Music Cruises
Most cruise ships clear their top decks to fit as many passengers as possible in the pool, but on the Norwegian Gem, that valuable real estate is sacrificed for something a little more sacred: the blues.
That’s because the 965 foot-long vessel, part of the Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) fleet, is currently the home of the Keeping the Blues Alive at Sea X cruise — a sold-out annual expedition for which the ship’s theaters, lounges and swimming pool are all repurposed for hi-fidelity performances of guitar-driven rock, rhythm and blues.
On the Norwegian Gem, what was once a swim-up bar and pool is now drained and filled with monitors, rigging and enough staging to accommodate a full-scale live show built for theaters and performing arts centers. On Keeping the Blues Alive, contemporary blues legend Joe Bonamassa headlines a lineup of more than a dozen artists that also includes Grammy-winning duo Larkin Poe; rock and blues veteran Big Head Todd and the Monsters; Grammy winner Christone “Kingfish” Ingram; and blues guitarist Eric Gales. Launching out of Miami with stops in Belize and Cancun, Mexico, the cruise is facilitated by the Atlanta-based company Sixthman, a subsidiary of NCL since 2009. This year, the five-night voyage is accommodating about 2,500 diehard Bonamassa fans who have spent approximately $2,500 per cabin to hit the seas with the blues legend and the rest of the lineup, curated by Bonamassa and manager Roy Weisman.
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Keeping the Blues Alive at Sea
Will Byington
“Initially, I was not interested in doing a blues cruise — I had done one before and hated it,” explains Bonamassa, cigar in hand, speaking on the open-air deck of his top-level suite aboard the Gem. “And then I got a call from Sixthman in 2015 and was pitched on an experience that was more artist-friendly and didn’t require me to be in it so much. So we tweaked my schedule a bit, gave it a shot and I just saw how much fun everyone was having. Not just the fans, but the interactions with the other bands.”
Each artist on the Keeping the Blues Alive cruises is paid a festival rate and contracted for three appearances: typically two large stage performances and then a smaller, more intimate engagement. For Bonamassa, that means two main stage performances and a live session of his podcast Welcome to Nerdville.
This edition of Keeping the Blues Alive at Sea, a nod to Bonamassa’s non-profit of the same name, sold out months in advance. When the cruise hit the seas on March 20, the blues man already had two more sold-out Sixthman cruises on the books, including one to Alaska that departs from Seattle.
“Our model is that we focus on passionate communities, and this is one of the most passionate communities out there,” says Jeff Cuellar, who has served as Sixthman’s CEO since Jan. 17. Prior to that, Cuellar worked at festival company AC Entertainment, founder of the famed Bonnaroo festival outside of Nashville.
Larkin Poe
Will Byington
Bonamassa fans are on the older side, averaging ages 55 to 60. Besides an affinity for Bonamassa’s live performances, they are generally interested in blues, rock and guitar-driven music. However, Sixthman and NCL’s music business goes beyond Bonamassa; the company services more than 35 cruises annually, with upcoming voyages planned for Creed, Lindsey Stirling, Michael Franti, and Coheed and Cambria. Sixthman has also seen success with non-music themed voyages, including several chef-driven food cruises, a true crime podcast cruise and a recently launched cruise celebrating the Hallmark Channel, which sold out hours after going on sale, breaking a company record.
Most cruises take off from Miami and by law are required to make one stop at a foreign port — for NCL, that typically means Nassau, Bahamas; Costa Maya, near Cancun; and Harvest Caye, a private island owned by NCL in Belize. Most cruises include all-inclusive food offerings — alcohol packages are sold separately, typically in advance — and a variety of amenities including outdoor basketball courts, rock climbing walls, full-service gyms, specialty restaurants and casinos with poker rooms that often feature appearances by talent.
Cuellar says Sixthman operates much like a traditional promoter: “For the longest time, music has been the core of what we do and will always be the core, but we have started to diversify and look at other passionate communities, whether it be [for baseball team] the Savannah Bananas or Jay and Silent Bob,” the cinematic duo from Kevin Smith’s cinematic universe. Prices for most cruises start at $1,172 per person for interior cabins and run as high as $2,937 per person for high-end suites with meet and greets. The Norwegian Gem has a total of 1,197 cabins, while larger ships like the Norwegian Encore boast 2,043.
Keeping the Blues Alive at Sea
Will Byington
“It’s a lot of inventory to sell, and while we can have conversations about VIP sales and merch sales, we want to dig even deeper,” says Cuellar. “We want to know where fans are talking about the artist. Is it on Reddit? Is it Facebook? Where are other conversations happening?”
That information becomes critical when it comes to selling and marketing cruises, Cuellar explains, noting that Sixthman heavily relies on the artist to help sell cruise packages. Drawing from data points like Spotify listens, merch and VIP sales, the Sixthman team creates an index for participating artists and then “put[s] out a couple of scores that we use for evaluation to determine how confident we feel that this engagement will be a success,” he says.
“We’ll actually survey a section of their audience so that we know who would be willing to participate,” Cuellar adds. “Sometimes, you get great responses, and we decide to book it immediately, and other times we find it’s not the experience fans are looking for.”
Sixthman’s success with Bonamassa is due to “his amazing connection to his fans,” Cuellar says. “When Joe talks about it, people respond. When he sends out an email, people respond because they know they’re going to get a top-quality experience.”
It’s an experience that Bonamassa and Weisman, his longtime manager and business partner, have spent the last 26 years cultivating, evolving Bonamassa’s live show into a global touring brand with around 100 performances a year. Bonamassa began his career in 1989 as a 12-year-old guitar prodigy opening for blues legend B.B. King and spent his early 20s working the blues nightclub circuit. Weisman, a longtime music executive whose father was Frank Sinatra‘s manager for the last few years of his career, met Bonamassa in 1999 and worked with the bluesman to elevate his live shows to theaters and performing arts centers.
Keeping the Blues Alive at Sea
Will Byington
Their company, J&R Adventures, is home to Bonamassa’s record label, artist management group and vertically integrated touring entities that promote, market and produce his live shows. Early on in their relationship, the men discovered the pathway to success “was super serving an underserved marketplace,” Weisman says. “The key was for us to approach the blues like we’re not afraid of it,” he adds. Instead of trying to mold Bonamassa into a AAA-radio-friendly artist, Weisman says he and Bonamassa had to “go into the blues like a house on fire. Walk right into it. Not be afraid or try to circumvent around it because there’s room as an independent to make a wave without being crushed by the majors.”
That means owning and controlling every part of Bonamassa’s business, from his label to concert promotion. J&R Adventures books the venues for Bonamassa’s tours, takes the risk on each show and handles everything from production to marketing. For Sixthman, Bonamassa’s familiarity and understanding of his audience make him a natural partner, says Cuellar. Bonamassa’s team books all of the support talent and helps curate some of the artist-to-fan activities, like poker tournaments, cooking demonstrations, fireside acoustic performances and meet and greets.
Neither Cuellar nor Weisman would say how much Bonamassa earns from the cruises, other than to note that the model is based on profit sharing and Bonamassa is one of the top-selling artists in the history of the company.
“And they give us this amazing suite,” Weisman says of his accommodations on the top floor of the 14-deck sea liner that’s located inside NCL’s luxury penthouse complex called The Haven, which is equipped with high-end furnishings, private balconies and a 24-hour concierge service, all roped off from the rest of the cruise.
“Norwegian makes it very easy for artists who are used to living out of a suitcase and a hotel room,” he continues. “Being on a cruise like this allows you to settle in a bit, even if it’s just for five days. The privacy and hospitality they facilitate makes a noticeable difference.”
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Usually when Lyle Lovett performs, the stage does not move. But the 2010 Cayamo music festival took place on a luxury liner in the Caribbean — and 14-foot waves shook him out of his usual stoicism. “I grew up being the carsick kid. Couldn’t ride in the back seat,” says the Texas singer-songwriter. “I was doing an interview with Steve Earle for his Sirius radio show [while on board], and I had to step out of the room and come back in.”
Cayamo is one of 18 festivals this year run by Sixthman, an Atlanta-based company founded in 2001 when Sister Hazel’s then-manager, Andy Levine, invited 400 of the rock band’s superfans to take over 200 cabins of the Carnival Jubilee. It ended up kicking off an appealing new concert-business model: Music cruises gave artists the rare opportunity to play intimate shows for core groups of well-off devotees — all while enjoying access to high-end meals, luxury hotel rooms and slot machines (the occasional need for Dramamine notwithstanding).
Since then, Sixthman (which is now a subsidiary of Norwegian Cruise Line) has paid hundreds of acts to perform on various cruise-ship decks — at first, late-1990s stars like Edwin McCain and Tonic; then a relatively unknown Zac Brown; then bigger names ranging from Lynyrd Skynyrd to Kid Rock to KISS to Paramore. Today, Sixthman focuses on booking veteran acts with loyal, affluent fan bases — big enough to fill a 2,500- to 4,000-passenger cruise, but generally not an arena.
Lovett is one of dozens of artists, from Broadway divas to metalheads to EDM DJs, scheduled to headline Sixthman cruises over the next year. That’s because, unlike traditional, tightly curated festivals like Bonnaroo or Coachella, the company is open to booking acts of any genre — as long as their fans can afford roughly $600 to $5,000 for a cabin over four to seven nights.
In 2023 and 2024, Sixthman’s headliners include 311 (which just finished a cruise from Miami to Mexico and Honduras), guitar hero Joe Bonamassa (whose two Keeping the Blues Alive at Sea voyages per year include a trip from Greece to Croatia in August), Stevie Van Zandt (who curated this year’s eighth installment of Outlaw Country Cruise, topped by Blackberry Smoke, Lucinda Williams and Steve Earle) and Lamb of God (which headlines the Headbanger’s Boat on Halloween, along with GWAR, Mastodon, Hatebreed and others). “If it’s a passionate community, that is an opportunity for us,” says Jeff Cuellar, Sixthman’s vp of events, community management, marketing and branding. “We’ve done our research. We know their numbers.”
Performers aboard Cayamo 2023 in February 2023.
Will Byington
Although the COVID-19 pandemic dealt music cruises a one-two punch in 2020, when both cruises and concerts were shut down, the sectors have returned to full strength. Almost every event sells out quickly, according to Cuellar; some, like the old-school hip-hop Rock the Bells festival, even before their lineups are announced.
“You’ve got a really dedicated fan at your fingertips that artists get to be in front of for three, four, five, seven days,” says Lindsey Myers, a CAA music touring agent whose team has handled cruise bookings for artists including KISS and Kesha. “They wouldn’t necessarily have the same sort of avid fan at your average festival.”
Cruise attendance in general has boomed since the lockdowns: According to the latest Cruise Market Watch report, passenger numbers rebounded in 2021 with more than 13 million (though that’s still nearly half of 2019’s pre-pandemic attendance). The top company, Royal Caribbean, recently reported that yearly revenues jumped from $1.5 billion in 2021 to over $8.8 billion last year (due to high operating expenses, the cruise line did experience a net loss of $2.2 billion in 2022). Norwegian, according to its fourth-quarter 2022 results, disclosed a higher-than-expected loss (mostly due to $13.6 billion of debt), but overall revenue was up 225%, to $1.6 billion, and revenue generated from each passenger rose 23% compared with the same period in 2019.
Joe King Carrasco on the Outlaw Country Cruise 7 in January 2023.
Will Byington
Many cruise companies have music events — Royal Caribbean’s annual ’80s Cruise starred Devo, The Church and Living Colour in March, and Celebrity Summit’s Disco Cruise recently had Kool & The Gang and KC & The Sunshine Band. But Sixthman excels at lineups that feel contemporary — not like Sailing With the Oldies. “Sixthman have really become masters at determining which artists will work and which ones won’t,” says Cory Brennan, founder/CEO of management company 5B, which represents perennial Norwegian headliners like Flogging Molly and 311. “There’s a lot of homework and research that goes into this.”
And for such headliners, a ship is one giant marketing and branding opportunity. Train, which has its own wine company, holds tastings on its Sail Around the Sun cruises; singer Hayley Williams has sold her Good Dye Young hair color on Paramore’s Parahoy! cruises in recent years; and Melissa Etheridge raised money for her charitable foundation, which supports scientific research on opioid addiction. “That’s invaluable advertising,” Cuellar says. “Now everybody who’s there is converted: ‘I’m not only a fan of Hayley, I’m going out and spreading the word.’ ”
Artists who headline cruises participate in an economic “host model” as opposed to a standard flat-fee festival model, according to Cuellar. Part of their income is usually a guaranteed payment, similar to what they might receive at any land-based event. But they might also share some of the revenue from food and alcohol sales, which is not part of the deal for most concerts and festivals.
Most music cruises offer all-inclusive meal packages as part of the cost, but attendees pay extra for what Deb Klein, Etheridge’s manager, calls “onboard revenue” — including casinos, excursions in destination cities, art auctions and alcohol. Etheridge, whose most recent Sixthman headlining date was last fall, takes a guarantee, then participates in a 50-50 “rev share” deal for the rest of her salary, Klein says. (Transporting band, crew and freight to the cruise docks and on and off ships costs artists out of pocket.) “It’s really a joint venture,” Klein says. “Believe me, it’s a lot of work. For us, it’s about the community and the connection. And the finances, too.”
A crowd-surfing fan of Jericho’s.
Troy Walsh
Overall music-cruise revenue, Bonamassa says, can be 30% to 50% higher than what a club promoter might pay for a Wednesday-night gig. So an artist making $10,000 for a dry-land festival date might make $15,000 for a cruise. (Nonheadliners’ salaries are comparable to traditional festivals, artist representatives say.) “Why does it cost more?” Bonamassa asks. “You’re doing multiple shows. You have the band and crew out there, you’re paying salaries for a week. By the time you add it all up, it’s an expensive undertaking.”
But other artist reps say expenses are low compared with traditional arena, amphitheater and festival dates. “The narrative you are going to hear from agents and managers is a justification for charging outrageous guarantees, because ‘you are locking up our band for a week and asking them to play multiple times,’ ” says Mark Willis, host partner for pro wrestler Chris Jericho’s Rock ’N’ Wrestling Rager at Sea, a Sixthman cruise that sails every January and stars Jericho’s own metal band, Fozzy. “But that agent/manager will never admit how much money their budget saves in accommodations and meals and drinks and backline and crew and staging and production and runners and bus drivers and hotels.”
Pro wrestler Jericho at his Rock ’N’ Wrestling Rager at Sea: Four Leaf Clover cruise in February 2023.
Troy Walsh
As for the cost of admission, the ticket price is in line with a Bonnaroo or Coachella VIP experience, with Sixthman more like a travel agent than a box office, helping fans coordinate advance planning for food, lodging and transportation in addition to the concerts themselves. Attendees are what land-based concerts and festivals might call “super VIPs,” Cuellar adds — they pay extra to experience artist meet-and-greets, unexpected musical collaborations and glimpses of, say, The Beach Boys participating in a Family Feud game somewhere on deck or singer Mike Love bowling (as they did on their own cruise). Lovett has spied his bandmates playing poker in the ship’s casino. Headlining artists can “curate” their own festivals, too: Flogging Molly, for its cruise in November, will offer “the only floating skate ramp that I’m aware of,” says Brennan, and during its cruise, 311 plays basketball with fans. “Every aspect of the cruise is a chance for you to be involved financially and creatively,” he adds.
When cruises restarted in mid-2021, they required proof of vaccination and conducted COVID-19 testing on board — which worked for early music-cruise headliners such as Etheridge, who was doing the same for her own shows at the time. For Norwegian, COVID-19 remains a concern: In its December financial filings, the organization predicted the virus will still have “a significant impact on the company’s financial results and liquidity.”
But from a concert-business perspective, cruise-ship life is back to normal. “For a while, it seemed like, ‘Were people going to want to do these things anymore?’ ” says Bob McLynn, whose management clients include Train. “Just like the live industry, as far as I’m concerned, it’s fully back.”
This story will appear in the April 1, 2023, issue of Billboard.
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