Touring
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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.
Kygo is bringing his Palm Tree Music Festival series to the Golden State on May 13. The one-day festival will be hosted at one of Southern California’s most famous surfing locales — Doheny State Beach in Dana Point — and will be headlined by Kygo and Ellie Goulding with additional performances by Tove Lo, The Midnight, The Knocks, Two Feet and Forester.
Curated by Kygo and Manager Myles Shear and produced by Live Nation, which has long hosted the Ohana festival on the same site, the Palm Tree Music Festival Dana Point is an expansion of the Norwegian DJ and producer’s live event brand at exotic locales around the world. Later this month, Kygo will join Jack White to headline a Palm Tree festival in Aspen, and in March, he’ll headline Palm Tree Festival Bali. Kygo will also headline three Palm Tree festivals throughout Australia between March 10 and 12 with Tiesto.
The inaugural California festival “will blend one-of-a-kind, luxurious experiences with unmatched summer nostalgia to bring fans from around the world together in celebration of a tropical lifestyle and incredible musical talent,” according to a press release.
Dana Point will be the collective’s first festival hosted on an actual beach. It will feature an exclusive VIP lounge and “Palm Tree Beach Club,” where guests can take in beachside views from shaded cabanas, hammocks and beyond in some of the festival’s most premium spaces.
“We are thrilled to bring the Palm Tree Music Festival experience beachside at Dana Point,” Kygo said in a statement. “The tropical lifestyle isn’t just our brand, it’s a way of life, and we couldn’t be more excited to finally hit the sand with our community to start the summer season with good vibes and great music.”
“Since our inception, the goal of Palm Tree Music Festival has been to create incredible experiences that bring together our close friends and community through music and a never-ending summer state of mind,” Shear added. “We’re proud to bring this experience to Dana Point in partnership with Live Nation and to share the tropical lifestyle with a new audience.”
Founded in 2016 by Kygo and Shear, Palm Tree Crew first came to life when the pair began gifting palm tree necklaces to their inner circle as a symbol of community. Today, Palm Tree Crew is a diversified holding company that owns and operates a consumer brand, a global live events business and a multi-product investment platform, all within one unified ecosystem that embodies the care-free vibe of an endless summer.
Ticket prices begin at $169.50 for General Admission. VIP Packages and Table/Bottle Service will be available as well. Presale begins Feb. 8 at 10:00 AM PST and runs until Feb 9 at 10:00 PM PST. General on sale begins Friday, Feb 10 at 10:00 AM PST at www.palmtreemusicfestival.com.
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The United Kingdom-based Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG) is expanding its San Antonio venue portfolio from two facilities to three with the opening of The Espee, a 3,175-capacity outdoor boutique amphitheater and special event venue located in the city’s historic St. Paul Square entertainment district.
ATG’s GM, Emily Smith, says the venue will service “musical performances to community gatherings and everything in between,” noting that the name Espee originates from the initials S.P., short for Southern Pacific Railroad Network. The Espee is located on the site of San Antonio’s Sunset Station, the city’s first train station and one of five stops on the Sunset Limited passenger train route that began in 1894, connecting Los Angeles to New Orleans.
The Spanish Mission Revival-style complex first opened in 1905 and was purchased and redeveloped in 2019 by two private ownership groups that operated a nightclub on the Espee site for about a year. In 2022, ATG signed on to renovate and operate the space. Improvements include enhanced in-house sound and lighting, renovated artist accommodations and refreshed restroom facilities.
Paying tribute to its past, the Espee will open March 4 with the daylong All Aboard festival featuring Head and the Heart, Danielle Ponder, Grupo Fantasma and more.
ATG also operates San Antonios Majestic and Empire theatres as part of its 58-venue worldwide portfolio across the U.K., the United States and Germany, including the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco, the Playhouse Theatre in London’s West End and the Capitol Theater in Düsseldorf.
For more information and to buy tickets for All Aboard festival, visit www.theespee.com.
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Feeling stressed about getting tickets to Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour? Queen Bey is giving the BeyHive plenty of chances to see her on tour, but demand for tickets has already skyrocketed and could get even higher after the Grammys on Sunday, where Beyoncé is up for nine nominations.
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The first 40 dates of the tour were announced earlier this week, followed by an additional seven shows in Toronto; Chicago; Washington, D.C.; Atlanta; Houston; Los Angeles; and East Rutherford, N.J. If you want to be in the building for one of the most anticipated tours of 2023 – we’ve rounded up details on when, where and how to get tickets, plus other important info that you might need to know.
Where to Buy Tickets to Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour
Tickets to the Renaissance Tour are available at Ticketmaster.com and LiveNation.com — but there are a few steps that you’ll need to take first. For starters, you must register as a Verified Fan to score tickets, although registering doesn’t automatically mean that you’ll get them.
Beyoncé Renaissance Tour Tickets
Beyoncé wants to ensure that fans — not resellers — get first dibs on tickets to her tour. According to Ticketmaster, a “lottery-style” process will be used to determine which Verified Fans will receive access codes to purchase tickets while others will be waitlisted. Citi cardmembers can get exclusive access to presale tickets upon registering here until Thursday, Feb. 9. Verified Fan presale tickets will go on sale on Monday (Feb. 6) from 2 p.m. ET until 10 p.m. ET.
Because new dates were announced this week, the Verified Fan registration for Group A ended Friday (Feb. 3) at noon ET. Registration for Group B will be open until next Thursday, Feb. 9, at 11:59 p.m. ET. Group B registration includes shows in Boston, Dallas, Miami, San Francisco, Seattle, Minneapolis and Tampa, Fla.
“Fan demand already exceeds the number of tickets available by more than 800 percent based on the registration numbers in the Group A cities,” reads a statement on the Ticketmaster website. “It is expected that many interested fans may not be able to get tickets because demand drastically exceeds supply.”
Group C registration ends Feb. 16 at 11:59 p.m. ET and includes shows in Charlotte, Detroit, Phoenix, St. Louis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Nashville and Kansas City, Mo. Tickets to the Renaissance Tour are also available on Vivid Seats.
How Much Do Beyoncé Tickets Cost?
It’s been six years since Beyoncé’s last jaunt, and judging by her stunning performance in Dubai, the Renaissance Tour will be visually and vocally extravagant.
Although ticket prices vary depending on seat location, based on prices for other major tours, fans can expect to pay around $300 for decent seats — and that’s probably on the lower end of the price spectrum. Luckily, Beyoncé took extra steps so that resellers don’t hike up ticket prices. According to fan posts on TikTok and Twitter, when you attempt to resell tickets, the following notification pops up: “You cannot resell your tickets for higher than the price you paid, including all fees.”
When Does the Renaissance Tour Start?
The Renaissance World Tour launches May 10 in Stockholm, Sweden, and will make stops in London, Paris, Barcelona, Brussels, Cologne, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and other cities overseas until the end of June. The North American leg kicks off in Toronto in July and will hit Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Charlotte, Miami, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Kansas City, San Francisco, Houston and other cities before wrapping in New Orleans on Sept. 27.
Renaissance Tour Merch: Where to Buy
Renaissance tour merch hasn’t dropped on Beyoncé’s website yet, but it’ll probably arrive closer to the start of the tour. In the meantime, fans can cop Beyoncé merch on Amazon and Etsy until the official merch drops online.
After nearly 60 years in the music business, there’s precious little Elton John hasn’t already achieved. The icon has sold millions of records, toured the globe countless times and even saw the biopic based on his life, Rocketman, win honors at the Academy Awards and Golden Globes. But this week he added another accolade to his extensive collection, and one that sets a mind-boggling record: his multiyear Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour became the highest-grossing tour of all time, and the only one to surpass $800 million in gross, passing Ed Sheeran’s Divide tour for the title.
John’s outing isn’t even over yet, and there’s still the possibility that this tour crosses even higher benchmarks before all is said and done. But it’s already a crowning achievement for Debra Rathwell, the executive vp of global touring and talent at AEG Presents, who promoted the trek. And the milestone earns her the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.
Here, Rathwell breaks down how the tour came together and became so successful, the strategy behind moving up from arenas to stadiums midway through, the challenges posed by the pandemic and the lessons learned from such a gigantic undertaking. “I’m not sure that there will ever be another artist like Elton John, or a tour quite like the FYBR Tour,” she says. “But for any artist aspiring to achieve this level of success, this tour is probably the best example of what comes out of hard work and a love of performing: get out there and share your music with your audience.”
This week, Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour became the highest-grossing tour in history, and the first-ever tour to gross $800 million. What key decision did you make to help make this happen?
This all started to come together six years ago, back in 2017, a full year before the first date of the Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour. Jay Marciano (AEG Presents chairman/CEO), Howard Rose (John’s longtime agent), Keith Bradley (John’s tour director), Donna DiBenedetto (AEG Presents vp), Barrie Marshall (Marshall Arts), Doris Dixon (Marshall Arts) and myself met in Las Vegas to begin the job of routing and shaping the first half of tour. At that time, Elton John was playing the final shows of The Million Dollar Piano residency at the Colosseum.
Once we had our plan together, Elton held a press conference in New York in January 2018 to officially announce his retirement from touring, but not before he had embarked on a final run of 350 shows over three years, beginning that September. He wanted to travel around the world to say farewell to his fans. We all knew right then that this would be the greatest tour of all time, and that it was our job to back up Elton and deliver the goods.
No single person can take credit for the monumental success of the FYBR tour — apart from Elton John, of course. But if I had to describe my small part of it over these past five years, it’s been kind of a “utility player” role. Depending on the day, or even minute, it’s coach, captain or just “the bossy girl with the clipboard” who keeps things on course.
Elton spent the first few years of this tour in arenas, before moving up to stadiums this past year. Why did you guys go that route?
For several years prior to the first arena show in Allentown, Penn. (Sept. 18, 2018), Howard Rose had booked shows in smaller secondary markets, which created demand in the major markets. That demand, combined with the news of the retirement, created demand for multiple shows in those markets. We repeated this strategy several times during the tour. But we also made sure to return to many of the same smaller secondary markets; it was important for Elton John to bid a final farewell to as many of his fans as possible.
It was always the plan that the final lap of the FYBR tour would be in stadiums. This was important to Elton and mapped out in the planning stages. Getting them organized and on sale during COVID turned out to be our biggest challenge.
Given the demand of an iconic performer’s final tour, how did you approach setting this up differently than you would have any other tour?
The tour was divided into two parts that we internally referred to as “Round One (179 shows)” and “Round Two (153 shows).” Round One kicked off with that Allentown show and ran all the way through to Sydney on March 7, 2020. Of course, we had no idea that the world would be shutting down four days after we wrapped Round One. And we certainly never imagined that Round Two wouldn’t be wrapped until summer 2023.
The tour also encompassed the pandemic. How did that affect your plans, and how did it force you to adapt once you got back on the road?
When we resumed touring in January 2022, we had very strict COVID protocols in place for all members of the touring team and local venue staff. With some minor adjustments in the routing, we were able to reschedule shows. Unfortunately, we had to cancel the two sold-out shows in Montreal and the two sold-out shows in Toronto due to government COVID restrictions. We also had to cancel some entire territories altogether; we always intended to bring the FYBR tour to Asia and South America, but two years of COVID delays and the rescheduling that followed made that impossible.
We also made the decision that the ticket prices for the stadium shows would be pretty similar to the arena shows — we were in a situation where rescheduled arena shows were on sale at the same time we were putting stadium shows on sale.
How has touring changed overall given the events of the past few years? And how has this tour itself evolved across the years that it’s been going?
The interesting thing to watch was that as the FYBR tour continued, the audience got younger. Elton John broadened his fan base over the life of the tour. Rocketman and his biography Me: Elton John were big moments for us. And The Lockdown Sessions album released in October 2021 was of course one more thing that connected him with a new generation.
The public demand for tickets increased exponentially as the tour was coming to an end. It actually got quite frenzied as the final shows approached in every market. We were all so excited that we were able to sell out three Dodger Stadium shows in Los Angeles, culminating with the livestream of the concert on Disney+.
What have you learned from this long-running Elton tour that you can apply to the rest of your clients?
First and foremost, the initial messaging and announcement of a tour is so important. It really is critical to its success. And the messaging that Elton John conveyed to his fans at that press conference all the way back in 2018 was front and center at all times.
Also, this tour really drove home the importance of having a strong team around you. I have loved every minute being a part of this team. It has been the greatest pleasure of my professional career to be involved with Sir Elton John, David Furnish, Luke Lloyd Davies and all of the wonderful people at Rocket Entertainment. Keith Bradley is the finest tour director and this tour would not have made it around the world for five years, in its many shapes and forms, without him. Many cherished hours were spent with Howard Rose and our touring partners Marshall Arts (Barrie Marshall and Doris Dixon) for the U.K. and Europe and Michael Chugg and Frontier for all of the shows in Australia and New Zealand.
Plus there’s our AEG Team: Andrew Sharp and John Merritt who have been traveling around the world for these past five years — apart from when they couldn’t — and Donna DiBenedetto, my promoting partner who keeps things organized. And of course, Jay Marciano’s leadership and experience has been invaluable. It’s just an incredible group of people from top to bottom.
I’m not sure that there will ever be another artist like Elton John or a tour quite like the FYBR Tour. But for any artist aspiring to achieve this level of success, this tour is probably the best example of what comes out of hard work and a love of performing: get out there and share your music with your audience.
To sum up: Start each tour with a clear message and intention, and a collaborative mentality is imperative. A successful tour requires lots of teamwork on the part of the agency, management, promoter and artist. Think big, and think worldwide. And always be patient. When I first meet with the extraordinarily talented artists with whom I get to work, I often joke that I will negotiate the rights to their 20th Anniversary Tour right then and there. But it’s not really a joke. That’s how much I believe in them.
Louis Tomlinson is taking his tour east. On Friday (Feb. 3), the “Out of my System” singer announced that he will be taking his Faith in the Future tour to Asia this spring.
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“FAITH IN THE FUTURE WORLD TOUR 2023. ASIA,” the former One Direction member shared on social media, along with a red poster of the tour dates below an image of him performing on stage. “I’m really excited to be coming back to Asia for these shows in April. I can’t wait to see you all again this year!”
There are seven show set for Asia, starting with a trio of dates across Japan. Tomlinson will begin the tour with a stop at the Maruzen Intec Arena in Osaka on April 17, then heads to two additional prefectures — Nagoya and Tokyo — on April 19-20. The 31-year-old will then make stops in Bangkok, Taipei and Kuala Lumpur before concluding the trek at The Star Theatre in Singapore on April 27. Tickets are available via louis-tomlinson.com.
Tomlinson previously announced his Faith in the Future tour — named after his second studio album, which peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 — in November. The newly released Asia dates come ahead of the star’s plans to tour North America in May through July, before starting the U.K. and European leg in late August.
See Tomlinson’s new tour announcement below.
Five years ago, award-winning electronic music DJ-producer Jesse Rose and hit songwriter-producer Jesse Rogg decided to launch a global agency to represent creative directors. “We just realized that there was no structure to the world of creative direction,” says Rogg. Having previously worked well in the studio together, Rose says they figured they would work just as well as business partners and, in 2018, formed the Original Creative Agency.
Today, OCA represents over 50 creative directors — or “architects,” as Rose and Rogg say — with clients including Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, Christina Aguilera, Tame Impala and Steve Lacy. And while the agency’s creatives work across mediums from music videos to styling to album art, looking at the year ahead, the pair predicts the live space will become a much bigger part of business. “Now people are coming to us and asking us to produce their tours, starting from the creative,” says Rose. “Which makes sense because our job is to make a story for a show.”
The two are confident that storytelling — both on and offstage — will be key to 2023’s most successful treks. Rose recalls speaking with Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker ahead of the band’s Slow Rush tour, initially planned in 2020, about how to make the outing feel fresh in 2022. Their solution was to build an entire campaign around the tour. Creative director Ryder Ripps came up with the idea for Rushium, a fictitious pharmaceutical company pushing “rush pills” that appeared on posters, merchandise and the sides of trucks. As for Lamar, the pair praises the way his 2022 Glastonbury headlining set (creative-directed by Mike Carson, along with Lamar and Dave Free) “told a story through movement rather than over-the-top stage design,” relying on two groups of dancers, says Rose. Most effective, he recalls, was the finale, during which Lamar chanted, “Godspeed for women’s rights,” as blood dripped from his thorny crown.
At a time when the live space is more competitive than ever, Rogg adds that such effective campaigning and messaging help set a tour apart — and cites a significant return on investment, too. Plus, adds Rose, the approach has recently helped OCA form relationships with nearly every major agency. “Artists and creatives — the great ones, at least — are always the ones coming up with what’s next,” says Rogg. “So we’re quite mindful of only representing the folks who are those trendsetters. They understand the bigger picture — and not just over one campaign, but across a whole career.”
This story will appear in the Feb. 4, 2023, issue of Billboard.