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Danny Hayes is leaving Danny Wimmer Presents, where he has served as chief executive and partner for more than a decade. “When I first started my career as an entertainment lawyer, I never imagined I’d become a festival promoter,” Hayes wrote in email to friends on April 5. “But then I met Danny Wimmer, and […]
Ben Lovett‘s venue management firm tvg is opening its first venue in Los Angeles, unveiling plans today for the Pacific Electric, a 750-capacity open room in the city’s Chinatown neighborhood.
Located next to popular restaurant Majordomo, the venue is set in an old warehouse that was previously owned by Wasserman Music executive and booking agent Tom Windish. Its name is a nod to the trolley system that once crisscrossed downtown LA and beyond.
“For the last 10 years, I’ve kind of been obsessed with venues and the role that venues have in artists stories,” Lovett tells Billboard. “Everything from the air that you’re breathing, to the floor that you’re standing on that really matters. It’s not just a happenstance — it makes the show and for a lot of people the room can be so good that it can bring out transcendental performances.”
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Lovett said he has been working on the project for several years and adds that Pacific Electric will be managed by venue veteran Stacey Levine, who has managed the Wiltern, the Hollywood Palladium and most recently managed the Theater at the Ace Hotel. Lovett said his goal with Pacific Electric is to great a neighborhood room that combines hospitality with intimate sightlights and state-of-the-art audio and dynamic lighting. The venue will have its own bar and cocktail program, along with culinary offerings from a variety of vendors and chefs.
Pacific Electric
Courtesy of Pacific Electric
Lovett tells us that his company partnered with Live Nation on the project, which “was very much intentional on my behalf, given that it’s in LA and I’ve done a bunch of great work with them over the years.”
Pacific Electric will encourage “artists to choose which promoters they want to work with,” noting the club will be operated as an agnostic, open room.
“Artists should be able to elect who they work with every step of the way, and that keeps everyone honest and doing the best work,” Lovett says.
Lovett, a multi-platinum Grammy-winning recording artist with the group Mumford and Sons, has been in the concert promotion business for a number of years through his firm Communion and operated a number of venues the tvg including Omeara and the Social in London, and the award winning Orion Amphitheater in Huntsville, Alabama.
Lovett said his hope for Pacific Electric is to focus on community engagement and cultural events while cultivating ascendent local talent and ready to grow from 500 cap venues.
“I want it to have some grit under the fingernails. I want patrons to feel our honesty and passion and sweat and hard work. It will not feel like a glossy box by any stretch. It will be matte,” Lovett jokes. “I hope that the moment that the first lyric lands, fans will understand what we are working toward and embrace this spiritual experience in kind of an industrial way.”
Pacific Electric
Courtesy of Pacific Electric
Activist Artist Management has named climate activist Wawa Gatheru its 2025-2027 Foundation Fellow.
As part of the fellowship, Gatheru will receive a $20,000 grant and access to a professional team of pro-bono representatives — including management, publicity, legal, business management, agency representation, partnerships and strategic alliances, digital marketing, and content creation representatives — to further her environment-focused work. Activist will also appoint a pro-bono Fellowship Advisory Council of specialists in relevant areas to support Gatheru’s work.
Funding for the grant comes from Activist Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit established by Activist Artists Management to fund advocates and initiatives that protect vulnerable communities and the environment. The announcement comes via Activist founding partners Bernie Cahill and Greg Suess, who serve as co-chairs of Activist Foundation, along with Caitlin Stone Jasper, partner/head of activism for Activist Artists Management. Stone Jasper will also oversee Gatheru’s fellowship.
A Rhodes Scholar and longtime youth climate activist, Gatheru is the founder of Black Girl Environmentalist, a national organization dedicated to empowering Black girls, women and gender expansive people across the climate sector. She sits on boards and advisory councils for organizations including Greenpeace USA, EarthJustice, Climate Power, the National Parks Conservation Association, Good Energy and Sound Future. She was also recently named as a 2025 Sierra Club Trail Blazer Award recipient alongside Quannah Chasinghorse, Bill Nye, William Shatner and Dr. Jane Goodall.
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“I am honored and excited to receive this fellowship from the Activist Foundation,” said Gatheru in a statement. “This support is invaluable. It will allow me to expand my work at the intersection of environmental justice and youth empowerment. I am grateful for their belief in my vision, and I look forward to collaborating with the team at Activist to drive meaningful progress toward a more sustainable and just future for all.”
“Wawa is one of the most impressive young leaders I’ve ever encountered,” added Stone Jasper. “Her vision, her voice and her commitment to building an inclusive climate movement are exactly what the world needs right now. Our whole team is thrilled to welcome her to the Activist family and support the powerful work she’s doing.”
The Activist Foundation created the Activist Artists Fellowship in 2020 to support young activists working to create real change on the world’s most pressing issues. Activist Artists clients include The Lumineers, Bobby Weir, Dwight Yoakam, the Grateful Dead, Dead & Company (co-managed by Irving Azoff and Steve Moir), Leif Vollebekk, The Pretty Reckless, Young the Giant, and Michael Franti & Spearhead.
After years of restoration, research and archive digging, the Les Paul Foundation has opened the Les Paul Recording Studio as part of the historic United Recording facility in Los Angeles, California.
Anyone who rents out the new Les Paul Recording Studio will have full access to record with Paul’s immaculately restored 8-track mixing console, known as The Monster, and Paul’s Ampex 5258 Sel-Sync 8-track recorder, known as The Octopus, which is widely credited as the first-ever 8-track recorder. The gear has also been revamped to allow for it to be hooked up to a digital audio workstation and used as a modern console.
“It’s like having the Wright brothers’ plane and actually being able to fly it,” says Tom Camuso, director of audio engineering.
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The new studio brings Paul’s recording equipment back to Hollywood, where he first invented them, after a long stint in the Mahwah Museum in Mahwah, NJ. Paul built these tools in the 1950s in the garage of his nearby Hollywood home when recorded music technology was incredibly limited. Over time, the multi-genre guitarist, producer and inventor developed what he called his “New Sound,” which included pioneering revolutionary techniques like multi-track recording, sound-on-sound, close miking, overdubbing, speed manipulation, echo and more.
Paul also had a hand in creating the solid-body electric guitar, of course. Among the other perks of the Les Paul Recording Studio, musicians will now be able to check out a number of Paul’s early electric guitars as well as a vast archive of his photos.
“We’ve painstakingly restored Les Paul’s original gear to working condition, allowing today’s artists to record using the exact tools that revolutionized popular music. Combined with the newest technology and digital recording tools, the Les Paul Recording Studio will welcome musical artists, producers, engineers and students to a new and innovative studio environment that is the only one of its kind in the world,” says Michael Braunstein, executive director of the Les Paul Foundation.
The studio will also act as a place for students to learn about Paul’s contributions to the history of recorded music and to record their own compositions. For more information about the studio, visit les-paul.com.
Sean “Diddy” Combs and federal prosecutors are locked in a pre-trial battle over a crucial question: Whether jurors can hear testimony from numerous other accusers beyond the four women at the core of the government’s case.
In dueling court filings Monday, attorneys for the two sides exchanged heated arguments over the prosecution’s plan to call witnesses that it identifies as “non-statutory victims” – women who say they were sexually assaulted by Combs but whose claims don’t form the basis for the actual charges.
Diddy’s lawyers say the feds are trying to “pollute the trial with decades of dirt” by adding last-minute “incendiary” claims to paint him as a “bad guy”; prosecutors say Combs is “desperately” trying to keep relevant testimony about his other intent and knowledge “hidden from the jury.”
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“That testimony powerfully establishes that the defendant made no mistake when he coerced other victims into unwanted sex,” the government wrote in its filing Monday. “It proves that the defendant intended to take the sexual gratification he wanted, regardless of consent.”
Combs was indicted in September, charged with running a sprawling criminal operation that aimed to “fulfill his sexual desires.” The case centers on elaborate “freak off” parties in which Combs and others would allegedly ply victims with drugs and then coerce them into having sex, as well as on alleged acts of violence to keep victims silent.
A trial is currently set to start on May 5. If convicted on all of the charges, which include sex trafficking and racketeering, Combs faces a potential life prison sentence.
The actual criminal counts against Diddy center on four alleged victims, identified in court documents as Victim-1, Victim-2, Victim-3, and Victim-4. While Victim-1 is known to be Combs’ ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura, the identities of the others are unknown and prosecutors are seeking to keep it that way.
On Monday, attorneys for Combs lodged a scathing filing claiming the government had “suddenly” moved to add new accusations from other alleged victims beyond those four women. They claimed the “incendiary” new claims of sexual assault were “substantially more serious” than the actual sex trafficking and racketeering allegations – and would “make it impossible for Mr. Combs to receive a fair trial.”
“The government should not be permitted to pollute the trial with decades of dirt and invite a conviction based on propensity evidence with no proper purpose by painting Mr. Combs as a bad guy who must have committed the charged crimes,” his lawyers wrote.
Diddy’s lawyers say such testimony would not only “double the length of a trial,” but is improper “character evidence” – material not directly linked to the alleged wrongdoing that’s designed to convince jurors that a defendant could have committed the crime.
“This tactic cannot be allowed to succeed,” Combs’ lawyers wrote in their filing. “If the government’s evidence were allowed, it would mark one of the worst abuses of the character evidence rule in the history of American law.”
Later on Monday, prosecutors fired back to defend their plan, arguing that Combs himself had opened the door to such testimony by planning to argue that the alleged victims had consensually partaken in the “freak offs” and other sexual activity. They say testimony about other numerous other assaults will clearly disprove such a defense strategy.
“When the defendant inevitably argues at trial that he had no clue these four women did not want the sexual experiences that he demanded, the government should be able to point out that someone as practiced as he is in sexual assault surely recognized the signs of non-consent,” prosecutors wrote. “And when the defendant claims that he only ever intended to have consensual, loving sexual experiences with the [charged] victims, the government should be able to point out his repeated intent to sexually gratify himself with unwilling participants.”
Neither side disclosed in court filings who the new alleged victims are, or how many of them the government plans to call as witnesses. But Combs’ lawyers said that “all but one of the alleged incidents happened over twenty years ago” and that the new accusations “implicate dozens of unidentified witnesses and alleged co-conspirators around the world.”
Artists working with record labels in Latin America have a higher percentage of monthly listeners and generate more revenue on digital platforms than those who are self-released, according to a new report by Worldwide Independent Network (WIN) and the Latin American Independent Music Observatory (OLMI) on digital distribution in the region.
The report also shows that “the existence of local infrastructure (such as digital distributors) is related to higher levels of professionalization, income and knowledge of the digital value chain by artists, for example in relation to the types of existing contracts and the terms offered.”
Released on Tuesday (April 8), the study — which was conducted between 2023 and 2024 — analyzes the situation in eight countries, including Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Paraguay, and highlights how artists’ presence on digital platforms and affiliation with independent record labels positively influences their economic sustainability.
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“These results reinforce the notion that the structural and financial support that labels provide to artists is key to their success in the music ecosystem,” Noemí Planas, CEO of WIN, said in a press release. “Public and private investment to promote a professional music infrastructure in the region is key to ensure the growth of all players.”
One of the challenges the music industry faces in the region is the “heavy reliance on live performances,” the report states. That’s because “although more than 60% of artists generate income through streaming, less than 10% earn more than US$5,000 per year,” it notes. The report adds that “artists with more than 500 monthly listeners barely represent 30% [of artists]” — meaning a large majority may be affected by the recent royalty payment reforms introduced by the major streaming platforms that contemplate the demonetization of content below certain thresholds of streams and listeners.
The study found that almost a third (32.2%) of respondents market their music through distributors that have recently integrated — or are in the process of integrating — with majors, denoting a trend towards market consolidation.
“Consolidation in the music sphere is concerning because of its impact on the dissemination of Latin American independent music, especially in the digital market, where we see that there are fewer and fewer independent operators,” Planas adds. “The concentration of power, information and access channels in the hands of three large multinationals translates into worse conditions for independents, such as streaming models that demonetize their content and that they have no choice but to accept.”
The report highlights the importance of strengthening the relationship with record labels and investing in the education of key players. “[It] reaffirms the need to consolidate a professional, informed and collaborative ecosystem in Latin America,” Cristóbal Dañobeitia, director of OLMI, said in a statement. “The union between key players and investment in education, research and technology are essential to ensure equitable and sustainable growth.”
Titled “La Música Independiente en Latinoamérica: Cadena de Valor y Distribución Digital” (“Independent Music in Latin America: Value Chain and Digital Distribution”), the study was commissioned by WIN and developed by an interdisciplinary team of experts from OLMI, in collaboration with trade associations ABMI, IMICHILE and AMI PY, as well as AMPROFON, Sociedad Chilena de Autores e Intérpretes Musicales (SCD), Alianza Francesa Costa Rica and Universidad de los Andes.
To access the full report (in Spanish) click here.
Island Records has promoted Marshall Nolan to executive vp, head of commercial strategy. Based in New York, Nolan reports directly to Imran Majid and Justin Eshak, co-chairmen and CEOs of Island Records.
In his enhanced role — he was previously svp — Nolan will continue leading streaming, physical and D2C strategy for the label. Since joining UMG in 2022, he has been pivotal to the breakthrough campaigns of Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan, the development of rising stars Gigi Perez, Lola Young, and Charley Crockett, and the continued success of Bon Jovi, Shawn Mendes, Demi Lovato and The Killers.
Last September, Nolan was recognized as Billboard’s executive of the week for his role in orchestrating the leave-no-stone-unturned commercial strategy (radio promo, streaming, multiple variants to boost sales) behind Carpenter’s album Short N’ Sweet, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. “The plan from the start was that every detail mattered,” Nolan told us. “We knew to double down on her strengths, in areas like e-commerce, and once we built a rhythm there, it afforded us the time to nurture elements that still had room for growth.”
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Prior to joining UMG, Nolan spent five years at Columbia Records as senior director of the commercial team, working on key projects for artists such as Adele, Harry Styles, Hozier, Beyoncé and The Neighbourhood.
Eshak and Majid expressed their excitement about Nolan’s promotion, highlighting his leadership, deep understanding of music and visionary approach to commercial strategy. “His strong, trusted relationships with our label’s artist roster and their respective teams have led to some of the most exciting commercial marketing campaigns in recent memory,” they said in a joint statement. “We’re excited for his next phase and the opportunities he’ll bring to our team and artists we support.”
Nolan emphasized the artist-first culture at Island, saying “Nothing is off limits if it benefits the artist, which opens up the boundaries and enables us to effectively deliver at the highest level on their behalf.”
The executive is also committed to philanthropy, raising awareness and funds for metastatic breast cancer research through organizations like BCRF and The Pink Agenda, inspired by his sister-in-law cancer battle.
Nashville’s Ascend Amphitheater is getting a new operator.
Metro Nashville has notified Ryman Hospitality Properties (RHP) that it intends to have RHP’s Opry Entertainment Group (OEG) operate Ascend Amphitheater for the next decade. The deal is subject to successful negotiation between the two parties. Axios first reported the news.
Colin Reed, executive chairman of RHP’s board of directors, tells Billboard he expects the negotiations to conclude within the next three months and that the 10-year contract will take effect Jan. 1, 2026. It’s a realization of a dream for RHP that began even before the 6,800-capacity outdoor venue opened in 2015. “We applied for this a decade ago when the city was deciding they were going to build [Ascend],” he says. “We and Live Nation bid 10 years ago. We loved the space then and we really love the space now.”
RHP has aready committed capital to “beautify the project,” Reed says. “Upgrade it and make it more of an experience for the consumer.”
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RHP was selected over Live Nation and AEG. “We really put our front foot forward here, so we always thought we had a shot, but beating two companies that, quite candidly, we have a high degree of regard for — AEG, that handles all of our ticketing in all of our venues, as well as Live Nation, who we have a healthy relationship with — we were very pleased,” Reed adds.
Ascend has averaged 20 to 30 concerts a year, primarily during the summer season, but Reed says he expects to substantially expand activity at the venue.
A cap on 35 shows per year was put in place when the amphitheater opened because it is in a residential area, Reed says, but “the issue for us is this is one of the great pieces of real estate in the city of Nashville and how do we activate it for the other 330 days a year because it should not be kept fallow for that period of time. We can do daytime programming. We can do Opry Under the Stars. We’ve spent quite a bit of time talking with the symphony. There are multiple ways in which we can activate this space.” He is also eager to bring holiday offerings to the Ascend from Thanksgiving to the end of December.
Ascend will be an open room, meaning other promoters, including AEG and Live Nation, can promote shows there. “We want to maintain a good relationship with those businesses,” he says. “We’ll talk to anyone that wants to play this great city.”
Ryman Hospitality’s OEG also runs Nashville venues the Ryman Auditorium and the Grand Ole Opry House, in addition to having partnerships with Luke Combs‘ Category 10 venue and Blake Shelton‘s Ole Red.
Live Nation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the 1980s, it was considered a win when a small venue like the 9:30 Club only lost $100,000 in a year. Back in ‘86, when promoters Seth Hurwitz and Rich Heinecke (Hurwitz’s former high school substitute teacher) purchased the six-year-old, rat-infested 200-capacity space from married couple Jon Bowers and Dodi Disanto, they knew it was more of an investment than a money-maker.
“The 9:30 was a loss leader,” Hurwitz tells Billboard, “but I needed to do the small acts so I could get them on the big stage like R.E.M., Smashing Pumpkins.”
Those were the rules of regional concert promotion before the giant national corporations like Live Nation and AEG entered the picture. Every region would have a closed network of promoters — “famously designed and perpetrated by Frank Barsalona and Premier Talent,” Hurwitz explains — and to make your way in, you had to start from the bottom.
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Hurwitz can’t say for certain why he always wanted to put on concerts. He speculates that maybe it stems from his love of presenting music to others. In elementary school, he’d skip outside time during recess to play records he brought in, and, at home, he played disc jockey, setting up a little electronic kit where he could broadcast radio just far enough for his household to hear in other rooms.
More likely, he believes he got into the business to feel important and integral to the live music experience. “[I wanted to put on shows] probably so I could go anywhere in the show. In fact, I hate going to other people’s shows because I get told I can’t go here or there and I hate that,” he says.
9:30 Club
John Shore
In his teens, Hurwitz began booking shows at a local movie theater with a stage; he later moved up to larger shows with Heinecke’s financial backing.
“When it came time to put on a show, [Heinecke] had the money and I had been to New York to visit agents with the promoter Sam L’Hommedieu Jr.,” says Hurwitz of tagging along from D.C. with the co-founder (along with Jack Boyle) of the 162-seat club Cellar Door. “It was just one trip, but I learned a lot. Probably the most important thing I learned was how to pass [on booking an act], which is a lost art.”
In his early twenties, Hurwitz and Heinecke’s promotion company, I.M.P., was working in tandem with Ian Copeland, who was emulating Barsalona’s promoter network in the D.C. metro area. I.M.P. booked the smaller shows in the region at the Ontario and eventually the original 9:30 Club, where they became the exclusive bookers. By 1986, Disanto was done taking the financial hit of running a small club and sold it to I.M.P.
“She was like, ‘Here, you buy it. I’m sick of this.’ And we did,” says Hurwitz of his first venture into venue ownership. By booking shows at the 9:30 Club, Hurwitz and Heinecke had been able to grow with acts as they progressed to money-making shows at arenas, and though he says he didn’t have an interest in buying the club, Hurwitz knew they couldn’t allow the entry point for their talent pipeline to dry up.
Until it did.
In 1993, Dante Ferrando and a group of investors that included then-Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl opened the neighboring venue Black Cat, which could be scaled from 500 to 800 capacity.
“Now there was another [club] with a bigger stage, bigger dressing room, bigger capacity, and all our so-called friends walked,” says Hurwitz. “It was a hard lesson to learn.”
In order to compete, I.M.P. purchased another old venue in a neglected part of town and moved the 9:30 Club to its current location at 815 V Street in January 1996.
“We wanted to create the greatest club ever — never an argument again. No question where people would play,” says Hurwitz. “We invented the mega club. The challenge was at the 9:30 Club, we got all these acts, we got the history (which was honored at that time, not so much now) because we had the best small plays. We still needed the best small plays. We needed to have the best big club and the best small club.”
For the new V Street 9:30 Club, they created a moving stage that could shrink the room from 1,200 to 300 without anyone noticing. And they wanted to move away from the old rock’n’roll ethos of a smelly, dirty black box like the former space. The new 9:30 Club serves good food, has great sightlines, is never too hot (the venue invested in extra AC units to be sure) and the staff is always kind to fans.
9:30 Club
Richie Downs
Another point of pride for Hurwitz is the lack of sponsorship around the 9:30 Club. There is no signage with corporate sponsors. There is no VIP area, balcony seats don’t sell for more money and, most importantly, they do their best to keep ticket prices low.
“It’s an egalitarian sort of situation. It is not this velvet rope kind of thing. You go with your people, you’re treated nicely, you’re not uncomfortable and you have fun,” he says.
The current 9:30 Club opened in January 1996 with two sold-out shows by The Smashing Pumpkins and it’s continued to build its reputation from there. In its nearly 40-year history, the venue has hosted such legendary acts as Tony Bennett, Bob Dylan, Adele, Iggy Pop, Drake, Justin Timberlake, James Brown, Lou Reed, George Clinton, Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson, Radiohead and countless more.
I.M.P. has grown with its artists and now also owns and/or operates the 1,200-capacity Lincoln Theater, the 2,500- to 6,000-capacity Anthem (both in D.C.) and the 19,000-capacity Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Md. In 2023, I.M.P. spent $10 million to build another small club, the 450-capacity Atlantis, which is a replica of the original 9:30 Club minus the smell. While Hurwitz says small clubs are still “a losing proposition,” The Atlantis helps feed bands to the 9:30 Club and I.M.P.’s larger clubs from day one via the company’s promotion and marketing. “It’s not just a placeholder,” he explains. “We want to make you bigger so that we will make more money next time.”
That strategy has panned out for I.M.P. through the lost art of the pass. “We do pass on things that we don’t think are cool enough for the 9:30 Club. A lot of the acts that don’t play us, we actually passed on. So, I’m sorry, but people count on us to curate,” says Hurwitz. “We don’t have enough dates to do the acts we want to do. Why would I do something that I think sucks or has no potential?”
Sean “Diddy” Combs’ ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura will testify against him under her real name at his looming sex trafficking and racketeering trial, according to new court filings.
Ventura, whose civil rape lawsuit triggered the rapper’s downfall, will not use the pseudonym “Victim-1” when she takes the stand at his May trial and will instead “testify under her own name,” federal prosecutors told a judge in filings on Friday (April 4). But three other alleged victims of Combs should remain anonymous in court filings and at the trial, prosecutors wrote.
“This case has already received an exceptional amount of media coverage, which will presumably only increase as trial proceeds,” the government lawyers wrote. “Permitting these measures will prevent unnecessary public disclosure of the victims’ identities, and the harassment from the media and others, undue embarrassment, and other adverse consequences.”
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Combs, also known as Puff Daddy and P. Diddy, was once one of the most powerful men in the music industry. But in November 2023, Cassie filed a civil lawsuit claiming he had repeatedly physically abused her over the course of their decade-long relationship, including one instance of rape. That case quickly ended with a settlement, but it sparked a cascade of allegations that has not yet stopped.
In September, Combs was indicted on charges that he misused the “employees, resources, and influence” of his business empire to “fulfill his sexual desires.” The case centers on elaborate “freak off” parties in which Combs and others would allegedly ply victims with drugs and then coerce them into having sex, as well as on alleged acts of violence to keep victims silent.
A trial is currently set to start on May 5. If convicted on all of the charges, Combs faces a potential life prison sentence.
Since filing her civil lawsuit under her real name, Cassie has been known as one of Combs’ accusers, but she has been listed in court documents only as “Victim-1.” The identities of three other women cited in court documents as Victim-2, Victim-3, and Victim-4 remain unknown.
In Friday’s filing, prosecutors said they wanted to keep it that way. They cited recent cases against R. Kelly, Ghislaine Maxwell and others in which judges allowed alleged victims to remain anonymous.
“The practice of allowing alleged victims of sexual abuse to testify under a pseudonym has been widely permitted because requiring alleged victims to publicly provide their names could chill their willingness to testify for fear of having their personal histories publicized and may cause further harassment or embarrassment,” prosecutors wrote. “There is no reason for this Court to deviate from that well-established practice here.”