000 a show. They also charged $1k for the best seats and used that to subsidise the $20 tickets. “Demand is bigger than ever and that is good for us,” he said of how the connected world is driving international opportunities. “We know there is global demand and it is unlimited.” In the second part of the session, chaired by Bowdery, the subject of show safety was addressed, following the Colectiv fire in Romania and the terrorist attack in Paris. The panel agreed that there was no way of preventing such things from happening, no matter how much you increase security. “It’s hard to plan for catastrophe,” stated Sandom. The tariffs that promoters pay to authors’ rights societies were also addressed. Specifically, the practice of collecting societies granting promoters discounts that are not repaid to the artists. The panel agreed that this was an unacceptable practice. Discussion then moved onto the state of festivals, where agreement was universal that headliners aren’t necessarily the drivers anymore. The abundance of festivals and the increasing competition overseas sees promoters revealing line-ups as early as December. But Greek pleaded: “Fuck the competition! Allow us to do concerts in January and February, and then announce [your line-ups].” As far as industry consolidation is concerned, Greek reminded the audience that artists simply demand more of their agents. The same is true for the management business, Sandom added. And Farman pointed out companies that were founded in the wake of the consolidation wave that were doing just fine.
European tour and found that the figures didn’t quite add up,” he explained. “To make it a bit more complicated, the collecting society agreements are blanket licensed. Even though you can see what came from the box office and what you should be paid, there are always adjustments from past performances paid.” Vierrath explained GEMA applies different rates depending on the venue size, but said the organisation is hoping to simplify things by seeking a 10% rate across the board – a revelation that shocked many delegates. Crockford said Knopfler’s most recent tour in Germany was self-administered (a situation made simple by the fact that Knopfler only plays his own songs and there is no support act). “I collected direct this time,” he said. “I didn’t use GEMA. I took my artist out and we collected direct. We got it on the night and we got it all.” Forte noted how complex such actions can be for acts of a certain size, saying she was brought in by Iron Maiden’s management as they felt they weren’t getting what they should. Studying the band’s last three tours, she said, “I could see there were big variances with certain territories.” Webster concluded, “This is going to run and run but we are moving in the right direction. I’d like to see us end up with a simpler and much more transparent system. People are beginning to shine a light on this area and it will end up in everyone’s better interest.”
Panellists: Pino Sagliocco, Live Nation Spain; Mark Lawrence, Association for Electronic Music; Roman Trystram, CAA.
The rise of electronic dance music (EDM) in the US, the fall of SFX Entertainment and the thorny issue of government interference in dance music events dominated the panel. “A lot of people look at the EDM scene and see it as being five to seven years old, but we’re over 40 years old,” said Lawrence, referring to the genre’s roots in funk and disco. “There’ve been at least four or five booms and busts before now: the end of disco, the death of the superclubs in the 90s…” Lawrence opined that the implosion of SFX is a “market criticism” of its leadership rather than a collapse of the EDM market. “What happened is a load of ingredients [promoters] got bought and put into a shopping basket and never baked into a bloody good cake!” “SFX never should have happened,” agreed Trystram, “and it’s tarnished EDM. Actually, as soon as we started calling it ‘EDM’, that’s when the problems set in – it’s electronic music! But we’ll
Panellists: Anthony Addis, Brontone Ltd; Paul Crockford, Paul Crockford Management; Maria Forte, Maria Forte Music Services Ltd; Martin Vierrath, GEMA; John Sweeney, SESAC.
This panel pulled no punches as it looked at live performance payments to international collecting societies and the controversy around discounts that are applied. Crockford became aware of the issue in 2010 when Mark Knopfler’s tour accountant discovered some serious issues. “He noticed there was a massive discrepancy between the amount that [Dutch collecting society] Buma had received and passed onto PRS, versus what was in the settlement that Mojo Concerts had deducted,” he said. Crockford claimed that very few people knew this was common practice throughout Europe. Sweeney revealed this has a much longer history. “20 years ago, U2 tried to do a cradle-to-grave royalty account for a
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Live Nation Entertainment supremo Michael Rapino gave a keynote interview to Greg Parmley
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