Sphere
The Backstreet Boys will be the first pop group to take the stage at Las Vegas’ Sphere. The man band announced the dates for their summer 2025 “Into the Millennium” residency at the futuristic venue, which will find them performing nine shows in July.
“Fans can expect an unforgettable experience as the Backstreet Boys bring their legendary Millennium album to life, alongside a selection of their greatest hits,” read a statement announcing the run of shows, which will find the group performing such hits as “I Want It That Way” and “Larger Than Life” in the venue that has wowed attendees with its immersive sound and wrap-around, high-tech visuals.
The group — Nick Carter, Brian Littrell, AJ McLean, Kevin Richardson and Howie Dorough — will perform at the Sphere on July 11, 12, 13, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26 and 27. Fans can sign up for an artist presale now (through Feb. 17 at 10 p.m. PT) here for the first six dates. The Backstreet Boys Fan Club presale will kick off on Feb. 18 at 9 a.m. PT, with the artist presale launching on Feb. 19 at 9 a.m. PT. Additional presales will run throughout next week ahead of the general onsale that begins on Feb. 21 at 9 a.m. PT here.
Trending on Billboard
Tickets for the final three announced shows are available now via an artist presale through Feb. 17 at 10 p.m. PT here. The Fan Club presale for those shows will begin on Feb. 18 at 11 a.m. PT, with an artist presale beginning Feb. 19 at 11 a.m. PT, followed by additional presales throughout the week until the general onsale begins on Feb. 21 at 11 a.m. PT here.
“We’re heading ‘Into The Millennium’ once again! 🌐🩵 Relive your Backstreet Boys Y2K memories, but this time… LARGER THAN LIFE at @SphereVegas starting this July!,” the band said in an Instagram announcement that included images of the quintet projected on the outside of the venue.
U2 helped launch the venue in Sept. 2023 with their U2: UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere residency, which had them stay put through March of 2024, making way for a four-show run by Phish and a 30-show stint by Dead & Company. The Eagles will play 32 shows in a run that kicked off in Sept. 2024 and is currently slated to run through an April 12 gig. EDM artist Anyma’s 12-show run kicked off on Dec. 27 and is slated to wrap on March 2, with Dead & Co. slipping back in for 18 more shows from March-May of this year, after which Kenny Chesney will touch down for 15 shows in May and June.
Check out the Sphere announcement below.
Anyma has been spending a lot of time at Sphere amid his ongoing residency, but the producer’s first meeting with the venue in April of 2023 didn’t go exactly as planned.
“We had an appointment to go at 3:00,” says Anyma’s agent, CAA’s Ferry Rais-Shaghaghi. “I show up there, and he doesn’t show up. I’m calling like, ‘Dude, where are you? We have this appointment.’ He’s like, ‘I’m in a studio session, just hit me up after.’”
So, Rais-Shaghaghi stepped inside a smaller version of the Las Vegas venue erected in Burbank, Calif., that’s used as a demonstration and testing space. There, he says, his mind “was blown by the capabilities of what it could do.” He walked back outside, called Anyma, the electronic music artist born Matteo Milleri, and said, “Dude, you need to see this. This is built for you.”
Trending on Billboard
Milleri went to check it out the very next day and, after seeing Sphere’s capabilities, called Rais-Shaghaghi with a directive: “You have to get this done.”
Fifteen months later, in July 2024, Anyma was announced as the first-ever electronic headliner at Sphere, the cutting-edge venue that opened in Las Vegas in September 2023. Anyma’s show opened Dec. 27, with its first eight dates selling 137,000 tickets and grossing $21 million, according to numbers reported to Billboard Boxscore. The final four shows will happen Feb. 27-28 and March 1-2.
With Vegas already an established destination for dance music, there had been a lot of talk about which dance artist would be the first to play the venue.
“It’s a big approval process, and for it to be probably the hottest venue in the world, you’ve got to understand the list of people that want to go in there,” says Rais-Shaghaghi, who started working with the melodic techno artist in 2023.
Anyma had a particularly strong case for being a fit. Visuals are a crucial element at Sphere, which centers on a 160,000-square-foot LED screen that curves and towers to a height of 240 feet. Anyma had already done significant visual world-building, carving out a singular and well-established aesthetic in both his solo output and as one half of the duo Tale Of Us. (Anyma released his debut album, Genesys, in 2023 with Genesys II coming last year. Both were released on Interscope Records.) Technology has also been deeply embedded into his output, with the producer over the years releasing NFTs that debuted art from the Anyma project, with the artist and his team using this project to blur the lines between show visuals and fine art.
Incorporated during live shows, this imagery melded concepts related to futurism, transhumanism, space, life, death, rebirth, apocalypse and intimacy and set them to a style of pummeling melodic techno favored in places like Burning Man and Tulum that’s grown in global influence and mainstream popularity over the last few years.
Anyma also had a strong track record of moving hard tickets, a historically soft area for many electronic acts. Tale Of Us’ Afterlife event series, headlined by the duo and featuring a collection of support artists, has happened around the world and featured imagery on massive screens as large as 65 feet tall.
Eight Afterlife shows in Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico held between February and May 2024 sold 228,000 tickets and grossed $19 million, according to numbers reported to Billboard Boxscore. Afterlife (which is also the name of Tale Of Us’ label) also sold 37,200 tickets and grossed $4.2 million over two shows at the L.A. State Historic Park in October 2023.
“When we were starting to really push boundaries and break records with attendance and sales, it was like, ‘Where do we go next?’” says Rais-Shaghaghi. “Then I started hearing about Sphere… It’s an almost 18,000-capacity venue. Who has done that business, not only in North America, but globally?”
Anyma having done that kind of business, he continues, “Was a huge factor, because Vegas is a destination. People from all around the world are going to [Sphere]. If you’re planning to do a show there, you have to do at least six to 10 shows for the financials to make sense, and if you’re doing 10, that’s 180,000 tickets. You can’t just be like, ‘I did L.A. and New York and blew them out.’ You have to have a global business. We’ve done stuff in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, South and North America. We had that.”
In terms of why the residency ultimately landed with Anyma and not Tale Of Us, Rais-Shaghaghi says, “Anyma is really the visual component of the project, and the one that really created all the NFTs, storylines and the visual elements. The focus really became building that into, in a sense, a movie that Matteo directs and creates. It just made the most sense because of the characters, because of the storyline and obviously having a vast amount of music that he was working on and exploring a bit outside of the techno underground world.” (In regard to the future of Tale Of Us, he says “both guys are super-focused on their solo projects right now.”)
Knowing the creative universe Anyma created could be dramatically expanded at Sphere, Anyma’s team began planning and production for the show shortly after Milleri and Rais-Shaghaghi first saw the venue’s capabilities at the April 2023 meetings in Burbank. Rais-Shaghaghi says he doesn’t have an exact number for what the production cost to make, but says “it’s millions,” adding that “if anyone else wanted to create this show without having the creative genius of someone like Matteo and his incredible team and had to outsource it and build everything [from scratch], it would probably be, in my opinion, a $15 million to $20 million dollar show.”
Visuals were developed by Milleri, working in partnership with Anyma’s longtime visual creative director and lead CG artist Alessio De Vecchio and head creative Alexander Wessely, a Swedish artist whose resumé includes work on The Weeknd’s Afterhours Til Dawn Tour, multiple Swedish House Mafia videos and more.
“Matteo creates entire worlds rather than just shows, and that aligned with my own interest in dissolving the lines between the physical and the digital,” Wessely says of creating the Sphere show. “Evan Baker, Matteo’s manager, initially connected us, and once we started talking, it quickly became clear that this was going to be something different.”
Anyma
Courtesy of Anyma
In more ways than one, certainly. Sphere is a technological marvel that offers visual storytelling opportunities no other venue can. As such, it requires that much more from the creators of those visuals.
“The Sphere is a cathedral of technology, and building inside it felt like constructing a new reality from the ground up,” Wessely continues. As the project’s head creative and stage designer, as well as director of selected visual pieces, he says he had to “navigate an entirely new way of working. The 180-degree projection required rethinking everything: how we design space, how we frame motion, how we manipulate perception. It was like re-learning a language while simultaneously writing poetry in it, trying to shape something new while staying in control of the chaos.
“I’ve worked across different scales, whether in theatre or massive commercial stages, but this was something else entirely,” he continues. “The scale, the complexity, the unpredictability, it felt endless. At times, it felt like the project was pushing us as much as we were pushing it. Overwhelming in the best and worst ways. But in the end, that’s what made it so rewarding.”
The intensive production process ultimately produced a show titled Afterlife Presents Anyma: The End of Genesys, which finds Anyma playing his music in tandem with visuals centered around a storyline that Wessely says is about “the relationship between humans and technology, where one ends and the other begins.” Visuals feature two characters, a female robot and human man, who appear in intensely detailed and stunningly intricate settings that span the desert, space, a futuristic city, a forest and more, with interstitial scenes projecting images of things like thousands of blinking eyes and countless human bodies floating across the screen. Meanwhile, artists including FKA Twigs, Grimes and Ellie Goulding make memorable appearances in the imagery. The overall effect is often stunning.
As Anyma, De Vecchio and Wessely worked out the creative, Rais-Shaghaghi’s role was largely, he says, “making sure with the team that we were always going by the guidelines, restrictions and limitations with Sphere… You can’t just go and create it and be like, ‘Alright, here it is.’” Among the many tiny technical details to consider were background images “that the human eye would never catch,” says Rais-Shaghaghi, “but if they put it in the system and the system flagged that they weren’t in [the right] resolution, it becomes a giant conversation.”
With only four other acts — U2, Phish, the Eagles and Dead & Company — headlining Sphere thus far, there was only a small number of teams to reach out to for advice. “As a whole, everyone was being very helpful and open to have conversations,” says Rais-Shaghaghi, who adds that Anyma’s team can now be a resource as well. “This is a brand new, state-of-the-art venue that everyone is learning how to use in real time. I think we were one of the [teams] that’s probably created a lot of guidelines for other people to follow because of everything we experimented with and have done.”
As for Anyma, after the residency wraps in early March, he’ll play major festivals including Ultra in Miami, Tomorrowland in Belgium and Hungary’s Sziget. With his Sphere shows featuring much unreleased music and debuting a track with Ellie Goulding, it seems there’s also more coming from the artist, who Rais-Shaghaghi says is, as the Sphere show suggests, perpetually future-focused.
“The most interesting thing about him is he’s always thinking about the next thing,” Rais-Shaghaghi says of what’s next. “And obviously, this is such a high bar to set.”
A crew of marquee artists will play in support of Anyma during the artist’s final dates at Sphere in Las Vegas in February and March. On Wednesday (Jan. 29), the venue announced that Bosnian German favorite Solomun and American producer Layla Benitez will open on Feb. 27, South Korean phenom Peggy Gou and German mainstay […]
After Sphere opened with fanfare in September of 2023, there was a lot of talk, in the electronic music world at least, about which electronic artist would be the first to play Las Vegas’ new space ship of a venue.
Presumably many would’ve jumped at the chance. Las Vegas is a dance music nexus, with billboards along Interstate 15 into the city bearing the faces of new and longtime resident artists at Marquee, Hakkasan, XS and other nightclubs on the Strip.
But ultimately it was a new face that made the cut, with Sphere announcing in July that Italian-American techno and melodic techno producer Anyma — who hadn’t previously had a residency in the city — would be The One.
With the news, talk shifted as people outside of dance music familiarized themselves with the artist, a sizable name within the genre, but still a relative unknown to the gen pop. Who was he, and what would he do, people asked? Meanwhile, talk inside the dance world was that this show was going to be, in colloquial terms, totally bananas.
Certainly the bar was set mighty high after well-received residencies from Sphere’s previous artists U2, Phish, the Eagles and Dead & Company. But those are bands, and this would be a DJ. Still, interest for Anyma was abundantly and statistically clear: tickets for the eight-night residency sold out the same day they went on sale in July, with Anyma reporting selling 100,000 tickets for these shows and more dates subsequently added, bringing the total number of shows to eight.
Officially and grandly titled Afterlife Presents Anyma: The End of Genesys, the figurative curtain for the show lifted Dec. 27, when the residency began amid one of the busiest times of year in Las Vegas, bringing ravers to Sphere for the very first time.
Two days later, on Dec. 29, attendees sporting ravey attire and the de facto Afterlife uniform of black leather everything and sunglasses inside milled around the venue between sets from openers Cassian b2b Kevin de Vries and Charlotte de Witte. (Anyma’s support acts are different for every night of the residency, with the Dec. 28 opener Amelie Lens becoming the venue’s first ever officially billed female artist.)
Anyma came onstage promptly at 11 p.m., appearing on top of a riser placed on the floor of the venue from which glowing cords emanated. The two other risers on each side of him each contained a cello and the robot arms that played the instrument throughout the show, emphasizing the machine vs. human quality of both the overall Anyma aesthetic and the show we were all about to see.
It was, in fact, bananas. Starting with a robot breaking through a wall of glass in tandem with the music, the performance ultimately turned several standard dance music conventions on their head. Many large-scale shows, for example, take place in seated venues like Madison Square Garden, Kia Forum and Red Rocks, but Sphere is arguably the only one where attendees in the seated areas (Sphere also has standing room on the floor) have a vested interest in staying butt-to-chair, given that the seats are programmed to shake and rumble with the bass. (Or in the case of live acts, the drums.)
Certainly many people were on their feet raving in place, but by and large this was a sit down show, making the experience at times feel more akin to a futuristic movie theater than a nightclub or any standard large-scale dance performance.
In ways, Anyma and the Dec. 29 special guest artists — Delilah Montagu and Ellie Goulding — were secondary to the visuals. You might not have even noticed they were there in person, given the focus demanded by the screen and everything happening on it. Born Matteo Milleri, Anyma has long been been half of the duo Tale of Us, with the pair cultivating a signature visual aesthetic via their own output and releases on their influential label Afterlife and its affiliated shows.
This sort of transhumanist aesthetic and human meets machine ideology is so well-suited for Sphere that one can’t help but assume it’s a not insignifcant part of the reason Anyma secured these shows. Any act playing the venue needs to have a well-established and world-building visual identity (which is part of the reason Sphere functions so well for legacy acts like the Dead, who have a huge visual history to pull from.) But Sphere’s mind-bending technical capabilities are providing Anyma and his team the opportunity to both show off and expand their epic, trippy, frequently dark and often beautiful cyborg narrative.
And expand they did. These are five of the best parts of the performance.
The Visuals, Obviously
Image Credit: Courtesy of Anyma
Between the DOJ’s Live Nation antitrust suit, Sphere’s first year, new leadership at CAA and a slew of acquisitions, it’s been another big year for the concert business.
In 2025, the Grateful Dead will celebrate 60 years since its inception. But even after six decades, the long, strange trip continues — and business is still booming. Founding members Bobby Weir, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart are all resolute: They’re not retiring anytime soon, and the Dead’s world is very much alive and kicking.
In January, Weir will stage the second edition of “Dead Ahead,” the destination concert event in Riviera Cancun, Mexico, that features different lineups of supporting musicians; this year, he’ll be joined by his Dead & Company compatriots Jeff Chimenti and Oteil Burbridge, his Wolf Bros bandmates Don Was and Jay Lane and other guests including Sturgill Simpson, Brandi Carlile and Goose’s Rick Mitarotonda.
And, on Dec. 4, Dead & Co. — the touring ensemble formed by Weir, Kreutzmann and Hart, alongside Chimenti, Burbridge and John Mayer — announced it will reprise its Dead Forever residency at Las Vegas’ Sphere in 2025. The 18 shows, slated to take place from March to May, follow the band’s 30-date run at Sphere in 2024, which grossed $131.8 million. (Kreutzmann played with Dead & Co. from 2015 to 2022 but sat out its 2023 final tour and 2024 Sphere residency; a representative for Dead & Co. confirmed Kreutzmann will not perform with the band at Sphere in 2025.)
Trending on Billboard
“It’s a marvel in terms of what you can do visually with it during a show,” Weir tells Billboard. “It was an interesting challenge for us — but I thought we met it.”
“Very cool, very cool, Sphere, very cool,” Hart says with excitement. “It’s an overpowering sensory experience.” The venue, which can incorporate haptic feedback into its seats, was a revelation for the longstanding “Drums/Space” segment of Dead shows that he leads: “I’m going down to 16 [Hz] cycles, 17, 18 — that’s where the Lord lives,” says Hart, who has long studied the connections between music and neurological function, referencing a frequency of brain waves. “That raises consciousness. That’s where the good stuff is.”
Meanwhile, Kreutzmann has reinvigorated the Dead’s catalog — and mixed in tunes by artists from Talking Heads to Little Feat — in recent years by enlisting rotating crews of exciting younger talent in ensembles Billy & The Kids and Mahalo Dead, including Billy Strings, Tom Hamilton (Joe Russo’s Almost Dead), Daniel Donato (Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country) and Aron Magner (The Disco Biscuits).
“Why do I like the younger musicians?” he posits, before answering himself with a hearty laugh: “They’re more alive than I am!”
Here’s what else fans can potentially expect from the band’s members in the near future.
A Bittersweet Reunion?
Weir, Lesh, Hart and Kreutzmann honored the Dead’s golden anniversary in 2015 with five Fare Thee Well stadium shows that were billed as the final time the four would perform together. (They were accompanied by Bruce Hornsby, Jeff Chimenti and Phish’s Trey Anastasio.) But Weir reveals that before Lesh’s October death, they were considering doing it again: “We had some plans,” he says. “We were talking about the possibility of reconvening and playing, just the four of us. It would have been real interesting, when Phil was still with us, to try to do that.” Kreutzmann says he’d still “do that 60th in a second,” though he adds, “Phil wanted to do it, too. He had a dream that he was going to get to play with us three one more time. And that didn’t happen — but that’s how it goes.”
A ‘Special’ Anniversary Release
Rhino Entertainment — which celebrated the band’s 50th anniversary in 2015 with an 80-disc 30 Trips Around the Sun box set that collected 30 unreleased Dead shows, one from each year it was active — has a surprise in store for GD60. “We’ve been working on something that we feel is special and commensurate with an anniversary as big as this,” says David Lemieux, the Grateful Dead’s legacy manager and archivist. “Mark [Pinkus, Rhino president] and I got on the call about a year ago [to begin working on it], and when we started talking about it, we both couldn’t contain our joy.”
Publishing (In) House
Amid the recent spate of publishing catalog sales by rock legends, “I haven’t even thought about” selling the Dead’s, Weir says. “I’m not entirely sure I’m anxious to sell it. But at the same time, if the price was right and somebody with that amount of financial wherewithal had that amount of motivation to buy it, I’d have to talk to him.” Reveals Activist Artists Management founding partner Bernie Cahill: “We’ve been approached and that’s been a conversation, but it’s not something the band’s pursuing at all.”
Still Truckin’
“What great musician ever retires?” Weir says when asked if he’d ever quit the road. “Do it as long as you can. Never give it up ever, ever,” Hart says. And Kreutzmann is even bolder: “I’m going to play forever.”
This story appears in the Dec. 7, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Sphere didn’t announce any new acts during its earnings call on Tuesday (Nov. 12), but the Las Vegas venue has enough interest from artists that the venue is “struggling with how to squeeze everybody in through the fall,” said CEO James Dolan.
Having a long line of artists waiting to perform is a good problem to have. Residencies by U2, Phish, Dead & Co. and The Eagles have changed how artists perform live and turned the state-of-the-art Sphere into a must-see for music fans. But running a one-of-a-kind venue presents unique challenges and requires on-the-fly learning.
To keep the venue busy and generate more revenue, last quarter Sphere increased the number of “side by sides,” the company’s term for running multiple events in a single day—a showing of “Postcards from Earth” before a music concert, for example. “A lot of this has to do with logistics, about about setting up the arena for one and taking it down and then setting it up for the other,” said Dolan.
Trending on Billboard
Still, a full year of operational experience didn’t lead to more business last quarter. Total Sphere revenue was $127.1 million in the quarter ended Sept. 30, down from $151.2 million and $170.4 million in the prior two quarters, respectively. Revenue from events such as concerts was $40.9 million, down from $58.4 million in the previous quarter. The Eagles began a residency in September, and the same month Sphere hosted its first live sports event, UFC 306, which become Sphere’s highest grossing single event to date.
The Sphere Experience, which covers showings of Postcard from Earth and V-U2: An Immersive Concert Film, generated $71.5 million, down from $74.5 million and $100.5 million in the previous two quarters.
Exosphere advertising and suite license fees totaled $8.5 million, down from $15.9 million in the previous quarter. Dolan said Sphere was experiencing “structural” issues in securing advertising on the venue’s 580,000 square-foot exterior. “I wish the day we lit it up that we knew exactly how to run it, and exactly how to sell it, and exactly how to program it, etc.,” he admitted. “But that’s just not the case.”
The company is also learning how to program its original content such as “V-U2,” which captures U2’s residency at the venue. “How we market it, how we just, you know, how we we schedule it, etc, that I’m not sure of,” said Dolan. “But I do think that the product is valuable. And I also think that it’s going to be evergreen. You’re not going to be able to see Bono 20 years from now.”
Sphere’s operating loss of $125.1 million improved to $16.1 million after adjustments to remove nearly $80 million of depreciation, $13.2 million of share-based compensation and other non-operational items such as amortization, restructuring charges and merger-related costs. The venue’s selling, general and administrative expenses totaled $105 million while direct operating expenses were $62.5 million.
Sphere shares were down 8.7% to $40.22 in morning trading.
MSG Networks, Sphere Entertainment Co.’s other division, had revenue of $100.8 million, down 9% from the prior-year quarter. MSG Networks owns regional sports networks and the streaming platform MSG+. The impact of a 13% drop in subscribers was partially offset by an increase in affiliation rates.
In October, Sphere Entertainment announced plans to build the next Sphere venue in Abu Dhabi, the capitol city of the United Arab Emirates. Unlike the $2.3-billion Las Vegas venue, which was entirely funded by Sphere Entertainment Co., the Abu Dhabi venue will be entirely funded by the government’s Department of Culture and Tourism and operate under a franchise model. Dolan said Sphere Entertainment will receive a franchise initiation fee that grants Abu Dhabi the right to use the company’s intellectual property.
Sphere Entertainment Co. has reached an agreement with the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism to create a second Sphere in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) capital city.
“The vision for Sphere has always included a global network of venues, and today’s announcement is a significant milestone toward that goal,” said James L. Dolan, executive chairman/CEO of Sphere Entertainment who oversaw the construction of the Las Vegas Sphere in late 2023. Sphere Entertainment is a spinoff of Madison Square Garden Entertainment and is headquartered in L.A., where a small staff develops the audio and visual components for Sphere’s massive internal video screen.
The long-term success of Sphere has always been contingent on Dolan’s ability to scale the business model and build additional Sphere facilities to amortize the costs of producing content for the uniquely shaped arena. According to sources, video produced to accompany the 10-bout Noche UFC match in Las Vegas cost last month cost upwards of $20 million.
Trending on Billboard
A second Sphere location would provide Dolan and crew a chance to recoup some of their production costs from a new audience via projects like Postcard from Earth, a multi-sensory film directed by Darren Aronofsky that helped generate more than $1 million in average daily ticket sales on the days it ran during the company’s most recent fiscal quarter, according to a shareholders report.
There’s also an opportunity to save on production costs by staging concerts at both the Vegas and Abu Dhabi venues, although it’s unclear how much demand there would be in the Middle East for Western concerts. Since the end of the pandemic, only a handful of concerts from American artists performing in the UAE have been reported to Billboard Boxscore.
“We are excited to bring Sphere to Abu Dhabi in partnership with Sphere Entertainment, providing our residents and visitors with an extraordinary new form of entertainment,” said H.E. Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, chairman of DCT Abu Dhabi, in a statement. “Sphere Abu Dhabi will seamlessly integrate advanced technology with captivating storytelling, creating unforgettable memories for everyone who visits. This partnership aligns with our Tourism Strategy 2030, further establishing Abu Dhabi as a vibrant hub for culture and innovation. By embracing cutting-edge entertainment like Sphere, we’re not only elevating our global profile but also setting new standards in immersive experiences and cultural offerings.”
Under the terms of the partnership, which is subject to the finalization of definitive agreements, DCT Abu Dhabi will pay Sphere Entertainment a franchise initiation fee for the right to build the venue, utilizing Sphere Entertainment’s proprietary designs, technology and intellectual property. Construction will be funded by DCT Abu Dhabi, with Sphere Entertainment’s team of experts providing services related to development, construction and pre-opening of the venue.
Following the venue’s opening, Sphere Entertainment plans to maintain ongoing arrangements with DCT Abu Dhabi that are expected to include annual fees for creative and artistic content licensed by Sphere Entertainment, such as Sphere Experiences; use of Sphere’s brand, patents, proprietary technology and intellectual property; and operational services related to venue operations and technology, as well as commercial and strategic advisory support.
Time to drop the needle on the latest Executive Turntable, Billboard’s comprehensive(ish) compendium of promotions, hirings, exits and firings — and all things in between — across music.
Read on for mostly good news and also check out Billboard‘s annual list of music’s highest compensated executives, plus our weekly interview series spotlighting a single executive, our helpful calendar of notable events, and have you ever wanted to look at tchotchkes inside the office of an executive while reading their in-depth answers to the most important questions facing the biz? From the Desk Of is probably your jam.
Sphere Entertainment announced the departure of David Byrnes, the company’s executive vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer. Byrnes will remain in his role during a transition period while the company searches for a new CFO. The NYC-based media executive has been Sphere’s finance lead since January of this year and held that same position at MSG Entertainment before that. During his tenure at Sphere and MSG, he has played a key role in major transactions including the spin-off of MSG Entertainment, the sale of a majority interest in Tao Group Hospitality, and two stock offerings. Byrnes joined MSG following a nearly 14-year run in senior roles at CBS (and later ViacomCBS), rising to executive vp of corporate finance and then exiting prior to the company’s name change to Paramount Global in early 2022. Byrnes has not announced his next move.
Trending on Billboard
Sphere Entertainment, which opened its spectacle-invoking Las Vegas venue in September 2023 with U2’s residency, has since hosted live-wired artists including Phish, Dead & Company and current residents Eagles (they play tonight and tomorrow), and multimedia shows like Darren Aronofsky’s Postcard from Earth. During its fiscal year ending June 30, Sphere reported $273.4 million in revenue and full-year revenue of $1.03 billion, nearly double the prior year’s $573.8 million.
Meanwhile…
BMG appointed Melanie McAllister as its global chief human resources officer (CHRO), effective Nov. 1. Reporting to CEO Thomas Coesfeld, she will join the executive board and oversee key HR functions across 20 offices, including hiring, performance, development, DE&I and aligning HR strategies with overarching business goals. McAllister brings extensive experience from her previous roles as Chief People Officer at EasyPark Group and Megaport, and nearly a decade as Chief HR Officer at Arvato. She has also held senior HR positions at Oracle and other global tech firms and holds a Master’s in Strategic HR from Liverpool JM University and serves on the board of ENABLE Trust. Coesfeld expressed enthusiasm for McAllister’s role in shaping BMG’s future, adding “Her expertise, vision, and proven track record of combining innovative thinking with people excellence will have a transformative impact on our company.”
Johnny Pinchard was promoted to head of A&R at Believe UK, advancing from his role as senior A&R Manager. Reporting to Malena Wolfer and Panos Polymatidis, he’ll continue working from the London office. Since joining Believe from RCA Records in 2021, Pinchard has signed notable artists like Sea Girls, who reached No. 4 on the UK Albums Chart, and rapper Blanco, who has earned over 140 million streams in less than a year. He also signed Grammy-nominated electronic artist HAYLA, who won Vocalist of the Year at the 2024 EDMA’s. Pinchard is committed to developing new talent, including Sainte, Leon Vynehall, Grace Davies, and Sevdaliza. Believe UK Managing Director Alex Kennedy praised Pinchard as being “absolutely vital in identifying, signing and developing a wide range of artists that have formed the cornerstone of our success and that fit the Believe ethos perfectly.”
Jessica Vaughn
Raedio appointed Jessica Vaughn as vp of creative synch sales, a new role at the audio company. Vaughn will lead efforts to expand Raedio’s music library and sync services, aiming to deliver “Audio Everywhere.” Her responsibilities also include developing growth strategies for Raedio’s one-stop music library and collaborating with industry partners to secure music placements across film, television, advertising and gaming. Outside of her day job, Vaughn is a veteran singer-songwriter who gained attention in the late aughts as Charlotte Sometimes, releasing her debut album on Geffen and appearing on the sophomore season of The Voice. She now performs and records under the name LACES. In 2023, Vaughn penned a guest column for Billboard advocating for more creatives joining executive ranks across the industry.
Canvas Music onboarded former Spotify UK & Ireland managing director Tom Connaughton as partner and senior advisor of the independent boutique distributor. Connaughton joins to support Canvas Music’s mission of offering artist-centered, indie label-like distribution services. Canvas was launched in 2020 by Richard Lyne, who said the company’s goal is to “provide a great service with a great product but with more focus and less volume.” Connaughton expressed excitement about joining and highlighted the potential of Canvas to bride the gap between artists, tech and audiences in a “fair, artist-centered way.” Connaughton hit the exits at Spotify in late 2023 after five years in leadership roles at the streaming giant. Prior to Spotify, he served in various roles at Vevo.
Ineffable Records appointed Sage Ressler as head of synch, effective immediately. Ressler previously worked at Spirit Music Group, where she negotiated licensing deals and secured placements across a plethora of media formats. At Ineffable, she will work with marquee artists across the reggae, indie and Caribbean music spaces, including Sean Paul, Sublime, Govana, Protoje and Bob Marley: One Love star Hector “Roots” Lewis. Ressler will lead the label’s first formal synchronization department, which will focus on securing high-profile placements for the label’s catalog across film, TV, advertising, gaming and more. “The opportunity to help shape and lead the synch department feels like a natural next step for both myself and the company,” said Ressler. “Synch has become a uniquely powerful tool for storytelling, and it’s opening doors for artists in ways we’ve never seen before.” –Kyle Denis
NASHVILLE NOTES: Opry Entertainment Group promoted Jordan Pettit to vp of artist relations and Jenn Tressler to director of artist and industry relations. Pettit, who joined OEG in 2018 and has been instrumental in initiatives like Opry NextStage, will now lead OEG’s artist relations team, developing programs to strengthen artist and fan connections. Tressler has built strong industry relationships since joining OEG in 2020 and will continue to focus on creative artist engagement strategies, especially for the Grand Ole Opry … Rachel Derosia has been promoted to senior vp of comedy at Outback Presents. She’ll work with co-CEO Brian Dorfman and co-svp Joel Bachkoff to expand the division. The Rochester, NY native started her professional career in music, working at Sony Music before shifting to comedy at Zanies Comedy Club, later joining Outback Presents as a coordinator. She has managed and produced numerous tours, helping comedians transition from club to theater-level performances … Chandler Thurston joined Position Music’s A&R team as the first hire for their new Nashville office. Previously, he was senior creative director at Anthem Entertainment, managing talents like Jamie Paulin and Meghan Patrick, and overseeing hits such as Florida Georgia Line’s “Talk You Out of It.” Before Anthem, Thurston worked at Major Bob Music, where he helped sign and develop writers like Alysa Vanderheym. He’ll be based at Position Music’s Nashville office, set to open in Q3 of 2025.
Jaime Kelsall joined Paladin Artists, effective immediately, reuniting with former colleagues from APA and The Agency Group. Based in Los Angeles, Kelsall brings over 20 years of experience, having represented clients like Dionne Warwick, Fitz and the Tantrums, ZZ Ward, and Michelle Branch. She began her career as an intern at the House of Blues in New Orleans, later working at Absolute Artists Agency in San Francisco, where she met Paladin partner Bruce Solar. Kelsall then joined The Agency Group in Los Angeles before spending over 20 years at APA. “We are all thrilled have the talented Jaime Kelsall join our team at Paladin,” said Solar. “We are excited to have her continue her journey with us that started so long ago and bringing her expertise and professionalism to our company.”
ALL IN THE FAMILY: Fairchild Media Group, a division of Billboard parent Penske Media Corporation, promoted Jim Fallon to chief content officer for WWD and FMG. Fallon, with 45 years of industry experience, will oversee editorial and content creation for FMG’s brands, including WWD, Beauty Inc, Sourcing Journal, and Footwear News. Reporting to CEO Amanda Smith, Fallon will focus on enhancing brand positioning, expanding audiences, fostering collaboration, and developing new editorial products. Fallon previously served as editorial director of Fairchild Fashion Media and held leadership roles at Fairchild Publications, including editor of WWD.
ICYMI:
Eric Wong
Warner Music said Eric Wong will shift from chief marketing officer to the role of global head of A&R, recorded music. He’ll also assume the presidency of East West Records. As part of that transition, WMG’s evp of global marketing Jessica Keeley-Carter has been promoted to chief marketing officer, recorded music … Chris Moncada is promoted to COO at MNRK Music Group … and former C3 Presents promoter Sophie Lobl was named vp of Rolling Stone Live. [KEEP READING]
Last Week’s Turntable: Sweet Relief Makes It Official With Executive Director
Chinese music streaming companies had another big week after authorities unveiled an economic stimulus plan that will encourage the purchase of Chinese equities, with Cloud Music gaining 10.7% to 134.50 HKD ($17.32) and Tencent Music Entertainment rising 9.9% to $13.48. Last week, Cloud Music and Tencent Music gained 31.5% and 24.6%, respectively.
The Billboard Global Music Index (BGMI) increased 0.4% to 1,964.44, a fourth-consecutive weekly gain and the third straight week the index set a new record high. With winners and losers evenly split amongst the index’s 20 stocks, the BMGI improved its year-to-date gain to 28.1%.
Outside of China, where the Shanghai Composite Index rose 8.1% to 3,336.50, stocks were generally muted this week as investors were uncertain about how the widening war in the Middle East would affect the global economy. Oil prices increased 10% this week in part due to President Joe Biden’s comment that the U.S. was discussing possible strikes by Israel on Iranian oil production sites. Prices remained well below levels reached following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, however.
Trending on Billboard
In the U.S., the Nasdaq composite rose 0.1% and the S&P 500 gained 0.2%. In the U.K., the FTSE 100 fell 0.5% to 8,280.63. South Korea’s KOSPI composite index dropped 3.0% to 2,569.71.
iHeartMedia was the BGMI’s biggest gainer of the week, rising 15.2% to $1.97; the radio company’s shares have fallen 3.9% year to date but have risen 142% since hitting a 52-week low of $0.813 on May 28. Elsewhere, the index’s most valuable companies had either modest gains or losses. Live Nation gained 2.0% to $110.87. Spotify rose 0.6% to $371.45. HYBE increased 0.3% to 173,500 KRW ($128.82). Universal Music Group fell 2.0% to 23.37 euros ($25.66).
Sphere Entertainment Co. shares rose 4.4% to $45.26 as Wolfe Research upgraded the company on Wednesday (Oct. 2) to “outperform.” The company’s flagship venue, Sphere in Las Vegas, has added more shows to existing residencies. The Eagles will perform four additional shows in February, bringing its residency to 24 dates. In addition, Anyma added dates on Jan. 10 and 11 — the seventh and eighth shows at the venue for the Italian producer, who will break a string of legacy rock bands to become the first EDM artist to perform at Sphere.
Guggenheim reiterated its “buy” rating on Warner Music Group (WMG) and slightly lowered its estimate for ad-supported streaming revenue ahead of the company’s fiscal fourth-quarter earnings. BofA Securities downgraded WMG to “underperform” from “neutral” on Friday and lowered its price target to $30 from $33. WMG shares finished the week at $31.14, down 0.2%.
LiveOne shares fell 35.8% after the company lowered its fiscal 2025 guidance following a revised partnership with Tesla in which the auto manufacturer will no longer subsidize some customers’ in-auto streaming platform powered by LiveOne’s Slacker Radio. The Los Angeles-based company’s stock has fallen 51.4% year to date.
K-pop stocks, which have fallen sharply in 2024, were muted this week. HYBE, YG Entertainment, SM Entertainment and JYP Entertainment fell by an average of 0.1%, which nudged their average year-to-date loss down to 32.0%.
Billboard
Billboard
Billboard