14 Music Week 01.02.13 THE BIG INTERVIEW JOHN REID
www.musicweek.com
appear at across Europe. We could get the ten most important new acts to everybody in front of a lot of people and a lot of media. We could do that on a joined-up basis. We’d need agents, managers and record companies on board - and there’s only so many slots.
You’d have to pick those acts very carefully, especially those you lend a bit of tour support to… Definitely. It’s gambling, it’s A&R. If record companies used to take ten shots a year [on properly financing new acts], now maybe they take seven or six. You can only afford to support so many of those tours. You have to assess the agent, record company, everyone; do we all think these acts are great?
What about artists who have already accepted 360 deals with labels? I’m happy to invest in acts who have 360 deals, or acts who don’t want to do them. We’re agnostic about that. Some acts have come to us who just want a straight recorded music deal from their label - of course we can help those artists. I don’t think that’s competing [with label 360 deals], that’s helping out. But there are a limited amount of times we can do that. How many acts in the UK get a real shot? I’m talking about those that get on the BBC lists and get the proper industry support. Not many. Perhaps five in January and five throughout the year. My job is to improve our share of that top ten.
You’re seeing a different side of 360 deals these days than you did at Warner… We invented them at Warner, or at least we drove the concept. Guilty as charged! [Laughs]
Has your view on them changed now you’re at a company with a history of expertise in the live arena? No, actually. The record companies view is: “We’re funding all this [promotion and marketing], we
ABOVE Park life: Live Nation will host gigs at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park this year. The venue will also play host to Hard Rock Calling and Wireless festivals
“We’ll help acts with 360 deals. But when Live Nation funds artists who don’t want to do a 360 with a label, that’s not competing - it’s helping out” JOHN REID, LIVE NATION
deserve a better share, because the pie’s getting smaller.” At the time I was at a record company, it really was about added value: “Can we take more of a shot at that act because they’re getting more funding?” If you go to the act as a label and say: “We will do X, Y or Z more than we did before [if you take a 360],” that’s a good partnership. It’s transparent. So long as they do those things, it’s a good deal. The other side of it is when every label’s doing 360 deals - when you as an artist have no choice but to take one if you want a record deal, that’s not so good.
I’d expect you to say that Warner contributes to a justifiable level on a 360 deal - but do you think all labels do? I don’t know if Warners do! Did we when I was there? I know some acts definitely got more than their fair share. I don’t know how it works today - I’m not party to that any more...
It’s interesting to hear you compare piracy and online ticketing as comparative problems… Online bots and ticket scalping online - that’s our ‘piracy’. It’s the biggest technological challenge that we have in the live industry. You put a show on sale and, depending where you are in the world, so much of the traffic is this robotic scalping - machines holding tickets and then forcing real fans to buy from a secondary site. That’s wrong. We spend millions and millions on software development to deal with this stuff and to try and make sure tickets get in the hands of fans. It manifests itself in the
public stress level in secondary ticketing. The consumer just wants to buy a ticket for a reasonable price - we have no problem with them getting that on a primary or secondary site. But we don’t want to scalp the consumer. Ninety to 95% of our traffic on Ticketmaster in the US on a Saturday on-sale is from bots. That’s how serious it is.
Can’t it be sorted to some degree with dynamic pricing: charging very high prices for top tier tickets and low prices for back-of-the-room seats? It helps when an artist understands there is a dynamic demand for pricing, certainly - that there are super-fans willing to pay a lot of money for a front row seat. Sometimes artists under-price themselves, sometimes they over-price themselves. But we don’t decide that, it’s our job to help the artist achieve what they want from a ticket price. It’s true that selling closer to a true market price at the front of the room helps us sell cheaper tickets at the back of the room.
What’s your view on secondary ticketing sites that operate solely as resale sites – i.e not putting any profits back into the music industry? It should be a more transparent business from those guys. We’re pretty clear about what we do with our primary tickets and our own secondary site [Get Me In!] – you have to be. We’re the biggest ticket seller and promoter in the world. We have to be honest.
Not mentioning any businesses who liquidate their UK office and then their new HQ just happens to pop up in Switzerland… Right. Ticketmaster now offers paperless tickets – we did for the Robbie Williams [02] gig last year and it went very well and we’ll do it for a number of acts. Obviously when it comes to fans who want to exchange their ticket, we have to manage that.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56