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Southern California concert promoter Goldenvoice, a subsidiary of AEG Presents, announced a new round of promotions for its talent-buying group on Tuesday (Oct. 29).
Talent buyer Becky Rosen-Checa will segue from booking shows at the historic 500-capacity Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood and the 770-capacity El Rey Theatre in L.A.’s mid-city to the 2,000-capacity Fox Theater in Pomona, as well as one-off L.A.-area shows for Goldenvoice. She will also help book gigs at Goldenvoice shows at Los Angeles State Historic Park and Brookside at the Rose Bowl, as well as festival properties Palm Springs Surf Club and Desert Air.
“After two very fulfilling years at the Roxy and El Rey, I’m excited to transition into my new role booking the Fox Theater in Pomona, festivals such as Desert Air & GV Surf Club, and other fun stuff around LA,” said Rosen-Checa in a statement. “Having started out at this company as the receptionist, I am grateful to those at Goldenvoice who believed in me and helped me get where I am today. I look forward to booking many cool shows and festivals for many years to come!”
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Henry Huerta, Rosen-Checa’s booking partner, will continue to handle booking duties at the Roxy and El Rey alongside newly-promoted talent buyer Montreh Nariman-Hassanabadi, who noted in a statement, “I aim to break barriers in live music by amplifying the voices of international acts, particularly Middle Eastern artists,” with plans to “create a vibrant cultural experience that resonates with all.”
Elsewhere, Chavanté Flakes, who joined AEG Presents in 2022, has been promoted to talent buyer at The Novo, where he joins current Novo talent buyer Gaston Leone. And in San Diego, Candace Mandracia has joined the company to help book shows in the area after most recently working at AEG Presents’ Las Vegas office. At AEG, Flakes will now book shows at San Diego’s Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, Humphreys and the venues at Pechanga Casino.
Said Mandracia in a statement, “I’m so excited to be back in San Diego, promoting concerts with John Wojas again. We have years of experience in the market together, and I look forward to being a part of the local Goldenvoice team!”
“It’s really gratifying to see someone grow and develop and to be able to recognize and reward that hard work,” added Melissa Ormond, COO at Goldenvoice. “To be able to do that with four individuals at one time is truly extraordinary. Becky, Montreh, Chevanté, and Candace all are great examples of the spirit we try to foster across Goldenvoice, and I’m thrilled to see them take these next steps on their collective career paths.”
Accomplished talent buyers and entertainment executives Jenn Yacoubian and Stacy Vee have been appointed executive vps at Goldenvoice, the AEG Presents-owned concert and festival promoter behind marquee events like Coachella, Stagecoach, Just Like Heaven and more. Vee and Yacoubian will oversee the booking department, headquartered at Goldenvoice’s offices in Los Angeles, while continuing to act […]
English metal legends Judas Priest are playing Power Trip festival in Indio, California, after rocker Ozzy Osbourne announced Monday that he would not be performing at the metal-themed festival produced by Goldenvoice.
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Osbourne had been scheduled to perform alongside AC/DC, Guns N Roses, Tool, Metallica and Iron Maiden Oct. 6-8 but pulled out of the festival Monday, telling fans in an Instagram message “My original plan was to return to the stage in the summer of 2024, and when the offer to do this show came in, I optimistically moved forward. Unfortunately, my body is telling me that I’m just not ready yet and I am much too proud to have the first show that I do in nearly five years be half-assed.”
He continued, “The band that will be replacing me on Power Trip will be announced shortly. They are personal friends of mine and I can promise that you will not be disappointed.”
Power Trip is taking place at the Empire Polo Field, the same site used to host the annual Coachella music festival, as well as the annual Stagecoach country music festival. It follows the Goldenvoice-produced Desert Trip festival in 2016 that was headlined by the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Roger Waters, Neil Young, Bob Dylan and The Who. Ticket prices start at $599, covering all three days. Single-day tickets are not currently for sale.
Judas Priest toured extensively in 2022 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that year, but does not currently have any shows on the books for 2023. The band is booked to play a European tour in spring 2024. Led by vocalist Rob Halford, Judas Priest has toured extensively with Osbourne and had been scheduled to tour with him in 2022 before that tour had to be postponed for health reasons.
Osbourne’s health struggles also led to a March announcement that he was canceling his upcoming 2023 U.K. and European tour dates due to a spinal injury.
“My singing voice is fine. However, after three operations, stem cell treatments, endless physical therapy sessions, and most recently groundbreaking Cybernics (HAL) Treatment, my body is still physically weak,” Osbourne wrote on Instagram at the time.
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.
Frank Ocean’s decision to cancel his second of two performances at Coachella this weekend will likely cost the festival several million dollars, sources tell Billboard — losses that the festival will try to offset, in part, with finding new uses for the giant ice pad the company created for Ocean’s long-awaited performance.
A source close to the situation tells Billboard that festival promoter Goldenvoice is trying to make the best out of the millions of dollars spent on building a giant ice pad that was supposed to accommodate over 100 skaters during Ocean’s set last Sunday night but was scrapped at the last minute after the artist suffered an ankle injury. The ice pad cannot be used as a public ice rink, the source says, but the Goldenvoice team is working out how to incorporate it into another yet-to-be determined performance.
Ocean was to be paid $4 million for each of his two Coachella performances, for a total of $8 million, sources say. Since Ocean is not performing for the second weekend, he will only be paid for the first weekend’s performance. Goldenvoice, however, will still need to pay Blink-182 that same $4 million rate for their replacement one-hour headlining set on Sunday, sources say, and will also need to pay the newly announced Skrillex, Four Tet and Fred again.. combo for their closing set.
Typically, festival promoters pay an artist a performance rate and also cover basic production needs such as staging, sound, lighting and video boards. The artists will cover all additional production elements from their fee that are unique to their performance such as musicians, dancers, performers and other major visual elements.
In Ocean’s case, however, the most expensive part of his production — the custom ice pad— was built by Goldenvoice and came with significant energy costs. So, while Goldenvoice had planned to recoup that cost from his performance fees, sources say the production costs Ocean racked up exceed the $4 million he earned for the first weekend. That means Ocean failed to turn a profit from his Coachella appearance and that the festival will have to eat the remaining loss — for which it is highly unlikely to demand repayment.
Ocean also racked up about $45,000 in curfew fines during his set, which played 25 minutes past the mandatory midnight curfew imposed by Indio, California, city officials. However, a source close to Ocean says those fines are Goldenvoice’s fault, claiming Ocean’s set started an hour late because festival staff took an additional 50 minutes to change over the stage from Bjork’s set to Ocean’s set.
Despite the curfew fines, which added up to $133,000 over the weekend, according to officials with the city of Indio, the millions of dollars spent on an unused ice sheet and extra talent costs, Goldenvoice is still likely to make a profit from the festival. In an average year, Coachella grosses more than $115 million in ticket sales across both weekends and makes tens of millions more in food, beverage and hospitality.
Coachella’s second weekend kicks off Friday (April 21) in Indio.
Head in the Clouds is headed to the East Coast. The signature festival by 88rising — a music and media company amplifying Asian talent and culture — will take over Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, N.Y., from May 20-21 during Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
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“88rising started in New York City, from a parking garage in the Bronx to where the first employees came together where we sat in a room in a shared space in Brooklyn to lay the foundation of what 88rising is,” said 88rising CEO and founder Sean Miyashiro in a statement to Billboard. “It was the most magical time of my life – the whole experience of building and things starting to happen, is the best part of all this. All of this happened in New York City, winter, spring, summer fall – through the seasons it’s where 88rising took shape and I’m beyond proud and to me it’s only fitting that this was all born there. It’s especially meaningful to be able to do it at an iconic venue like Forest Hills Stadium during its 100th anniversary!”
This marks the first time the Head in the Clouds festival has branched out to a new market in North America following a successful run in Los Angeles (2018-19, 2021-22) and 2022 festivals in Jakarta and Manila. It also represents a homecoming for 88rising, which was founded in New York City back in 2015. The East Coast festival will be produced alongside frequent 88rising collaborator and Southern California promoter Goldenvoice (Coachella, Stagecoach), as well as new partner The Bowery Presents.
“We are thrilled to welcome Head In The Clouds Music & Arts Festival to Forest Hills Stadium in Queens this May,” said Jim Glancy and John Moore, partners at The Bowery Presents, in a statement provided to Billboard. “Head In The Clouds is already renowned in Southern California thanks to our partners at 88rising and Goldenvoice, and we are excited to launch on the East Coast at one of the most iconic locations in New York City.”
The New York festival’s lineup will include NIKI, Rich Brian, ITZY, beabadoobee, DPR Live & DPR Ian, MILLI and XG. Plus, artists such as Masiwei, Atarashii Gakko!, P-Lo, Raveena, Warren Hue and more. Check out a full lineup below.
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This year, Head In The Clouds New York Music & Arts Festival will be partnering with non-profit organization Heart of Dinner, an organization directly addressing food insecurity and isolation experienced by Asian American seniors—two long-standing community issues heightened by the pandemic. The festival will be donating $1 per ticket to Heart of Dinner and working with them on activating on-site.
Tickets for Heads in the Clouds New York will go on sale March 20 at 10am ET. Fans can register for passes now.
Long Beach is the laboratory for a half-dozen sustainability initiatives at this weekend’s annual Cali Vibes music festival at the city’s Marina Green Park.
Headlined by Snoop Dogg, Jack Johnson, Slightly Stoopid, Damian Marley, Ben Harper, Cypress Hill and many more, the popular reggae and West Coast hip-hop festival will be ground zero for new efforts by promoter Goldenvoice to dramatically reduce waste, decrease the event’s carbon footprint and use materials from last year’s festival to create merch and apparel for 2023 fans.
The challenge for Cali Vibes — like all other festivals — is that most festivals are not considered environmentally sustainable due to the amount of attendee travel involved, the energy consumed and the waste generated on-site, says AEG vp of Sustainability Erik Distler.
“It’s important to start with recognizing this work is difficult,” Distler says. “Executing sustainability initiatives for a large temporary event with tens of thousands of people involves engaging a broad stakeholder set” that includes artists, vendors, production companies, city officials and fans.
Distler said Goldevoice realized early on that the best way to maximize the impact of their sustainability efforts was to “embrace the complexity at the onset” of planning the 2023 event and develop a strategy centered around trackable operational improvements and attendee education.
“We’re in the business of bringing people together, evoking emotion, fueling passion and energy — it’s very human,” Distler adds. “We have the opportunity and responsibility to connect with our fans and talk about our sustainability work in a way that’s inspiring and uplifting. It’s about what’s possible if we come together.”
Sustainability has always been one of the undertones of Cali Vibes, “due to the event’s proximity to the ocean and the overall spirit of the festival,” says Nic Adler, vp of Goldenvoice Festivals. “This year, we booked Jack Johnson and his team really got us motivated to look at each corner of the festival and ask ourselves ‘what can we do differently?’”
That includes pushing Goldenvoice and its parent company AEG to offer fans refillable water stations and eliminate the sale of single-use plastic water bottles at the festival. This effort included renegotiating a water sponsorship agreement originally brokered by AEG with Origin, which will now offer canned instead of bottled water at Cali Vibes. Goldenvoice also partnered with vendor r.Cup to replace its single-use beer cups with a reusable plastic cup that is collected on-site, washed at a specialized cleaning facility and reused the following weekend.
Cali Vibes
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“These cups have a life expectancy of several years,” dramatically reducing the number of single-use cups that end up in the landfill, says Michael Ilves, director of Goldenvoice Festivals, noting that the event’s waste management plan includes bins specifically designed to collect the cups.
“Another change in how we manage waste production is that bins previously labeled as trash or landfill will now be labeled as ‘waste-to-energy,’” Ilves explains. “Long Beach happens to have a waste-to-energy power plant that burns off waste, captures the gases released and powers about 35,000 homes off of that process.”
Helping fund the initiative is a first-ever $5 per ticket sustainability fee to pay for initiatives like the r.Cup program and purchase equipment to promote the use of solar energy and reduce the use of diesel generators. Goldenvoice is also working with a vendor to recycle signage, printed material and leftover merchandise from the 2022 festival to create new consumer items for 2023, including apparel, tote bags and posters.
All sustainability initiatives at the festival are being closely tracked by Santa Monica firm Three Squares Inc. — including recording every staff member’s own carbon footprint — to measure Goldenvoice’s progress and analyze opportunities to expand the company’s sustainability efforts to the 32 festival brands it operates globally, including the annual Coachella and Stagecoach festivals. Insights gleaned from the resulting report can help the company significantly improve its environmental impact, Adler explains.
“Popping up in a parking lot for an event that 20,000 people drive to is not sustainable,” Adler says. “That’s why it’s important for us to create a report that allows us to continue the work that we’re doing and be honest about our own carbon footprint. It gives us an opportunity to get together in a room and say ‘Here is last year’s number, this year let’s try to cut it in half.’”
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Stagecoach’s iconic Palomino Stage is getting the star treatment in 2023 with scheduled performances from Tyler Childers, Bryan Adams, Melissa Etheridge and more. The Palomino Stage, which offers an alternative sound to the main stage acts, will also feature sets from ZZ Top, Marty Stuart, Turnpike Troubadours and Nikki Lane, among others.
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Stagecoach festival will take place from April 28-30 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, Calif., following two weekends of Coachella on the same grounds. Ian Munsick, Keb’ Mo’, Valerie June, Sierra Ferrell, Jaime Wyatt, Sammy Kershaw and more will also take the Palomino Stage in 2023.
The country festival celebrates its 15th anniversary with a Palomino Stage that rivals previous years. The Palomino Stage has welcomed Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, George Jones, John Prine, Jerry Lee Lewis, Smokey Robinson, Emmylou Harris, Glen Campbell, Kenny Rogers, Charley Pride, Tom Jones and Dwight Yoakam as well as today’s hottest, award-winning talent including Sturgill Simpson, Cody Jinks, Zach Bryan, Cody Johnson, Colter Wall, Charley Crockett, Margo Price and more over the years.
The 2023 edition of Stagecoach will also see headlining performances from superstars Luke Bryan, Kane Brown and Chris Stapleton. Additional artists on the Mane Stage include Brooks & Dunn, Jon Pardi, Old Dominion, Riley Green, Lainey Wilson, Gabby Barrett, Parker McCollum, BRELAND, Elle King, Morgan Wade, Niko Moon and Kameron Marlowe.
Three-day passes for the country festival begin at $389 with VIP, camping and parking passes also available. New to this year’s festival is the Saloon pass, which offers fans access to standing room only areas on both sides of the Corral and access to the Rhinestone & Cowboy Saloons featuring specialty food and drink vendors, air-conditioned restrooms, shaded seating areas, and full bars. For more information on tickets and lineup, head here.
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