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AEG Presents, a global leader in live music and events, announced Friday (May 10) that Brent Fedrizzi, who currently serves as co-president and COO of AEG Presents’ Rocky Mountains and Pacific Northwest regions, has been named president, North American regional offices.
Fedrizzi’s promotion follows Rick Mueller’s exit from the company, which the former AEG Presents president for North America announced earlier this week.
Fedrizzi, who will continue to be based out of Denver, is set to guide the company’s 100 U.S. venues – including the 50 owned and operated clubs and theaters in the AEG Presents portfolio – in all aspects of talent buying and promotion, as well as overseeing its 12 regional offices. He will report to AEG Presents chairman and CEO Jay Marciano and will join the company’s executive committee.
“I’ve known Brent for close to 30 years and have worked with him almost as long, so it’s especially gratifying to make this announcement,” said Marciano in a release. “He has a vision, a drive, and an insight into our business that’s been forged over his many years promoting events in every type of venue across the western United States. As co-president of our Rocky Mountain region, his feel for the business is a key reason AEG Presents is the dominant promoter in the market and the Denver office is one of our top performers. Simply put, he’s the right person for the job.”
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“When Jay and I first spoke about this opportunity, I jumped at the chance to work more closely with him, the regional team, and the company as a whole,” Fedrizzi said. “I’m excited for the challenge ahead, and I can’t wait to dive in; there’s never been a more exhilarating time in live events. I’m grateful for the trust Jay has put in me to guide the business into the future; the ability to do so with the people and the company I love is icing on the cake.”
A Colorado native, Fedrizzi began his career in 1991 at the Fey Concert Company in Denver, booking artists at various venues across the Rockies and the Southwest. In 1998, he joined forces with Chuck Morris and Don Strasburg to launch Bill Graham Presents/Chuck Morris Presents in the market. Through a series of acquisitions including SFX and Clear Channel Entertainment, that company would eventually become Live Nation in 2005. Fedrizzi remained there for nine years before leaving with Morris and Strasburg to join AEG Live as COO of the Rocky Mountain region. They quickly established themselves as the dominant force in one of the most competitive and active live music markets in the country and now promote more than 1,100 events annually at a variety of venues including Mission Ballroom, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Fiddlers Green Amphitheatre and Ball Arena, among many others.
In addition to his work at AEG Presents, Fedrizzi is a board member and four-time president of the North American Concert Promoters Association, a four-time Academy of Country Music award nominee, and a nominee for International Entertainment Buyers Association’s promoter of the year. He currently serves as chairman of the board for Visit Denver and sits on the board of the Colorado Music Hall of Fame.
AEG Presents, the second biggest live events company in the world, and powerful Latin entertainment company Cárdenas Marketing Network (CMN), have partnered in a deal that will combine both companies under one roof. The partnership, in which AEG acquired an undisclosed stake in CMN and which AEG Presents chairman and CEO Jay Marciano describes as a “full partnership,” will explosively boost AEG’s Latin music business and is AEG’s first Latin partnership of this scope.
CMN ended 2023 at No. 4 on Billboard’s Top Promoter chart, and in 2022, it was No. 3, an enormous achievement for an independent company that CMN founder and CEO Henry Cárdenas self-describes as a “boutique concert promoter.” But it’s a very powerful boutique operation, with a slate that included Bad Bunny’s stadium tour in 2022 and currently Luis Miguel, Marc Anthony and Don Omar, among many other.
On its end, AEG is of course the powerhouse company behind Taylor Swift’s global tour and culturally-defining events like Coachella. Latin, however, was not its strong suit, although it promoted Karol G’s arena tour in in 2023. Now, AEG will have the Latin clout while CMN while have the global reach, and both companies will work together to create elevated and expanded experiences for artists and fans, with each benefitting from the complementary strategic alliance.
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“We are excited to partner with AEG Presents, one of the most powerful global forces in live entertainment. Together we look forward to making an even greater impact on the explosive growth in the Latin market,” said Cárdenas in a statement.
In an exclusive interview with Billboard, Cárdenas added: “We wanted to be bigger and more global. AEG is a giant company that also has venues and I’ve known Jay Marciano for 40 years, since he was president of Radio City Music Hall and Madison Square Garden. Jay knows who I am, and I know who he is.”
Marciano added: “Henry is a true entrepreneur and visionary, and what he and his team have built is simply awe-inspiring. We have been looking to expand our presence in Latin music and concerts for quite some time, and it was important that we took the time to find the right partner; we found it in Henry and CMN.”
The partnership between AEG and CMN has been actively in the works for approximately six months, but it was in both Cárdenas’ and Marcianos’ minds long before then.
“I feel like I’ve been chasing Henry for 40 years,” laughs Marciano. “It’s like the girl I’ve been chasing forever, and she finally said yes […] Henry was in Latin music way before any of us figured out it was an industry. Timing is everything. And I think the timing for us and for him finally, after all these years, aligned perfectly.”
Cárdenas has been in Latin music promotion for 44 years. In 2001, he sold CFA (Cardenas, Fernandez & Associates) — which at one point was the biggest Hispanic-owned event-promotion company in the U.S. — to Clear Channel Entertainment and Grupo Televisa. In 2004, he launched CMN on his own and quickly grew it all over again, eventually becoming the top Latin promoter in the country. In all his years of operation, he says, he has never lost money, save for during the pandemic.
“I’m a boutique concert promoter. I take care of my business. My tours have to be profitable, and we take care of each tour,” he says, emphasizing that his is not a cookie cutter approach to concert promotion.
However, Cárdenas also wanted to grow and become more global and in 2019, he acquired Arena Bogotá in Colombia. At this point, merging made sense, especially with a company like AEG, which has assets and artists that Cárdenas can work with in Latin America, and likewise, offers Cárdenas’ artists an entree into other markets.
The key, however, was the relationship with Marciano.
“It’s about people in this business,” says Marciano. “If you don’t have the right people, chances are you won’t be successful. With Henry we knew he had the foundation for decades and he could teach us a lot that we were missing.”
Cárdenas and Marciano had initial conversations several years back, at which time Marciano said: “Henry, I’m not going to hound you. But come the day you feel we’re better together than apart, give me a call.”
Last year he did, and conversations began in earnest.
“I think Henry believes Latin music is not just becoming big in North America but has the potential to become big in Europe and Asia and Australia and he can use our expertise and local offices,” said Marciano. “And we can also use his help because he understands the part of Latin music we’re just getting familiar with.”
Cárdenas will now take over AEG’s Latin activity and touring roster, which includes Carin León. In the spirit of AEG’s existing partnerships, such as the Messina Group or Golden Voice, Cárdenas will run the business, and make decisions on which artists and tours to bring to the business.
“I told Jay, ‘This needs to be fun. If it’s not going to be fun, it’s not interesting.’ I want to run CMN like I’ve always done,” says Cárdenas.
The AEG-CMN merger follows the 2021 acquisition of Mexican concert promoter OCESA Entertenimiento by Live Nation for $416 million for a 51% interest in the company.
No amount or stake percentage was disclosed for AEG’s purchase of CMN. But, says Marciano, “I think I have the Latin partner That I always wanted.”
AEG Presents announced the appointment of Jay Belin as vp of international touring. A prolific talent booker with over 17 years of live music experience, Belin will be responsible for executing major concerts across Europe with the AEG Presents Global Touring division, utilizing his strong history and relationships built in his previous roles. Directly reporting […]
AEG Presents is the latest music-related company to announce a move to the Nashville mixed-use district Nashville Yards, which is being co-developed by AEG and Southwest Value Partners.
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AEG Presents will relocate its regional office to Nashville Yards in 2025. The company’s new location will be comprised of the company’s regional office, members of its global touring division and the Nashville outpost of AEG Presents partner Messina Touring Group. Combined, these three entities oversee everything from bookings at intimate clubs to stadium tour dates, having promoted tours for artists including Kelsea Ballerini, Zach Bryan, Kenny Chesney, Eric Church and more.
AEG will also book and operate the upcoming 4,500-capacity music venue that’s slated to open in Nashville Yards in 2025.
Rick Mueller, president of AEG Presents North America, said in a statement: “We’ve been hyper-focused on expanding our presence in Nashville for a few years now. It’s a big opportunity for us to be consolidating all our operations under one roof at what’s soon to be one of the most popular destinations in the city, and to be booking and operating a new, state-of-the-art music venue on-site makes it that much more exciting.”
“We have an exceptional partnership with AEG, and together we believe we are constructing one of the most uniquely attractive music, retail and creative workplace environments in the world,” added Cary Mack, managing partner of Southwest Value Partners. “Independent of that, AEG Presents is a preeminent entertainment brand and operator of world class entertainment venues, and we are very excited to have their extended presence at Nashville Yards.”
In November, booking agency CAA announced that its Nashville office will also relocate to Nashville Yards in 2025. Upon completion, the 19-acre mixed-used development will feature pedestrian pathways, open green spaces, plazas and Class A+ office, residential, hospitality, entertainment, retail and culinary offerings.
Veteran touring specialist Rich Schaefer has been officially promoted to president of global touring at AEG Presents. Schaefer takes over the role from Gary Gersh, who announced he would be stepping down last month. In his new role, Schaefer will oversee all aspects of the concert promotion company’s worldwide touring deals, operations and talent relations. […]
Whether he’s building live-music clubs and theaters or renovating them, Rick Mueller abides by a simple rule for his complex job: “The best venues bring out the best in the fans and the best in the band.”
As AEG Presents president of North America, Mueller, 50, oversees all of the rooms in the territory for which the company is the primary talent buyer.
His purview includes more than 100 U.S. properties — mostly theaters and clubs managed by one of 13 regional offices that report to him. Among them are those owned and operated by The Bowery Presents, a collection of destination plays such as Brooklyn Steel and Forest Hills Stadium in New York and a series of newly opened clubs in Boston, Denver, Atlanta and Cincinnati. He’s also heavily involved in business development, overseeing construction of new projects that AEG Presents will exclusively book, like Nashville Yards, as well as bringing existing venues like the Santa Barbara (Calif.) Bowl under AEG Presents management.
“We’re building AEG as [a collection] of more regionally run businesses,” he explains. “That allows us to be more responsive to those markets — what’s happening musically there and what the customer wants.”
Mueller, who is originally from the San Francisco Bay area and now lives in Los Angeles, contends that strategy gives AEG Presents a “distinct advantage” over its main competition, Live Nation, where he briefly worked. “Live Nation is a very centralized company,” he says. “They buy their talent centrally. They make their concession deals centrally. They probably have their alcohol sponsored, and it’s driving whatever they serve in their venues. I don’t know that they give a lot of specialized thought in any given city to what is a great experience.”
You have opened a lot of smaller clubs. How do you identify markets that need another venue?
Since the pandemic, we’ve opened The Eastern in Atlanta, Roadrunner in Boston and the MegaCorp Pavilion in Cincinnati. They’re all doing really well, and we want to continue to add a lot more venues to that list. We’ve got Nashville Yards, which will open up at the end of 2024 or early 2025. We’ve got a venue in Raleigh [N.C.] that will open up in the first half of 2025. These are brand-new builds. As for what markets we look at — any place there’s opportunity. Sometimes that’s a function of a certain capacity room that doesn’t exist in a marketplace.
What size venues are your sweet spot?
We’re focusing on locations with capacities of 1,500 to 5,000. There’s more and more bands that are coming out of this frictionless distribution of music. They are able to sell tickets, so there’s a huge demand for these size venues. The bands can’t find enough dates, and we want to make sure that we service that opportunity.
You’ve opened a club called Racket in Manhattan, a market where you already have a number of small clubs. Why open another?
New York is a market where we’ve invested in very small spaces because it’s a very important developmental market for our relationships and conversations with bands. We feel that finding any venue in Manhattan — in this case, we renovated the old Highline Ballroom —is an opportunity we’re going to look at every single time.
What niche will Racket fill?
Look, in New York there’s a variety of bands that could sell more tickets than probably any other market in the United States. It’s also a first statement-type play. These smaller rooms are where we do a lot of, call it R&D. We build relationships with young bands, and then we want them on a path to play our whole venue portfolio. We hope that carries all the way through to our bigger venues like Forest Hills. It’s a true vertical pipeline where we can service an artist’s needs at any level.
Are small music clubs the new A&R for artists?
I think the internet is A&R for artists. In this day of social media and frictionless distribution, artists can be their own advocates. As far as building a live base, New York is a very important market to start relationships with artists early. In key markets that can handle a lot of shows, we’re going to continue to invest in that.
A lot of live-industry innovations start at the club level. What are your priorities?
What you’re seeing across the board in the industry is the desire for more premium offerings. There’s a huge group of people out there who are willing to pay a little bit more whether it’s for a better seat, a better experience, a better drink, better dining. We’re looking at that, but we’re also tailoring our offerings so that there’s an experience for everybody. We want to make sure that we offer a range of experiences — from cheaper to high-end.
Billboard recently reported that Gen Z concertgoers aren’t big consumers of alcohol. How do you adapt?
We’re keeping a very close eye on that. It’s a big part of the business, and it certainly hasn’t dropped off a cliff. People are still drinking, and we’re doing more offerings, whether it’s nonalcoholic or specialty cocktails. Almost on a daily basis, we look at where our numbers are and try to understand why, but it’s something that’s really hard to see in the moment. You have to collect data, and by the time you see where the trends are going, you hope you’re in a position to adjust to it.
How does your division run differently than, say, Live Nation’s House of Blues chain and its smaller venues?
Live Nation takes more of, I’ll say, a cookie-cutter approach to music. House of Blues is a chain, and it’s the same somewhat uninspired experience anytime you go to one of them. We’re opening brands that we hope speak to their markets and stand with their own identity.
Have you noticed any changes in the way fans buy tickets since the pandemic?
When we first came back, the number of no-shows was much higher than we’re accustomed to. That pretty much leveled off and came back into what you’d call traditional ranges. There are trends where a fan might wait a little longer to buy tickets. That’s more market-specific, and that dynamic has always existed. When I first started in this business at Bill Graham Presents, Detroit was this crazy, huge, late-selling market and would do thousands of tickets week of show at some of the amphitheater properties. It doesn’t sell the same way now. San Francisco has had a lot of changeover in terms of its population. Sales are up, but we see [ticket purchases] shifting a little bit later in the overall cycle. We are seeing more of a strong close to a lot of shows there, and why that is I’m not sure. But as an industry, we’re still selling a lot of tickets early in the game, especially in big arenas and the stadium star category. Business has been incredibly good. You haven’t really heard about a lot of large-scale underperforming tours.
What are the hot genres for ticket sales?
Generally stated, country continues to explode, as well as the land that Zach Bryan and Tyler Childers and even Jason Isbell inhabit — they aren’t traditional-style country. Kelsea Ballerini’s most recent tour is exploding. We’ve also seen incredible results with dance music. If you look at what has gone on at Brooklyn Mirage, which is not in our company, they’ve had what appears to be a record season.
What headwinds do you see?
If there’s a negative trend in the business, it’s that more multigenre festivals have struggled to maintain success. The big experiences like Coachella, Lollapalooza, Outside Lands are stronger than ever. They’re brands that people trust, and the festival experience is great. Below that, some festivals have struggled, while you’re seeing more single-genre festivals — dance, for instance — succeed. Look at Electric Forest. It speaks to a very specific audience, and it’s stronger than ever.
A year ago, indie and smaller acts were canceling tours because they were losing money. Is that still happening?
It has leveled off. A lot of people had sold tickets at a different kind of ticket price before the pandemic and made their budgets on one set of dynamics. Then when it was time to go out and tour post-pandemic, it cost a lot more to be out on the road. If your sales weren’t that good or you weren’t expecting to earn any back-end, you could end up losing money, which is why I think some people pulled down their tour plans. Costs have gotten under control, but it’s still expensive to tour. The challenge for midlevel tours is finding a balance between prices that are welcome among the fan base and the costs of being out on the road. Sometimes you have to find a mix of festivals and soft-ticket money out there to help pay for the markets that don’t cover the nightly bill that you need to earn.
How does the currently high level of inflation affect AEG’s business?
It costs a lot more for security and the labor to run our shows. And again, in some of these big markets where there’s a lot of events going on on a given weekend, it can be hard just to find staff. So managing our labor costs has been a real challenge. We have to look carefully when we do an event and what that costs and if we can make enough money for it to be worthwhile. Sometimes you go into these unique situations where the artist doesn’t seem to make any money because it costs more to do the show, and we’re struggling to make money, but it’s an important look for the artist. So we are all going in with the right goals and intentions to grow that artist’s career so that they make money on their live shows when they come back to that market.
Gary Gersh, president of global touring at AEG Presents, is leaving the concert promotion giant after eight years at the company, chairman Jay Marciano announced in a staff letter on Wednesday (Sept. 13). Rich Schaefer, currently the company’s senior vp of global touring, will step into Gersh’s role as president. “Gary played a vital role […]
Justin Bieber‘s and Scooter Braun’s success has been inextricably intertwined since 2008 when Braun discovered the then-13-year-old singer on YouTube, got him signed to Usher’s record label and became his manager. Braun made Bieber’s career, and vice versa, and their once-flourishing business relationship was arguably the catalyst for Braun adding Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, J Balvin, Idina Menzel and many others to the management roster at his SB Projects, and the subsequent sale of its parent company Ithaca Holdings to Korean K-pop entertainment giant HYBE for $1.06 billion in April 2021 and his appointment as HYBE America’s CEO that followed.
But since then, Braun has moved his focus away from his management business and onto growing HYBE, shepherding massive deals like its $300 million purchase of hip-hop company Quality Control in February. That shift is one factor that’s had Bieber actively looking at how he might extract himself from that relationship with the help of his new music lawyer, David Lande, and prompting Braun’s other star clients to exit as well, sources tell Billboard. Grande is also planning to part with Braun on friendly terms, more because she’s “excited to go in a different direction” and because she’s “outgrown him” than because of his C-suite distractions, a source close to her says: “It’s time for something new.” Menzel, Balvin and Lovato departed earlier this year, on good terms as well, sources say.
But even for the world’s biggest superstars, leaving your manager is easier said than done — and Bieber and his lawyer are still exploring all their options, sources tell Billboard, with a full split not guaranteed. Bieber’s latest moves have included firing his agency, CAA, and hiring a new music lawyer — Lande at Ziffren Brittenham — to replace Aaron Rosenberg, whom Braun had helped hire. (Michael Rhodes, a partner at the Cooley law firm remains Bieber’s general counsel.)
Lande, these sources say, has been looking at how to extricate Bieber from the management agreement with Braun, but there’s a major complication: Bieber is still under contract for about four more years, following a series of amendments to their deal made three years ago, sources say, and standard management contracts tend to favor the manager. To get out entirely free of obligations, an artist must often show that their manager breached the agreement — which generally includes acting outside of an artist’s best interests, such as financial impropriety like siphoning funds. And only in the most extreme examples does a manager being unavailable or unreachable count. (Were that the case, Braun’s team at SB projects would likely give him significant cover: Braun’s lieutenant, Allison Kaye, has been running management as president of SB Projects since 2016.) Sometimes there are performance metrics, but given Bieber and Braun’s stature in the industry, that’s unlikely, music lawyers say.
“If you’re talking about a case where the artist is just no longer content with their current manager and wants to get out of their management deal, they have a high bar to clear,” says entertainment attorney Larry Katz. “The only chance an artist would have is if they can demonstrate a well-documented pattern of failure by the manager.”
That said, many managers and lawyers agree that it is not in anyone’s best interest to hold an artist in a contract against their will. “Slavery is not a thing,” says one manager.
A scenario like this usually results in the artist and manager striking a new deal that involves a lump sum paid to the manager; a commission on future monies made from deals in which the manager was involved; a sunset clause that gives the manager a gradually decreasing percentage of earnings from such deals — or, likely, a combination of these.
Perhaps because of these complications, sources familiar with some of Bieber’s business dealings say he is focused on resolving his predicament with Braun and would not begin a serious search for new management until that objective is completed — or may not seek a new manager at all.
Otherwise, Bieber would need to shoulder the cost of paying two managers until his agreement with Braun either expired or was dissolved.
A new manager would also face limited options for finding new income opportunities. Bieber is still under a recording contract with Def Jam as he currently works on his seventh studio album, meaning there’s no new multi-million-dollar label deal on the immediate horizon. He also sold his publishing, artist royalties from his master recordings and neighboring rights to Hipgnosis for over $200 million earlier this year. And he remains under contract with AEG Presents, which has promoted his concerts since his inaugural My World Tour in 2010.
Under that AEG deal, Bieber likely owes the promoter any advances paid for his tours that haven’t been recouped. This would likely include an upfront signing fee paid to AEG to promote Bieber’s tours, as well as a per-show guarantee — some or all of which would be recoupable against the tour’s ticket sales. These financial obligations are usually settled somewhere between the early planning of the tour and while it’s in progress, but Bieber’s situation is more complicated. That’s because he has repeatedly rescheduled or canceled touring plans over the past three years due to the coronavirus pandemic and personal health issues, which could mean that his deal with AEG has yet to recoup its obligations.
Still, sources agree Bieber remains an appealing client, because of the kind of influence that comes with his superstar stature.
As for the status of Bieber and Grande’s relationship with SB Projects, sources close to Braun’s camp say both artists are under contract but are currently working out new deal structures to account for Braun stepping into his larger role as HYBE America CEO. Sources close to Bieber and Grande say they are also working out new deal structures for the many business ventures they undertook while at SB — in preparation for their potential departures.
“It might take several years for Bieber to wrap up whatever deals he has with Braun and SB Projects, but he’s still a very attractive client,” says a major talent agent executive unassociated with the artist. “He’s young, he’s a proven superstar and he’s motivated to work and make money.”
Additional reporting by Dave Brooks and Elias Leight.
BMI’s recent rate court victory substantially increasing songwriters and publishers’ royalties for live events will be appealed, according to a notice filed by the North American Concert Promoters Association on Wednesday (June 21).
In May, Southern District of New York Judge Louis Stanton awarded the performance rights organization a 138% increase in rate to 0.5% of the event’s “revenue” with an expanded definition of the term to include tickets sold directly onto the secondary market, servicing fees received by the promoters and revenues from box suites and VIP packages. That 0.5% was up from what BMI said was a blended rate of 0.21%, based on 0.3% interim rate for venues that held less than 10,000 seats; and the interim 0.15% for venues that held more than 10,000 during the period of 2018-2022.
At that time, Stanton also set rates for the retroactive period of 2013-2017, with the previously used, less expansive “revenue” definition that only reflected earnings directly from the face value of primary market ticket sales. Those rates ranged from .08% of revenue for venues of up to 2,500 seats to 0.15% for venues with 10,000 or more seats.
On Tuesday, however, lawyers for the concert trade group filed a notice with the Southern District of intent to appeal that decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, according to the filing submitted by Weil, Gotshal & Manges, the law firm representing the concert promoters. The notice to appeal could mean that the group will appeal; or it could be a procedural move that keeps open the option to appeal. The concert trade group had 30 days to file the appeal notice from the last day in court— a few weeks back on a BMI motion regarding interest on whatever fees might be owed from the 2018-2022 term covered by the newly set rates for that period.
In a statement BMI said the concert industry has long fought against rate increases for songwriters.
“Given Live Nation, AEG and [the North American Concert Promoters Association’s] bizarre position throughout trial that concertgoers attend concerts for the experience of the staging, videos and light shows, as opposed to the actual songs and music being performed, their appeal was not a surprise to BMI,” BMI president and CEO Mike O’Neill said in a statement. “For decades, the live concert industry has fought to keep rates suppressed. And even now, when they are making more money than ever, in more ways than ever, they are determined to deny songwriters and composers the fair value of their work, despite the fact that without their contributions, a concert wouldn’t even be possible. BMI will continue to fight on behalf of our affiliates, the creators of the music that is the very backbone of the live concert industry, to prevent that outcome.”
The concert promoters did not. respond to a request for comment at time of publishing. In May, an AEG spokesperson said “AEG Presents and NACPA were defending performing artists, who bear the costs of BMI fees, in this litigation.” Concert promoters have long billed the performing artist for performance rights organizations’ royalty fees.
Concert promoter Goldenvoice of AEG Presents has re-upped its partnership with the historic Santa Barbara Bowl, extended its booking contract through 2032, company officials tell Billboard.
Built in the 1930s under the federal Work Projects Administration as part of President Franklin Roosevelt‘s New Deal, the sandstone-kissed 4,500-seat open-air rock and roll coliseum has hosted concerts by the likes of Bob Marley, James Taylor, Stevie Wonder and more.
Since the early 1990s, the Bowl has been managed by the not-for-profit Santa Barbara Bowl Foundation and programed by long-time talent buyer Moss Jacobs. For most of the 1990s, Jacobs was aligned with concert promoter Goldenvoice, which held the booking contract until the 2001 purchase of Goldenvoice by AEG. Jacobs left Goldenvoice that year and joined Nederlander Concerts as a vp of booking, bringing the booking rights to the bowl with him. In 2016, he quit Nederlander and went back to Goldenvoice, where he works as a Goldenvoice senior vp. Following his 2016 exit, the foundation exercised a key man clause in its contract with Nederlander, allowing it to end its deal and hand booking rights back to Goldenvoice.
“The Santa Barbara Bowl Foundation has been a vital partner,” states Jacobs, “helping Goldenvoice to foster incredible talent at one of the finest outdoor venues in the world. The Foundation understands the significance of partnering with a substantial national organization to benefit this amazing local community. This contract will allow us to build on the foundation of past great events to improve the already amazing stature of the Santa Barbara Bowl.”
Santa Barbara Bowl Foundation executive director Rick Boller said he was “thrilled to sign this booking agreement with Goldenvoice for another decade.” Since taking over management of the facility, the foundation has helped raise over $43 million for capital improvements at the Bowl.
