Touring
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The National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) will host its latest conference this July in Washington, D.C.
The association — which successfully lobbied for the $16.25 billion Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) for indie venues struggling through the pandemic — will bring together its members from July 10-12. The inaugural NIVA Conference was held last year in Cleveland with more than 650 members in attendance.
The 2023 edition will focus on topics including industry diversity, mental health, safety, insurance, the economic impact of live entertainment, booking, artist development, ticketing and the role of live entertainment in policymaking. NIVA ‘23 will also give members the opportunity to engage with the organization’s federal and national partners on Capitol Hill, in the Biden administration and throughout the D.C. region.
“In welcoming the NIVA conference to the District, we look forward to showcasing the independent venues and creatives who keep D.C. the capital of creativity,” said Washington, D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser in a release. “And we have a lot to be proud of — from our vibrant Go Go scene, to the venues that have hosted and built generations of music fans, to the festivals that bring Washingtonians together year after year. D.C. residents love going to festivals and shows and supporting artists, and we know the important role our creative community will continue to play in D.C. ‘s comeback. We look forward to bringing NIVA members and industry experts together in D.C., and we’ll see you in July.”
In addition to a full slate of programming, organizers promise live performances, a pre-party on July 9 and an awards gala July 10 at independent venue The Anthem that will celebrate live entertainment’s contribution to the nation. Events will take place at multiple NIVA music and comedy venues across Washington, D.C. During the evenings, attendees can take advantage of concerts and performances happening every night of the conference as NIVA ‘23 coincides with National Independent Venue Week, making D.C. the epicenter of independent live music in the country the week of July 10.
“Thousands of music and comedy venues across the country spent 2020 and 2021 focused on making the case to Washington D.C. policymakers that small businesses in live entertainment needed help to prevent the permanent loss of stages in every community, and NIVA’s efforts led to the largest arts investment in U.S. history,” said NIVA’s recently appointed executive director Stephen Parker in a release. “This summer, the nation’s music and comedy community will return to D.C. to illustrate why the partnership between government and the independent live entertainment industry must continue beyond the pandemic, to forge the future for independent music and comedy venues, festivals and promoters and to demonstrate their place in America’s culture and economy.”
NIVA is partnering with the following member venues and festivals to bring the 2023 conference to Washington, D.C.: All Things Go, Black Cat, DC Improv, DC9 Nightclub, Down in the Reeds Festival, I.M.P. (The Anthem, 9:30 Club and Lincoln Theatre), Listen Local First D.C., National Cannabis Festival, Pearl Street Warehouse, Rhizome, Songbyrd Music House, The Hamilton, The Pie Shop, The Pocket, U Street Music Hall Presents and Union Stage.
Further details on the conference’s programming and speakers will be announced at a later date. Registration information can be found here.
Jason Miller is moving from Live Nation to Outback Presents, where he has taken the role of GM of the North East Division to help grow the independent promoter’s business.
Miller, most recently executive vp at Live Nation Entertainment, is a veteran of the live entertainment industry with more than 30 years of experience. Over the course of his career, he’s produced events for top artists and entertainers at the iconic venues including Madison Square Garden, Barclays Center, Prudential Center, Radio City Music Hall, Citi Field, Yankee Stadium, Carnegie Hall, The Beacon Theatre, Northwell Health at Jones Beach, MetLife Stadium and Central Park’s Great Lawn and SummerStage.
“This is a tremendous moment for me personally and professionally,” Miller said in a release. “The new position allows me to return to my creative roots and independent spirit. I’m proud to be able to continue working with world-class artists and events.”
Miller was with Live Nation for 16 years out of New York. While there, he worked with such major artists as Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, AC/DC, Pearl Jam, Prince, Lady Gaga, George Michael, Mariah Carey, Dead & Company, Swedish House Mafia, Iron Maiden, Guns N’ Roses, Lenny Kravitz, Sheryl Crow, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Eminem, Radiohead, Jay-Z and Rage Against The Machine.
“Jason carries decades of knowledge, history, and integrity along with a vast pool of experience promoting and producing the highest class of events in North America,” said Outback Presents’ Mike Smardak, Brian Dorfman and Vaughn Millette in a joint statement. “We are proud to foster his creative spirit and thrive in a new era of live entertainment.”
Outback’s team has also recently grown with the hires of Everett Ramsey and Hardy McBee, formerly of Beaver Productions, as well as Fallon Nell, who returned to Outback after stints in both artist management and at Belmont University.
Following a four-show blitz of North America in December, U.K.-based indie rock outfit Lovejoy is returning to the U.S. with a 20-date North American tour. Tickets for the trek went on sale Friday (Feb. 10).
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Lovejoy touch down in North America on May 4 at Nashville’s Basement East and will is also slated to play the Shaky Knees festival in Atlanta on May 5, the Novo in Los Angeles on May 16 and Minneapolis’ First Avenue on May 26. The group will end their tour with a show at the Governor’s Ball Festival on June 10.
Formed during the final days of the pandemic by lead singer Wilbur Soot — a well-known Twitch streamer and former Youtube comedian — with friends from Brighton Beach, England, Lovejoy has amassed nearly 1.6 million monthly listeners on Spotify and built a steady following here in the U.S.
In December, the group’s first U.S. shows — two in Los Angeles and two in New York — quickly sold out, packing venues like L.A.’s Moroccan Lounge with a steady flow of 20-something, mostly female, fans marching to the beat of the band’s double kick drum percussion. Lovejoy’s visit would reveal the band’s status as unlikely heartthrobs and showcase their clever banter and mischievous wit.
Along with the tour announcement, Lovejoy has released a video for the band’s hard-charging new single “Call Me What You Like.” Soot has a penchant for casting himself as a hopeless romantic — a “Jim Halpert” from The Office type, replete with entangled numbness and inescapable inadequacy — and yet he refuses to melt into a floor puddle with a kitschy breakup song. As it turns out, “Call Me What You Like” is a surprising and satisfying middle finger to the notion of having it all as it mucks around in the middle phases of an early relationship close to collapse.
Along with Lovejoy singles “Knee Deep” and “It’s All Futile! It’s All Pointless!”, “Call Me What You Like” demonstrates how much progress the group has made in finding its voice, creating and then dissipating density with surprise hooks, lyrical bridges and stop-on-a-dime change-ups. Many of the songs have Soot walking through vignettes of half-memory and snapshots, pushing listeners farther and farther down the trail with only breadcrumbs to find their way back.
“And so I find’s myself in your mum’s bedroom,” Soot sings on the new single. “Fighting with the pink roller blinds. It’s on pay-per-view. Just place your bests on who’s lost their mind.” When asked what the line meant during a brief interview with bandmates Joe Goldsmith, Ash Kabosu and Mark Boardman, Soot laughed and offered up, “I’m not necessarily sure, in that song I just find myself thinking a lot about her mom’s bathroom and going through the drawers.”
Dates for the 2023 Lovejoy tour are listed below. For more information, visit www.lvjyonline.com.
May 4th – Nashville, TN @ The Basement East
May 5th – Atlanta, GA @ Shaky Knees Music Festival
May 8th – Dallas, TX @ Granada Theater
May 9th – Austin, TX @ Scoot Inn
May 12th – Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom
May 13th – San Diego, CA @ Music Box
May 16th – Los Angeles, CA @ The Novo
May 17th – San Francisco, CA @ Bimbo’s 365 Club
May 19th – Portland, OR @ Hawthorne
May 20th – Seattle, WA @ Neumos
May 23rd – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Complex
May 24th – Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre (Venue Upgrade)
May 26th – Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue (Venue Upgrade)
May 27th – Milwaukee, WI @ Riverside Theater (Venue Upgrade)
May 28th – Detroit, MI @ Royal Oak Music Theatre (Venue Upgrade)
May 30th – Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall
June 2nd – Boston, MA @ Royale
June 3rd – Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of Living Arts
June 6th – Washington, D.C. @ Howard
June 10th – New York, NY @ Governors Ball Music Festival
Revenues for Madison Square Garden Entertainment (MSGE) rose 24% to $642.2 million in the second quarter, bolstered by strong consumer and corporate demand for events plus a raft of cost cuts, the company reported Thursday (Feb. 9).
Speaking for the first time since publicly announcing the company is exploring a sale of its stake in Tao Group Hospitality, MSGE CFO Dave Byrnes said that revenue growth came from broad-based demand for events, hospitality, suites, sponsorship and merchandise.
The company is also undergoing a complex restructuring to spin off its live entertainment business — which houses its namesake venue and the Rockette’s Christmas Spectacular production — from its business focused on MSG Sphere, the state-of-the-art Las Vegas venue currently under construction. The latter business would also house MSG Networks and (at least for now) Tao Group.
“We are moving swiftly and anticipate completing the spin-off by the end of March,” Byrnes said on a call to discuss the financial results.
Byrnes also said that the MSG Sphere, with its 580,000 square-foot LED exosphere (the world’s largest LED screen), is expected to open in September with an as-yet-announced artist residency and potentially an “original attraction” from a leading Hollywood director. Byrnes said they expect to announce both in the coming weeks.
It is those two types of events — artist performances and films — plus advertising, sponsorship and hospitality, that MSGE hopes will help pay for the $2.175 billion price tag of building the Sphere.
MSGE had roughly $2.01 billion in debt as of the quarter ending on Dec. 31, and about $554 million in cash on hand and restricted cash.
The company announced last quarter that it was exploring areas within the company to cut costs, including letting go of staff in areas including the MSG Networks division. The severance pay and other elements related to those job reductions led to a $13.7 million charge in the quarter.
The MSG Networks segment generated $158.9 million in revenue, 1% lower than a year ago, due to higher rights fees partially offset by increasing advertising revenues.
The company’s entertainment segment generated $356.5 million, up significantly over last year on mostly sold-out events at The Garden and a full run of the Christmas Spectacular — its first in three years due to the pandemic.
Byrnes also elaborated on the company’s decision to shop around its stake in the Tao Group, saying it was time for the company to explore the opportunity to provide a significant return to its shareholders.
MSG paid $181 million for a 62.5% interest in the hospitality group in 2017 and now owns 67% of the company.
“The bidding process is extremely robust with significant interest from multiple bidders,” Byrnes said. “We’re moving forward through the process and we’ll keep you updated as we have additional news.”
The Tao Group generated $136 million in revenue, up 16% from last year when the Omicron variant of COVID-19 dampened demand for corporate holiday parties and dining out.
Additionally, MSGE filed a request on Thursday with the New York City Department of Planning to lift the time limit on Madison Square Garden’s special operating permit, which is currently set to expire on July 24. The Garden deserves to remain where it is in perpetuity, the company said in a statement, because moving it could cost $8.5 billion in public funding and improvements to the portion of Penn Station located beneath The Garden are already proceeding without the venue needing to move.
After years of touring around the globe, Bob the Drag Queen is gearing up for her biggest tour yet — and this time, it’s with pop icon Madonna.
In a new interview with Billboard, the drag superstar dishes on her upcoming special guest slot on Madonna’s 40 year-retrospective world trek, the Celebration Tour. “You ever think about how lucky you are to be alive at the same time as someone else?” Bob says. “We get to be alive at the same time as Madonna.”
The pair were first introduced when Bob served as host for Madonna’s New York Pride show at Terminal 5 in 2022. “Her daughter recommended me to host, and Madonna just really took a liking to me after that,” she says. “She sang me ‘Happy Birthday,’ she’s bought me cupcakes, I talk with her kids, and we just became really fast pals.”
It wasn’t until November of last year that Madonna officially asked Bob to join her on her expansive tour — or at least, Madonna thought she was officially asking Bob. “She DM’d my mom on Instagram, because she thought it was my Instagram,” Bob says with a laugh. “My mom texted me like, ‘Madonna wants to work with me!’ I was like, ‘Mom, I’m pretty sure she thinks you’re me.’ It came so close to being my mom on tour with Madonna instead of me.”
The RuPaul’s Drag Race season eight winner teased that fans can expect “a journey through four decades of the top-selling woman in the history of music,” with the queen “there to help facilitate the journey” throughout the show’s run.
Fans spotted Bob in Madonna’s tour announcement video, in which the star had a series of her celebrity friends — including Diplo, Amy Schumer, Judd Apatow, Jack Black and Lil Wayne — join her for a game of Truth or Dare. As Bob tells it, no one in the video knew what was supposed to happen until the cameras started rolling.
“I was the first one there, and then all of these people began streaming in. I was like, ‘Wait, Amy Schumer? Jack Black? What is going on?’” Bob recalls. “We all thought that we were individually going to be taking some photos with Madonna, none of us knew about this. Only Madonna could get us all to show up like that.”
When it comes to personal impact, Bob says she’s been moved by Madonna’s grace and trust in her. “She respects me in a way that doesn’t feel like a novelty,” she says. “Obviously, what matters most is how I feel about myself, but still, a stamp of approval from Madonna is just like … ‘What?!’”
The Celebration Tour kicks off July 15 in Vancouver, B.C. Get your tickets to see Bob and Madonna on tour here.
Longtime Los Angeles Philharmonic music and artistic director Gustavo Dudamel will move to the New York Philharmonic in the same role starting in 2026, the NY Phil announced Tuesday (Feb. 7).
Dudamel, who has served as music and artistic director at the LA Phil since 2009 and also currently serves as music director of the Opéra National de Paris and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, will begin a five-year term at the NY Phil starting with the orchestra’s 2026-27 season. He will additionally serve as music director designate during the 2025-26 season.
“Today, above all, I am grateful. I am grateful to the musicians and leadership of the New York Philharmonic as we embark upon this new and beautiful journey together. As the great poet Federico García Lorca said: ‘Every step we take on earth brings us to a new world,’” said Dudamel, adding, “I gaze with joy and excitement at the world that lies before me in New York City.”
Dudamel has guest-conducted 26 concerts at the NY Phil since his debut there in November 2007. He’s slated to return this spring to conduct the orchestra in three performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 from May 19-21, which will mark his first time conducting in the reimagined David Geffen Hall’s Wu Tsai Theater.
“This is a dream come true for our musicians, our audience, and certainly for me,” said NY Phil’s Linda and Mitch Hart president/CEO Deborah Borda in a statement. “The coming together of a great orchestra, a visionary Music and Artistic Director, and our transformed hall promises the richest of futures.”
NY Phil executive director Gary Ginstlin, who will succeed Borda as president/CEO, added, “With Gustavo Dudamel, the Philharmonic is poised for what I believe will be one of the most exciting chapters in its storied history.”
NY Phil principal trumpet Christopher Martin added that the orchestra feels “an extraordinary connection” with Dudamel. “This moment aligns with the unparalleled artistic tradition of this nation’s oldest orchestra,” he continued. “We look forward to sharing our deepening musical relationship with audiences both in our revitalized David Geffen Hall and on tour around the world.”
A group of musicians who have gathered together under the banner of the Union of Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW) has published a petition calling for better pay for artists selected to perform at the annual SXSW conference and festival each March. The petition — which at press time bore the names of more than 400 artists, and which is being continually updated with more names — has been signed by artists such as Eve 6, Mountain Goats, Jeremy Messersmith, Speedy Ortiz, Zola Jesus, Pedro the Lion, YACHT and Emperor X, as well as the Songwriters of North America (SoNA). Of the signees listed on the site, a half-dozen are scheduled to play SXSW this year.
In the petition, the UMAW is taking aim at the compensation that artists receive for being officially invited to perform at the festival, which launched in Austin in 1987. The petition claims that artists who are selected to perform must first pay an application fee, which has risen from $40 in 2012 to $55 this year, while they are offered a choice of either a festival wristband or $250 ($100 for a solo artist) as compensation. International artists, the petition says, are only offered a wristband, with no possibility of financial compensation.
In light of those claims, the UMAW is requesting that compensation for artists be raised from $250 to $750 per act; that a festival wristband be included as part of that compensation, not as an either/or choice; that international artists be offered the same compensation as domestic U.S. artists; and that the application fee be eliminated. The petition is addressed to SXSW and Penske Media, which owns Billboard as well as publications like Rolling Stone, Variety, and The Hollywood Reporter. (In April 2021, Penske Media Corporation became an investor in SXSW by taking a 50% stake in the conference and festival. A rep for PMC did not respond to a request for comment.)
“SXSW is honored to host over 1,400 showcasing acts every March,” a SXSW spokesperson said in a statement to Billboard. “We are committed to creating professional opportunities by bringing emerging artists together with media, the global music industry, and influential audiences. We appreciate the feedback from the UMAW and will be doing our policy review after next month’s event.”
The UMAW, which has 18 members on its steering committee, including Sadie Dupuis of Speedy Ortiz and Zachary Cole Smith of DIIV, has been active with petitions in the past. The most impactful has been the Justice At Spotify campaign, launched in 2020 to protest the low streaming royalty payouts from the music streamer, which was signed by more than 6,000 individuals and demanded both higher royalty rates and a switch to user-centric royalties. That initiative was followed up with a series of protests by musicians outside Spotify offices around the globe in March 2021; days later, Spotify launched a website called Loud & Clear intended to increase transparency around how it pays rights holders.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs is coming to a city near you! On Tuesday (Feb. 7), the group — which consists of members Karen O, Brian Chase and Nick Zinner — announced that it will hit the road this summer for a tour across North America, Europe and Asia.
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The North American leg of the tour will kick off on May 3 with a date at Washington, D.C.’s The Anthem. The trio will make stops, for solo gigs and on the festival circuit, throughout Atlanta, Houston, Minneapolis, Chicago and more before concluding on June 10 at The Greek Theatre in Berkley, Calif. After performing at Japan’s Fuji Rock Festival, the band will hit up London, Paris, Amsterdam and Berlin in August. The Faint and Perfume Genius will be supporting the band on select dates.
Fans wanting to see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs can score pre-sale tickets starting on Wednesday, Feb. 8, at 8 a.m. PT (password is COOLKIDZ23). General on-sale begins on Friday, Feb. 10, at 10 a.m. local. If your city has been skipped this time around, don’t worry. “We’ll be announcing some more dates soon!” the group wrote on Instagram.
In addition to the tour dates, the group dropped the video for “Blackdrop,” which hails from its fifth studio album, Cool It Down. The visual features lead singer Karen O in glittering eye makeup and glossy red lips, singing the track’s emotive lyrics in a fuzzy video reminiscent of the ’80s.
“‘Blacktop’ stuck out to me early on — the demo was very stripped down instrumentally and emotionally. It was a step towards what radical closeness feels like after a long separation,” the singer explained in a press release. “Each record has one of these diamonds in the rough that just feels like flying to me. It felt right to keep the video as stripped down and dare I say beautiful in its naïveté. David Black put us in front of his ’70s analog video camera with the intention to pull stills for band shots. He had me sing to ‘Blacktop’ before I had even memorized the lyrics — I thought I knew the song by heart but it felt like an introduction, like meeting it for the first time. It wasn’t intended to end up as a video and as a return to the earliest visuals from the record it completes a circle. We’re so happy we have it, a simple layered performance for a deceptively simple song. We hope you enjoy.”
Watch the visual for “Blacktop” in the video above. See the dates for Yeah Yeah Yeahs summer tour below.
YEAH YEAH YEAHS 2023 TOUR DATES
With his second producer of the year non-classical trophy in hand after the 2023 Grammy Awards on Sunday (Feb. 5), Jack Antonoff took some time during his press chat after accepting to weigh in on the recent controversies around ballooning concert ticket prices and on-sale snafus for some of the industry’s biggest acts.
The producer-songwriter and frequent Taylor Swift collaborator made one thing perfectly clear during his chat with reporters on his feelings about mega-promoters: Them, they’re the problem, not us.
“The whole thing is incredibly tough. There’s no reason why … if I can go online and buy a car and have it delivered to my house, why can’t I buy a f–king ticket at the price that the artist wants it to be? So it’s that simple,” Antonoff said of the distress facing some fans when buying tickets to shows by their favorite acts.
“And you know the reason why. And it’s not ’cause of artists,” he added, without naming names of any industry ticketing agencies in particular. “So the one thing that I would say while holding a microphone is everybody’s got to chill on the artists. Because everyone’s trying to figure it out. We know who’s making it impossible.”
Antonoff, who has held forth on the topic of touring and dynamic ticket pricing before, said that he would like to see the industry allow artists to opt-out of the format that often results in sky-high prices for fans. He also stumped for the industry to stop “taxing merch” and allow artists to sell tickets at a “price they actually believe.”
In the wake of January’s contentious Senate Judiciary hearings on Ticketmaster, Ineffable Music Group announced a plan to cut merch fees for bands at its venues.
“Don’t turn a live show into a free market,” Antonoff said. “Because that’s really dirty. Charge what you think is fair … but if [for] one person $50 is nothing and for one person $50 is more than they can ever spend … you’re creating a situation where a different group of people can come together at one price. The second everything fluctuates is the second it goes K-shaped and turns into a weird free market is not what we do.”
Back in November, Antonoff tweeted out a similar complaint in which he blasted music venues for taking a cut of artist’s merch sales. “While we are having the discussion can venues simply stop taxing merch of artists? This is literally the only way you make money when you start out touring,” he wrote. “The more we make it tenable for young and small artists to make a living on the road the more great music we will get. Touring is one of the most honest ways to make a living. Some of the hardest and most heartfelt work you can do. So why must [they] f— artist[s] so hard?”
Antonoff added, “[Simple] solutions, stop taxing merch, stop lying to artists about costs of putting on shows, include artists in more areas of revenue. The stories I could tell from my years of touring are bananas. Young artists on tour are the last to see any money.”
Watch him discuss ticket pricing and merch in the Grammys press room below:
It’s a banner day for New York attorney Kurt Dominic Robertson, who is no longer persona non grata at the world’s most famous arena.
The same goes for the attorneys at Los Angeles law firm Wilshire Law Group, New York lawyer Laura Rosenberg and non-lawyer Ryan Kenneth Randall, a Las Vegas resident representing himself in a lawsuit filed against Tao Group, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the “guy who punched me at 10:30 pm on a Saturday Memorial Day Weekend the police took into custody.”
Robertson and those others are all involved in litigation against Madison Square Garden-owned Tao Group and were barred from entering the Manhattan arena or any other MSG property under a controversial policy enacted by chairman James Dolan last year. But that all changed today when the company announced it was selling Tao Group and lifting “the adverse attorney policy for any litigation currently pending with Tao entities.” MSG paid $181 million for a 62.5% interest in the hospitality group in 2017.
“This is great news,” says attorney Kurt Robertson, who was banned from MSG properties for representing a client in a personal injury lawsuit filed against a Tao venue in Manhattan.
“When I first got the letter about the ban, I thought it was a prank,” Robertson continues. After calling MSG’s lawyers and learning that the ban was being enforced via facial recognition software, he says, “I decided I wasn’t going to test the policy” and allow himself to be made an example of by MSG security staff.
Robertson and other attorneys suing Tao are no longer barred from entering any MSG-owned property, including the Garden, Radio City Music Hall, the Beacon Theater, the Chicago Theatre and the soon-to-open Sphere in Las Vegas.
Attorneys suing other MSGE entities, along with all employees at their law firms, are still banned from entering all MSGE-owned facilities and risk being escorted off the premises by MSG staff if they are recognized by MSG’s facial recognition software.
The controversial rule, affecting an estimated 90 law firms, is currently being challenged by a number of private law firms along with Attorney General Letitia James, who voiced concern in a Jan. 24 letter that any attempts by MSG “to dissuade individuals from filing discrimination complaints or encouraging those in active litigation to drop their lawsuits so they may access popular entertainment events at the Company’s venues may violate state and city laws prohibiting retaliation.”
James also warned that “research suggests that the Company’s use of facial recognition software may be plagued with biases and false positives against people of color and women.”
MSGE stock was up about 2% in after-market trading on the news.