Business
Page: 145
Anyone who has bought a vinyl record or a CD in recent years knows full well that physical music products aren’t exempt from the inflation that has plagued U.S. consumers.
In fact, the price of a vinyl record in the U.S. rose 25.5% from 2017 to 2023, according to Billboard’s analysis of RIAA data — slightly more than the 24.3% increase in the consumer price index over the same time. CD prices fared a bit better, increasing just 20.4%.
However, while music subscription prices are rising, consumers can probably expect physical music prices to remain somewhat level going forward: Insiders who spoke with Billboard say vinyl prices are remaining steady in 2024 after the COVID-19 pandemic created supply chain problems and raised the costs of everything from raw materials to labor.
As one music distribution executive put it, those supply chain problems are “flattening out.” As a result, turnaround times have improved drastically as manufacturers worked through their pandemic-era order backlogs. “I feel like the prices will flatten, too,” says the executive.
Trending on Billboard
“Our manufacturing prices have been stable for quite a while,” says Bill Hein, CEO of Pressing Business. Freight costs can be improved if a buyer books with flexible dates, Hein says, and reliable sea freight is being used for more of its U.S. deliveries. “Generally speaking, both air and sea freight are more predictable now than they were during the lockdown era, and prices are generally better.”
Outside of the music business, rising prices on everyday necessities have been a fact of life. Tired of the inflation that has eaten into their paychecks, Americans are pushing back against the high cost of staples, and companies are responding with attempts to reduce prices.
In July, PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta suggested consumers had grown tired of more than two years of rising prices. “Some parts of the [Frito-Lay] portfolio need value adjustment,” he said during a July 11 earnings call. Overall sales volume was down 4% in its most recent quarter, and North American beverage sales for the company dipped 3%. PepsiCo will respond, Laguarta said, by offering better deals and increasing advertising. For some consumers, Laguarta added, “we need some new entry price points.”
Companies across the economy are sharing PepsiCo’s experience with price-fatigued shoppers. Walmart is offering more short-term discounts. Target lowered prices. Fast food giants McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Taco Bell are courting customers through low-cost bundles and value-oriented menus. And because it’s an election year, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, has floated a federal ban on price gouging in the grocery and food industries.
Since vinyl prices are based heavily on manufacturing costs, there’s little to prevent prices from creeping up without sellers losing profits. Vinyl retailers set prices based on wholesale costs and their need to cover overhead and other expenses. Artists on record labels must pay the wholesale price for their physical goods and don’t have control over pressing and printing costs, says Paul Steele, executive partner at Triple 8 Management. “Physical prices for our roster of nearly 30 artists have mostly stayed the same for a decade, with small inflationary increases here or there,” he says.
But aside from run-of-the-mill inflation, there are other factors that could push the average sale price higher. Physical music is increasingly a luxury good — a high-priced collectible item with packaging to match. Artists frequently release multiple variants of LPs with colored vinyl. And albums released today commonly have the expensive gatefold packaging that was common in the ‘70s.
The way music is released in the streaming era also drives up prices. Artists take advantage of the unlimited shelf space on streaming platforms by stuffing albums with more songs at no extra cost. As Billboard noted last year, the top 10 albums’ average number of songs rose from 13.2 in 2014 to 19.1 in 2022. A double album on a vinyl record is more expensive, and as one executive notes, putting more songs on an album will often — but not always — require paying more mechanical royalties to songwriters and publishers.
Indeed, some of the most popular vinyl records of the moment are double- or triple-LPs. Post Malone’s 18-track, two-LP album F-1 Trillion sells for $45.89 at Amazon and more at other retailers. Zach Bryan’s 34-track American Heartbreak has three LPs and a $44.98 list price. And that’s not to mention the more extravagant reissues, such as a 2-LP/2-CD/1-Blu-ray package for Van Halen’s For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge that carries a $99.98 list price.
Despite the increase in vinyl prices over the last several years, sales have yet to abate. Will that continue? The answer to that question will likely lie with younger consumers who have less disposable income. Michael Kurtz, co-founder of Record Store Day, says vinyl being a premium, collectible product is toughest on younger consumers. While Record Store Day succeeded in helping turn a new generation on to vinyl records, younger people don’t have as much money and are cutting back on their purchases. “A young customer 18 months ago would come to the counter with two or three records,” says Kurtz. “Now they come to the counter with one or maybe two.”
Catalog titles are often the more affordable option and help offset frontline price creep. Michael Jackson’s Thriller can be had for under $25. Fleetwood Mac’s perennial top-seller Rumours is offered in both affordable and more deluxe versions. Rhino Records’ Now Playing series of compilations for artists ranging from The Stooges to Gram Parsons to John Prine are priced at $19.99.
The good news — for all consumers — is that price growth is reverting to historical norms. The average monthly U.S. inflation rate reached 4.7% in 2021, 8.0% in 2022 and 4.1% in 2023. This year, the average monthly increase in the consumer price index (CPI) is just 3.2% through July. If vinyl prices seem like they’re continuing to creep upward, the packaging and the increasing prevalence of the double album are likely to blame.
Presidential politics has been its own form of pop stardom for decades — certainly since Bill Clinton worked the saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show, and probably since actor Ronald Reagan won the White House. At some point during that time, the party conventions became less like political meetings and more like pop concerts — staged presentations, usually in arenas that also host concerts, where icons perform their greatest hits. This year former president Barack Obama even came out during the Democratic National Convention to present a sly remix of his own tag line as a tribute to vice president Kamala Harris: “Yes she can.”
Like most remixes, this requires some knowledge of the original, so it’s not aimed at everyone — a 25-year-old voter would have been nine when Obama’s “Yes we can” campaign slogan first got big. The point is to rally superfans, excite influencers and inspire enough enthusiasm to pull in some undecided voters. It’s politics as cinematic universe — now with blinking LED wristbands and the “politics of joy.”
Increasingly, the modern way of expressing a worldview is to join a fan army, of a musician, a content creator, or even a politician. Now that pop culture has swallowed everything, fan relationships help people define what tribe they belong to, the way class or place of origin did before the Internet made those things so much less relevant. Supporting former president Donald Trump isn’t so much about favoring his policies, whatever they are, as about liking his frankness (or his insanity) or sharing his sense of grievance. (Isn’t everything rigged?)
The idea of a fan “army,” as opposed to a “club,” implies some kind of tension — or at least a tendency for devotees to define themselves against other tribes. Part of supporting Trump is condemning the media and “the deep state,” just like part of loving BTS is bemoaning that journalists just don’t get how great they are. Sides have always been chosen — think about the Beatles and the Rolling Stones — but now who fans don’t like is as important as who they do.
Not so long ago, politics involved… well, it involved more actual politics. Democrats wanted a bigger role for government, while Republicans like Grover Norquist wanted to drown it in the bathtub. Obama and Trump made it more about personality and worldview — “Yes we can” or “Make America great again.” (To Obama, the arc of history was bending toward justice; to Trump, everything was just going downhill.) Obama had plenty of policy ideas, but he campaigned on hope and change, which are hard to be against — who could run on despair and stasis? Besides, it’s harder than ever to pass ambitious legislation these days.
The conventions, which started as actual meetings and then became appointment viewing for people interested in politics, are now aimed more at fans of a certain party. And they deliver. Most people I know, most of whom are Democrats, think Harris did great, and I agree. But how could she not? She had an enthusiastic audience, good warm-up acts, even nice lighting. Most important, she has the momentum of momentum. The real question is how she’ll do with journalists and how she’d fare in a debate against Trump.
The closest thing to an open question was the potential for disruptive protests over the war in Israel and Gaza, which seemed like they could echo the ones that took place during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, also in Chicago. (With Hamas and Hezbollah firing rockets at Israel daily, it seems weird to refer to this as a war in Gaza.) Back then, anti-war protesters in Grant Park chanted “the whole world is watching” — a line from a Bob Dylan song — as police beat and arrested them. Recently, some did the same, but these days the whole world can now see everything on social media, though they can sometimes struggle to tell if it’s real or generated by AI.
After every big pop culture moment comes the fan army drama. In this case, that means Harris supporters have to convince far-leftists that they’re better off voting for her than staying home. Robert Kennedy plans to endorse Trump, because maybe he can get a look at the Roswell files. And Trump will complain that he’d be much more popular if only the charts were tabulated differently.
In November, we’ll figure out who’s No. 1. Until then, we have to wait and see if Taylor Swift will endorse a candidate — and whether either one will be half as effective as she is at using her dedicated fans to generate mainstream attention.
Universal Music Publishing Group earned the top spot on the Hot 100 Songs publishers ranking for 2024’s second quarter with 27.97% of the market, in large part thanks to Taylor Swift and the 19 songs she landed on the chart. It didn’t hurt that her writing partner Jack Antonoff is also on UMPG’s roster. (He moved there from Sony Music Publishing in August 2023.) Swift’s work accounted for a little over one-third of the 56 songs the publisher had on the Hot 100 during the quarter, up significantly from its 43-song count in the first quarter of the year.
Sony Music Publishing, which typically places first on the Hot 100 publishers ranking, finished a close second with a 27.13% market share and 57 tracks on the chart, including the No. 1 song for the second quarter, Tommy Richman‘s “Million Dollar Baby.” Warner Chappell Music finished third with a 19.87% market share. Its top second-quarter tune was “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” by Shaboozey, one of 47 that it landed on the chart.
Trending on Billboard
Sony nevertheless remained at the peak of the Top Radio Airplay ranking for the 13th consecutive quarter, with a 27.64% market share and 66 songs. Its No. 1 track was “Lose Control” by Teddy Swims, a song in which Warner Chappell and UMPG also have stakes. Sony was also buoyed by the quarter’s biggest Radio Airplay hitmaker — Ashley Gorley, co-writer of “I Had Some Help” by Post Malone featuring Morgan Wallen — plus seven other songs on the chart.
Warner Chappell maintained its second-place ranking among Top Radio Airplay publishers for the third consecutive quarter with a 23.25% market share and 63 songs on the chart. UMPG came in third with 15.82% of the market and 43 songs.
Kobalt held its position as the fourth-largest publisher on the Hot 100 and Top Radio Airplay charts with market shares of 10.74% and 9.44%, respectively, in part due to stakes in the No. 1 songs on both charts.
Despite a tumultuous first half of the year, Hipgnosis turned in a strong performance, finishing fifth on both rankings, with a 4.36% share on Top Radio Airplay and 2.73% on the Hot 100, also thanks to its piece of “Lose Control.” Last quarter, Hipgnosis — whose founder and CEO, Merck Mercuriadis, stepped down in July after private equity firm Blackstone acquired its catalog — was No. 7 on Top Radio Airplay and No. 9 on the Hot 100.
BMG ranked No. 6 on both Top Radio Airplay (3.36%) and the Hot 100 (1.47%), down from the No. 5 ranking it had on both charts in the first quarter.
Three independent publishers fill the entries at Nos. 7, 8 and 9 on the Hot 100 chart. Reservoir Music ranked seventh (1.34%) thanks to its share of “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter, Position Music (1.194%) was eighth due to its stake in “Beautiful Things” by Benson Boone, and Sentric Music Publishing was ninth (1.192%) with help from “End of Beginning” by Djo. The latter two publishers make their first appearances on the rankings.
Last Quarter: Jack Harlow Helped Sony Sweep (Again)
Welcome to another edition of Executive Turntable, Billboard’s comprehensive(ish) compendium of promotions, hirings, exits and firings — and all things in between — across music. While you’re here, we also have a weekly interview series spotlighting a single executive and a regularly updated gallery honoring many of the industry figures we’ve lost throughout the year.
Warner Music welcomed seasoned artist manager and marketer Oscar Scivier as its Hong Kong-based senior director of A&R for Asia. The label said Scivier will work closely with regional management on developing A&R strategies, plus support WMG’s over-arching vision to introduce local artists to global audiences. Scivier was most recently head of music at Digital Arts and Sciences, which followed a five-year run at First Access Entertainment, where he A&R’d Rita Ora, Madison Beer, DJ Regard and others. He also made earlier stops at Ultra Music, working with Steve Aoki, Kygo, OMI and Benny Benassi, and Three Six Zero, where he day-to-day’d Deadmau5 and Michael Woods. “Adding Oscar to our worldwide A&R team strengthens our ability to swiftly seize artist development opportunities and reaffirms WMG’s commitment to providing the best platform for the most impactful and popular talent,” said Kabiru Bello, vp of global A&R at Warner Recorded Music. “His wide-ranging experience as a producer, label manager and artist manager will make him a superb addition to our company’s leading team of A&R executives.”
Trending on Billboard
Stern Management secured the services of industry veteran Marisa Jeffries in the newly created role of general manager. She’ll work closely with the company’s roster, which includes The Black Angels, Phosphorescent, Metric, Finn Wolfhard and others. Jeffries was most recently U.S. lead of label partnerships at TikTok, where she nailed down opportunities for the likes of Taylor Swift, Rosalia, Steve Lacy and Omar Apollo — quality work that earned her a spot on Billboard‘s Women in Music list in 2023. Earlier in her career, Jeffries drove marketing strategy for Sony Music’s catalog division and prior to TikTok she spent five-plus years working label relations at SoundCloud. “I have been constantly inspired by Marisa and her community of colleagues and friends who break artists in new and inventive ways,” said Stern Management founder Nick Stern. “Her superpower has always been drawing out the best in people and building long-lasting partnerships founded on trust, excitement and a love for doing cool things.”
Universal Music Sweden tapped Mattias Caliste to lead the newly launched Def Jam Recordings Sweden. The label’s opening roster includes Asme x Sarettii, Sebastian Stakset and Zikai. His team will include Hamid Jamshidi, Hermon Alemseghed and Mathilda Sachs, plus UMG’s regional and global network. Caliste is a former member of Swedish hip-hop group Fjärde Världen (Fourth World) and was most recently in charge of Virgin Music Sweden, where he worked with artists including 23 and Asme. “Def Jam raised me!” Caliste said. “I grew up on artists like Public Enemy, EPMD, LL Cool J, Redman & Method Man, Warren G and many others who all released some of their most outstanding albums under Def Jam. The label has a legacy that is incredibly important for hip hop as both a genre and a subculture.”
Stern Management secured the services of industry veteran Marisa Jeffries in the newly created role of general manager. She’ll work closely with the company’s roster, which includes The Black Angels, Phosphorescent, Metric, Finn Wolfhard and others. Jeffries was most recently U.S. lead of label partnerships at TikTok, where she nailed down opportunities for the likes of Taylor Swift, Rosalia, Steve Lacy and Omar Apollo — quality work that earned her a spot on Billboard‘s Women in Music list in 2023. Earlier in her career, Jeffries drove marketing strategy for Sony Music’s catalog division and prior to TikTok she spent five-plus years working label relations at SoundCloud. “I have been constantly inspired by Marisa and her community of colleagues and friends who break artists in new and inventive ways,” said Stern Management founder Nick Stern. “Her superpower has always been drawing out the best in people and building long-lasting partnerships founded on trust, excitement and a love for doing cool things.”
Jake Owen and Keith Gale launched Good Company Entertainment Records, a label and artist services appendage of their management company of the same name (sans the ‘Records’ part). GCE Records aims to provide marketing services, digital and creative tools, global distribution and management services for new and established artists, including first signing Styles. “GCE Records is an alternative model to introduce artists and new music,” explained Gale. “Providing key services similar to that of the traditional record label, but dissimilar to the label structure in various facets, our artist partners and their teams have the creative freedoms to remain true to their unique brand of music that sets them apart.”
Chris Walters is now chief financial officer of Gateway Studios & Production Services, a St. Louis-based live events company that provides lighting, audio and high-tech video services for artists and festivals including Phish, Greta Van Fleet, Governors Ball, Professional Bull Riders and more. The “Studios” part of the company’s name refers to the massive, 330,000 square-foot tour and live event rehearsal campus it is currently building in STL’s Chesterfield Valley area. When online, the facility will house five separate studio spaces where events and tours destined for small theaters, stadiums and everything in between can be produced and rehearsed from soup to nuts before hitting the road. Walters has been at Gateway since 2021, following a six-year run at Emerson Automation Solutions.
Top Drawer Merch elevated Robbie McPhail to vp of sales. As part of his new role, McPhail will take lead on sales strategies for both e-commerce and in-person festival/tour merchandising, plus oversee logistics, inventory and shipping matters. McPhail joined Los Angeles-based TDM in 2016, working on-site operations at festivals such as Cali Vibes, Portola, Invisible Friends and dozens more. “His experience behind the booth gives him a unique perspective on which sales strategies are successful and which initiatives need to be implemented in the future,” the company said.
Brett Kaminsky was made partner at Felcher & Freifeld LLP, where the Cardozo School of Law grad has posted up for nearly 11 years. Most recently a senior associate, Kaminsky handles a broad swath of legal matters for F&F’s recording artists, songwriters, producers, managers and entertainment executives, including contract negotiations, licensing and branding matters and performance agreements.
Charlotte-based live events management and production company Midwood Entertainment has Joel Grubb as talent buyer and event producer. Grubb previously served as a promoter at Rival Entertainment in Atlanta, managing outdoor and special events at venues including Sweetland Amphitheatre and Chandler Park Music Festival, and contributing to booking shows at Rival’s venues including Eddie’s Attic and The Earl. In his new role, Grubb will oversee booking for a variety of venues, festivals, concert series, and special events across the southeast and beyond. Grubb also played a key role in developing/curating the indie rock festival Highball. –Jessica Nicholson
Agua Caliente Casinos hired Nick Sitar as the chain’s new director of entertainment. Based in Rancho Mirage, Calif. and reporting to Saverio Scheri, COO, Sitar is tasked with booking artists at all three of ACC’s properties in California. Prior to joining the company, he served as regional director of entertainment programming at Caesars Entertainment, where he handled bookings at all of the company’s non-Vegas properties.
ICYMI:
Christoph Behm
Christoph Behm was named the new CEO of Sony Music Germany, Switzerland and Austria (GSA), replacing Patrick Mushatsi-Kareba, who is exiting the company at the end of August … Jonathan Roberts will spearhead UTA‘s new Christian music division … and former Billboard editorial director Bill Werde will lead Syracuse University‘s new master’s degree in music business as part of the school’s prestigious Bandier Program for Recording and Entertainment Industries.
Last Week’s Turntable: Warner Chappell Promotes Zach Bryan’s A&R Guy
OutKast has filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against an electronic dance music duo called ATLiens – the same name as one of the iconic hip hop duo’s best-known songs.
In a lawsuit lodged Tuesday in Georgia federal court, lawyers for Big Boi (Antwan Patton) and André 3000 (André Benjamin) argue that the name (a combo of “aliens” and their hometown of Atlanta) is a novel linguistic term – and that the rival group is confusing music fans by using it.
“The word ATLiens was invented by OutKast. Before OutKast created it, it was not used in the cultural lexicon and did not exist,” the group wrote. “Defendant’s use of the ATLiens mark is likely to cause confusion, to cause mistake, or to deceive the public.”
Trending on Billboard
Released in 1996, ATLiens is OutKast’s second studio album, featuring the same-name song as one of the singles from the LP. The album spent 33 weeks on the Billboard 200, while the song itself reached No. 35 on the Hot 100 and spent 17 weeks on the chart.
The track, well-received at the time, is “one of OutKast’s most well-known and well-regarded songs,” the lawsuit claims, and the duo “continues to perform ‘ATLiens’ at nearly all (if not every single one) of its full-length live performances.”
According to the group’s lawyers, the rival ATLiens started using their name in 2012 and later registered the name as a trademark. In the suit, Outkast appears to claim that they did not know about the other dance group until recently.
In accusing the EDM duo of infringement, OutKast says the two names are “identical” and used for largely the same thing – musical duos from Atlanta who perform in “related musical genres.” The lawsuit even claims that, thanks to the rival group’s stage costumes, fans might literally think they’re Big Boi and André 3000.
“The duo comprising defendant performs with masks on, thereby concealing their identities such that consumers will mistakenly believe that the members of Defendant are one and the same with – or at least somehow connected to – plaintiff,” lawyers for OutKast write.
OutKast says it attempted to “negotiate an amicable resolution to the dispute” but that ATLiens has continued to use the name in confusing ways – like a poster for an upcoming show in Atlanta that allegedly riffs on a similar poster used by OutKast.
“Management for OutKast has already received communications from third-parties querying whether OutKast was affiliated with defendant’s upcoming show,” the group’s lawyers write.
Reps for ATLiens did not immediately return a request for comment.
In technical terms, the case was filed by High Schoolers LLC, a holding company owned by Big Boi and André 3000 that controls OutKast’s trademarks.
When Home Rule Records owner Charvis Campbell got a cold call from the Office of the Vice President of the United States on May 3, 2023, he felt the way most people would have when confronted by the same scenario: perplexed.
“It felt like an interview, like a background check,” Campbell tells Billboard. “When we were done, I was like, ‘Wait, this is kind of weird.’”
But the calls continued. Next, VP Kamala Harris’ representative asked if anyone from the Uptown Washington, D.C., record store would be in the shop that day and mentioned that someone from the office might stop by. Then, Campbell got another call from a different representative who strongly suggested he stick around. The next thing he knew, the Secret Service came to inspect the 2,700 sq. ft. independent record store — and then the vice president followed.
With a swarm of press around Vice President Harris, Campbell tried to help her around the store by asking what she might be interested in. “I’m like, ‘Okay, you want to talk about Coltrane?’ and she was like, ‘No, I want Mingus.’ She was looking for the real jazz,” says Campbell. “She had that keen sense to want some real hardcore music.”
Trending on Billboard
On May 9, Harris posted a video on Instagram that showed her walking away from HR Records — which specializes in used jazz, soul, R&B, funk and more — with three vinyl records: Charles Mingus’ Let My Children Hear Music (“one of the greatest jazz performers ever”); Roy Ayers’ Everybody Loves the Sunshine (one of her “favorite albums of all time”); and Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald’s “beautiful” collaborative 1959 album, Porgy and Bess.
“It was one of those things that wasn’t planned,” says Campbell, adding that Vice President Harris asked about the challenges of running his small business and engaged with several people who happened to be in the shop. “It was very unexpected, but sincere in the sense of her enjoying the music and wanting to learn more about the shop.
“For me,” Campbell adds, “it was, ‘There’s a lot of other places you can be right now, but the fact that you took the time says you’re supportive of small businesses, but also of our shop.’”
After Harris’ visit and her subsequent clinching of the Democratic nomination for president, Campbell says there has been a notable increase in HR’s social media engagement, and out-of-town visitors will stop by to take a photo where Harris once was. It’s been a boon for one of the rare Black-owned record stores in the country (Campbell estimates there are only about 20 to 30 across the nation), not to mention for such a young establishment.
Campbell and his business partner Michael Bernstein opened HR Records in 2018 with no music business experience between them (though Bernstein had worked as an independent musician many years prior). Campbell had been driving up to Baltimore from D.C. on a regular basis to purchase vinyl from the small independent shop East-West Records until its owner, Bill Coates, informed Campbell the store would be closing for good.
“I would tease the owner and say, ‘Hey, if we bring this to D.C., we’ll make some money,’” says Campbell. “Being the wise sage that he was he said, ‘No, you don’t want to get into the record business.’”
Undaunted, Campbell bought Coates’ entire collection and quickly realized he needed to do something with it. Initially, the collection went into the back of an antique shop for about six months, before Campbell and Bernstein landed on a location for HR Records. In 2018, they opened their doors on 702 Kennedy Street NW and began selling exclusively used vinyl.
Kamala Harris shops at Home Rule Records with ownwer Charvis Campbell in Washington, DC, on May 3, 2023.
MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
HR Records does not lack for inventory, with thousands of records packed into bins and decorating the walls. (“Too many to count,” says Campbell.)
In addition to vinyl, the store carries CDs and merch that each account for roughly 10% of its inventory. The other 80% is a curated collection of rare and used jazz, soul, reggae and African music records. While the store has participated in Record Store Day, Campbell found it overwhelming for such a small and niche shop. “I would prefer to have that ‘68 Blue Note on the wall as opposed to the reissue of it,” he says. “The reissue sounds great, but I’ll go for the original any day.”
To fill the crates with rare vinyl, Campbell has had to develop relationships with a lot of private collectors, which he considers the hardest and best part of his job. “Once we sell that amazing Sun Ra or Coltrane or Eric Dolphy record, it’s gone,” Campbell says. “That’s what I think [Coates] was getting at. It’s going to take time and effort to build up a place where people feel comfortable giving you their records so that records are coming in the door.”
It has taken years for Campbell to acquire many collections, but he says the effort has been worthwhile. Developing those private collector relationships has led to even greater opportunities, like creating The HR Music and Film Foundation, which was born from COVID-relief work the store did for musicians by hosting gigs at the small stage in the back of the shop, filming them and promoting the videos and artists on their social media. After roughly 15 shows, the HR team realized they could get more support if they formed a not-for-profit organization.
Today, the HR Music and Film Foundation produces live musical performances, concerts, film screenings and festivals. It also educates youth in the community through workshops, classes and hands-on experience, allowing them to develop confidence and skills in music production, audio production, filmmaking, photography and graphic design. The foundation’s first project was a documentary on Black Fire Records, a Black-owned independent jazz label that started in D.C. in the 1970s. In support of the film, the foundation launched a local outdoor festival with live music and an evening screening of the documentary in 2022. The third annual Home Rule Music Festival took place in June and the documentary aired on PBS in 2023.
“When I think of the work we’ve done now with our foundation and the documentaries,” says Campbell, “It’s about using the medium of film combined with music which is so powerful in terms of being able to tell stories and educate people and educate our community.”
More in this series: Grimey’s in Nashville, Tenn.; Twist & Shout in Denver, Colo.
Buoyed by its acquisition of See Tickets from Vivendi and strong festival performance, German concert promoter and ticketing company CTS Eventim saw its consolidated revenue jump 21% to 793.6 million euros ($854.4 million) in the second quarter of the year, the company announced Thursday (Aug. 22). Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization fared even better, rising 23.3% to 110.0 million euros ($118.4 million).
The live entertainment division had revenue of 631.1 million euros ($679.5 million), up 19.7% from the prior-year period, and adjusted EBITDA of 36.6 million euros ($39.4 million), up 5.0%. Four of the top five events took place outside CTS Eventim’s home market: Bruce Springsteen in Spain; and Ultimo, Pinguini Tattici Nucleari and Max Pezzali in Italy. The company’s festival portfolio — which includes Rock am Ring, Rock im Park and Nova Rock — is “off to a good start” and advance ticket sales for upcoming festivals “suggest the upward trend is set to continue,” according to a press release.
Ticketing revenue rose 28.5% to 175.2 million euros ($188.6 million) while the division’s adjusted EBITDA climbed 29.5% to 156.6 million euros ($168.6 million). Notably, See Tickets has been included in CTS Eventim’s accounting since that deal was completed in June. Three out of the top five ticketed events, including concerts by Italian rapper Ultimo and South American reggae group Natiruts, took place outside of Germany.
Trending on Billboard
“Through See Tickets and its associated live entertainment activities, we have not only enhanced our market position in two of our focus markets — the UK and the US — but also expanded our team to include additional highly motivated and highly qualified units,” CEO Klaus-Peter Schulenberg said in a statement.
Based on the company’s performance in the first half of the year, the CTS Eventim executive board expects adjusted EBITDA “to grow significantly” in the latter half of 2024. The current quarter will get a boost from CTS Eventim’s role as an official ticketing partner for the recently concluded Paris 2024 Olympics and the Paralympic Games, which run from Aug. 28 to Sept. 8.
Following that optimistic guidance, shares of CTS Eventim rose as much as 10.6% before closing at 87.25 euros ($93.94), up 5.8%. The day’s improvement brought the stock’s year-to-date gain to 39.4%.
Looking further into the future, CTS Eventim is building a sustainable arena in Milan, Italy. Construction began in November and remains on schedule, according to the earnings release. Bidding for the naming rights and VIP suites will begin this fall.
Sony Music Masterworks acquired a majority stake in Black Sky Creative, a company that produces immersive entertainment, experiential retail and live experiences for IP and brands. Black Sky will become part of Masterworks’ live division and focus on creating scalable experiential properties across music, film/TV, gaming and more. Black Sky founder Jeff Delson will continue leading the company’s day-to-day operations, while his partners Lee Rosen and Shannon Ramirez will work to develop new projects for Masterworks in close collaboration with Masterworks president Mark Cavell.
Independent label Oh Boy Records inked a worldwide distribution deal with Secretly Distribution. Oh Boy Records was founded in 1981 by singer-songwriter John Prine and continues to be run by the late artist’s family. Oh Boy’s catalog includes albums from Prine, Kelsey Waldon, Swamp Dogg, Alice Randall and Arlo McKinley. Oh Boy artist Dan Reeder’s album Smithereens and music from folk trio Palmyra will be among the first new Oh Boy titles to be handled by Secretly Distribution’s global team and distribution network. – Jessica Nicholson
Trending on Billboard
Audio Chateau Records, the new label launched by Audio Up Media, raised $4.5 million in funding from investors including Glen Barros, Gillian Hormel and Jonathan Schulman. The label also announced part of its leadership team, with Baros (a managing partner at Exceleration Music) and Schulman acting as Audio Chateau’s first appointed board members. Elsewhere, Grayson Flatness (formerly of Sounds Good) joins Audio Chateau as an A&R consultant and Kate London has been named head of legal & business affairs, a role she also serves at Audio Up Media. Audio Chateau’s artist roster includes Grupo Linea, Uncle Drank, Randy Savvy of the Compton Cowboys and Maejor Audio Sunshine, described in a press release as a “health and wellness supergroup” that features Audio Up founder Jared Gudstadt along with artists Maejor and Bipolar Sunshine.
ADA partnered with former Hall of Fame athlete and banker Travis Wilson‘s FTS Global Management to provide global distribution for FTS’ artists, including The Game, Eric Bellinger and Konshens.
Resale marketplace Tixel partnered with Stuart Galbraith‘s U.K. concert and festival promoter Kilimanjaro Live. Through the deal, Tixel will provide Kilimanjaro with tools that enhance transparency and fairness, including dynamic pricing and secure resale options for fans, while offering insights into Kilimanjaro’s customer base. “We are thrilled to announce Tixel as our partner on a number of KMJ shows,” said KMJ Entertainment head of partnerships Elliott Brough in a statement. “This collaboration marks our first steps towards offering safe ticket resale for fans who can’t attend and ensuring that live music enthusiasts are not exploited by touts. Partnering with Tixel not only provides us with valuable data but also opens up opportunities to develop unique strategies for our future events. “
Spotify partnered with anime brand Crunchyroll, which will now have custom “Curated by Crunchyroll” playlists within Spotify’s Anime hub as well as a “dedicated shelf of content” within the hub, including Crunchyroll podcast Crunchyroll Presents: The Anime Effect. The hub will also boast an editorially curated lineup of playlists including Anime Now, Anime on Replay and Women of Anime. “We are thrilled to partner with Crunchyroll to bring listeners a new curation of anime music to explore,” said Kyota Onishi, Spotify’s head of music in Japan, in a statement. “On Spotify, global streams of anime have surged over the past few years, and we hope the Anime hub will become an indispensable part of anime culture.”
French streamer Deezer signed a multi-year joint distribution partnership with global sports streaming service DAZN. Starting in France, Deezer users will be offered premium access to DAZN, with DAZN offering similar access to Deezer users later in the year. Through the agreement, both companies will collaborate through marketing initiatives and create co-branded sports and music experiences. A global expansion is planned down the road, starting with Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Synchtank, which provides asset, rights and royalty software for the music business, struck a partnership with AI-based stem separation and lyric transcription company AudioShake. Through the deal, Synchtank users will be able to create AudioShake stems directly within their workflows that can then be used for remixes, immersive mixing, fan engagement and more. “Sync deals move fast, and in this industry it’s critical for artists and labels to act quickly,” said AudioShake co-founder/CEO Jessica Powell in a statement. “AI stems help prevent rightsholders from missing out on opportunities and revenue in sync, marketing, or fan engagement. Partnering with Synchtank allows us to bring high-quality sound separation directly into the workflow of rightsholders globally.”
Virgin Music Group partnered with Riot Games to release the soundtrack album for season 2 of the Riot Games animated series Arcane on Netflix. Virgin will distribute the album globally with the exception of China, where Tencent will distribute. The Emmy-winning Arcane, whose first season debuted on Netflix in November 2021, centers on two champions from Riot’s League of Legends game. Season 1 featured Imagine Dragons’ “Enemy” as its theme song, with the overall soundtrack racking up more than 5.6 billion global streams, according to a press release. Season 2 is set to debut in November, with the soundtrack album dropping sometime this fall.
For every superstar artist who takes the stage at an arena or stadium show, there’s a legion of backup musicians, dancers, sound technicians, builders and other crewmembers who make that show happen. And after every performance, they all need a place to sleep.
That’s where Rob DelliBovi comes in. As the founder and CEO of RDB Hospitality, DelliBovi and his team coordinate travel logistics for major global tours by some of the world’s biggest artists, who in the past have included Miley Cyrus, Radiohead and Kaskade. (Presently “under a ton of NDAs,” DelliBovi says he’s unable to comment on current clients.)
“We’re moving, on average, 50 to 100 people to 40 cities in 60 nights,” he says. “There’s a million moving parts.”
Trending on Billboard
While few fans ever consider the logistical aspects of touring operations, it’s a crucial part of the business that involves its fair share of high-stakes drama and over-the-top personalities. For RDB, 2024 has seen its highest volume of business ever, along with its most diverse collection of clients. During peak touring season, the company has as many as 40 tours on the road, with 5-10 touring during slower months.
The coordination process starts when RDB is contracted by a tour manager, the person hired by the artist to handle the logistics — flights, buses, hotel reservations, etc. — of putting a tour on the road. This tour manager presents tour dates to DelliBovi, who then gets to work with his team to hammer out the particulars.
“We arrange add-ons like bus parking that most regular travel people would never handle,” he says. “We need hotels with an underground entrance so no one sees the talent, and it all has to be seamless and not annoying for them.”
After launching the company in 2009 and doing a major expansion in 2017, RDB Hospitality now has a staff of 25 working across touring and related arms of the business, like its car service, and DelliBovi says that overall business doubled after the company added something that few other companies offer: 24-hour support. Staff in Australia field situations that arise in what’s the middle of the night in the U.S. and Europe; weekend staff ensure there’s no minute of the day when someone isn’t available to help with canceled flights or other situations.
“People can call at three in the morning or at 2 p.m. on a Saturday and the person they talk to is not going to be grumpy, they’re going to be ready to go,” he says.” Christmas at two in the morning, we’ve got someone working.”
DelliBovi and his team typically have one to three months to make arrangements after getting the tour schedule. They first coordinate transportation, determining which members of the crew will travel by bus, commercial flights and private jet, although not all famous musicians are as picky as one might think.
“I’ll have the most famous person in the world texting me directly saying, ‘I love Delta,’” says DelliBovi. “Then someone who’s not that famous, like a reality star, and I’m talking to their eighth assistant and they need a private jet.”
After transportation is scheduled, several different types of hotels in each city are booked. Crew members like bus drivers, what DelliBovi calls the “D-party,” will stay in a hotel like a Courtyard by Marriott. The stage crew and others at this level, known as “the C party,” will stay in a Hilton or somewhere commensurate. The “B party” — typically backup musicians — will stay in a more upscale hotel, while the A party, composed of the artist and their core team, will stay in a hotel like the Four Seasons or Ritz Carlton. Options across all four tiers are presented to the tour manager, who makes final decisions, with RDB then booking hundreds of rooms on a credit card provided by the tour manager.
DelliBovi says one of the trickiest elements of the job is when artists request same-day reservations if they’ve decided to take a last-minute one-off trip during off days in a tour, for example.
“People will say, ‘I’m going to Philadelphia right now, where am I staying?’ I’m like, ‘I like the Four Seasons in Philadelphia,’ so they’ll go to the Four Seasons,” he explains. “Then they’re like, ‘I think I like the Ritz better,’ so I’ll cancel the Four Seasons, and they’ll pay a $25,000 penalty for doing that. Then they’ll go to the Ritz and call and say, ‘I was wrong. It’s the Four Seasons I like,’ so we’ll cancel the Ritz and they’ll go back to the Four Seasons. It’s just part of this job.”
DelliBovi says it’s a misconception that artists get rooms for free, particularly at luxury hotels that cater to an exclusive (and rich) clientele that includes politicians, executives and other members of the elite. These hotels charge more not only because they’re luxe, but because they’re built specifically to accommodate the needs of famous people with features like private entrances, secluded restaurant tables and elevators one can enter without passing through a lobby and attracting unwanted attention.
Of course, some artists are harder to please than others.
“Punk bands are always the coolest,” says DelliBovi. “They’re always like, ‘Yeah dude, whatever.’ Most bands are much easier. The big megastars, they’re naturally more high maintenance and choosier about where they want to be.”
He recalls having lost sleep over things like whether an artist would like the types of cheeses on the cheese tray provided in their room, witnessing debauched behavior with drugs and alcohol, helping a boy band deal with 5,000 fans waiting outside their hotel and providing hotels with photos of known stalkers as a safety precaution. (“If you see any of these people anywhere near the hotel, call the police immediately,” he advises hotel security while delivering these photos.) He even uses an alias himself while traveling with clients. Among the wilder requests he’s fielded was a celebrity who asked him to find someone to give them a last-minute colonic in their hotel room.
For that one, he says, “I charged a very high fee.”
But in terms of unsavory behavior on the road, the days of trashing rooms and throwing TVs off the balcony are largely over. “It’s moved more to green juices and yoga and the health and wellness factor,” DelliBovi says. “There are more sober people on the road and more sober tour managers who are specialists in keeping talent sober, too. It’s a good thing.”
Generally, he says, A-list artists fall into two camps in terms of where they prefer to stay. Luxury travelers like a quiet hotel like the Four Seasons that’s very “buttoned up and neutral,” says DelliBovi, while lifestyle travelers want to be in the “cool, hot, fun hotel with a bar that’s always in Page Six.”
Older clients prefer luxury while younger clients choose lifestyle, although, he says, “DJs usually want the peace and quiet of a luxury hotel. DJs produce the most noise in the world for a living, so our DJ clients are always telling us that they have to have quiet.”
Meanwhile, A parties on stadium tours typically include not just the artist, but massage therapists, life coaches, pilates instructors and nutritionists, along with the inner circle of assistants, managers and boyfriends and girlfriends. For RDB, arena tours are the best type to book, given that stadium shows “are so big that they change the way a city works,” making it harder to find the necessary accommodations.
Rob DelliBovi
Courtesy of RDB Hospitality
Given the logistics at play with having multiple tours on the road simultaneously, the most important part of RDB’s work is simply making sure it’s correct. The team includes one staff member whose only job is checking every single reservation 72 hours prior to ensure bus parking spaces will be ready, that the right credit cards are on file and that the overnight hotel manager will be waiting with a stack of keys so the tired crew can go straight to their rooms.
“We can’t make mistakes in this industry,” says DelliBovi. “If a superstar artist shows up to a hotel and their room is not ready, it’s over for us; we’re fired.”
Part of this process also involves preparing staff for who’s showing up. “We sometimes tell hotels, ‘This person’s difficult, just put a very hard-chinned front desk person in place that day, because they’re going to get it.’”
RDB’s concierge service will arrange reservations to an artist’s restaurant of choice in any given city, even (and especially) the ones that are hard to get into. Other facets of the company include a car service and a corporate events arm that leverages RDB’s relationships with big-name clients to book them at private corporate gigs. (“Rob already knows their routing, so I can go to my corporate client and say ‘We can walk this act in here with minimal travel because they’re already on the Eastern Seaboard, as opposed to Rio de Janeiro,” says Elana Leaf, who heads up the RDB events division.) RDB now has roughly 1,000 clients, half of them musicians and the other half made up of sports teams, comedians and more. DelliBovi estimates that his business has 25 global competitors.
DelliBovi got into this niche after running luxury hotels in New York, Los Angeles and other major cities. His job was attracting entertainment business, including music tours, to these hotels. In doing so, he got to know tour managers, and from his vantage point, “I didn’t think it was being done efficiently,” he says. “There were too many times where the travel agent wouldn’t send me the right list of names or arrival time, or didn’t tell me who was who, so we were putting an assistant in a suite and the talent in a regular room.”
He also saw a gap in the market, finding that while a lot of established acts had a travel person they’ve been working with for a long time, no one was catering to the new generation of artists.
“There were no young, fun people doing this,” he says. “We’re a young team who are out there. Most of our competitors aren’t. We’re backstage at concerts. We’re wining and dining. We’re a very sales-heavy company, so we grew this company just by networking within that community and understanding their needs.”
Just a week before a court-ordered auction of Damon Dash’s one-third stake in Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fella Records, there’s a stunning new wrinkle: New York State says he owes more than $8.7 million in unpaid taxes and that the Roc-A-Fella proceeds must be used to pay down the huge debt.
In a motion filed Wednesday in Manhattan federal court, New York’s Department of Taxation & Finance asked to legally intervene in the proceedings ahead of the Aug. 29 auction, in which the United States Marshals Service will auction off Dash’s 33.3% interest in the storied record company.
The tax authorities claim that Dash owes more than $8.7 million in unpaid taxes and penalties from personal income he reported from 2005 and 2018 – and that the Roc-A-Fella auction might be their last shot at recouping a debt that has been “delinquent for far too long.”
Trending on Billboard
“To date, the Department has been unsuccessful in its efforts to collect the unpaid New York State tax debt owed by Dash,” attorneys for the state wrote. “Intervening in this matter may be the Department’s only opportunity to collect some of the unpaid taxes Dash owes to New York.”
The new wrinkle is sure to complicate an already-complex situation. The Roc-A-Fella auction is being held to satisfy an $823,000 judgment against Dash, won by movie producer Josh Webber in a civil lawsuit over a failed film partnership. But New York City’s Department of Social Services will actually have first dibs, since Dash also owes a total of $145,096 in unpaid child support.
In their filing on Wednesday, the tax department stressed that it does not seek to jump ahead of child services in pecking order for auction proceeds. But it offered no such promise to Webber – and pointedly noted that it had secured a lien against the Roc-A-Fella proceeds more a decade earlier than he had.
Set to take place next week at a Manhattan hotel, the Roc-A-Fella auction will have a minimum bid of $1.2 million. The sale will be for Dash’s stake in Roc-A-Fella Inc., an entity whose primary asset is Jay-Z’s iconic debut album Reasonable Doubt. The rest of the catalog of music released by Roc-A-Fella, which dissolved in 2013, isn’t involved.
The owners of the other two-thirds of Roc-A-Fella — label cofounders Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) and Kareem “Biggs” Burke — have already attempted to stop the auction, including making changes to the company’s bylaws and intervening in the lawsuit. But a federal judge rejected such opposition in February.
The auction will be coordinated by Webber’s attorney, Chris Brown, who told Billboard earlier this month that he had received numerous inquiries from potential bidders, including corporate investors, high-profile individuals and collectors. Brown not immediately return a request for comment Thursday on the Department of Taxation & Finance’s request to access the proceeds.
Though the auction’s minimum bid has been set at $1.2 million, it’s entirely unclear how much a potential buyer is going to be willing to spend on Dash’s one-third stake.
The royalties from Reasonable Doubt would likely provide them a revenue stream; since its 1996 release, Reasonable Doubt has racked up 2.2 million equivalent album units in the U.S., according to Luminate, including 21,500 units so far this year. But the eventual buyer also would be a minority owner in a company controlled by hostile partners, with little ability to perform typical due diligence on the asset they’re about to purchase. And Roc-A-Fella’s rights to Reasonable Doubt will potentially expire in 2031 thanks to copyright law’s termination right, which would allow Jay-Z himself to reclaim full control.
If any money from the auction is left over, it will go to Dash himself. In a statement to Billboard last month, his attorney Natraj Bhushan said that he and his client would be at the Aug. 29 event and “expect a robust auction with bids entering the several millions if not higher.” Bhushan did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday on the Department of Taxation & Finance’s request to access the proceeds.