Touring
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Charli XCX and Troye Sivan played the first of two sold-out shows at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif., on Tuesday night (Oct. 15), effectively turning the 17,500-capacity venue into a revved-up, sex-positive dance party that more than lived up to the tour’s Sweat moniker. Given Charli’s grip on the culture this summer, there was […]
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.
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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.
In recent years, The Cure’s Robert Smith has been vocal about the shifting touring and ticket market. In 2023, the singer convinced Ticketmaster to give partial refunds to fans who had purchased tickets to their Songs Of A Lost World tour, hitting back at “unduly high” fees. For their U.S. run of dates, the band had kept the prices purposefully low to stay affordable, with some priced at $20, but the fees occasionally outstripped the value of the ticket.
In a new, lengthy interview, first published in the The Times, Smith has commented further on Ticketmaster’s practices and specifically their dynamic pricing model.
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“I was shocked by how much profit is made [by ticketing],” Smith said. “I thought, ‘We don’t need to make all this money.’ My fights with the label have all been about how we can price things lower. The only reason you’d charge more for a gig is if you were worried that it was the last time you would be able to sell a T-shirt.”
He continued: “But if you had the self-belief that you’re still going to be here in a year’s time, you’d want the show to be great so people come back. You don’t want to charge as much as the market will let you. If people save on the tickets, they buy beer or merch. There is goodwill, they will come back next time. It is a self-fulfilling good vibe and I don’t understand why more people don’t do it.”
“It was easy to set ticket prices, but you need to be pig-headed. We didn’t allow dynamic pricing because it’s a scam that would disappear if every artist said, ‘I don’t want that!’ But most artists hide behind management. “Oh, we didn’t know,” they say. They all know. If they say they do not, they’re either f–king stupid or lying. It’s just driven by greed.”
You can watch the full interview with Smith at The Cure’s website.
The Cure are releasing their first album in 16 years, Songs Of A Lost World, on Nov. 1 and the LP will be accompanied by a string of shows in London on release week. The band have shared two songs from the record so far, brooding opener “Alone” and “A Fragile Thing.”
Smith’s comments arrive not long after the controversial ticket sale for Oasis’ reunion tour in 2025. Dynamic pricing was used in the process for the band’s 19 stadium dates in the U.K. and Ireland, causing ticket prices to rise and fans forced to make quick decisions on prices that were higher than initially advertised.
The fallout and anger from fans prompted the U.K.’s Competition and Market Authority to investigate the use of the sale tactic. Oasis, who will be playing a run of shows next summer across the globe, distanced themselves from the dynamic pricing model and opted against using the method for their North American dates, which went on sale earlier this month.
Ticketmaster introduced the dynamic pricing scale in 2022 in a bid to help combat touts and the secondary ticket market. The company insists that bands and promoters set the ticket prices and that dynamic pricing is only used with approval by the artist’s team.
Kane Brown will launch 2025 with a new album and a new tour when he releases his album The High Road on Jan. 24 and sets out on The High Road Tour beginning March 13 in San Diego, Calif. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The tour […]
American roots reggae band Stick Figure decided to conduct an experiment earlier this year when they went on sale with tickets for their Sacred Sands Summer Tour 2024.
Hoping to make their tour as fan-friendly as possible, band leader Scott Woodruff and managers Thomas Cussins and Marina Petros at Ineffable Music Group decided to offer refunds to fans who bought tickets to the tour but couldn’t make the show.
“Given that the tour included numerous large-scale amphitheaters with some of the biggest promoters in the world,” the band had to agree to cover the costs of the refunds themselves, explained Cussins.
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Refunds are rarely allowed in the concert business and promoters have long been loathe to offer money-back options to fans, worried that a rush of last minute refunds could lead to heavy losses for shows that had previously been considered a sellout. But the problem with the “all sale are final” model, Cussins explained, is that fans might be hesitant to purchase tickets when they go on sale if they are worried about their availability months later.
A refund policy might make fans feel more confident about their purchase, explained Cussins who worked with Petros to develop the rules for Stick Figure’s first ever refund policy. In order for the band to recover the cost of the refund and sell returned tickets to new fans, the band required all refund requests be made up to 10 days before a show. In order to prevent scalpers from taking advantage of the refund policy, tickets listed on secondary market sites like Stubhub were excluded from the promotion.
“Enforcing this second rule was challenging, and some tickets intended for resale likely slipped through the cracks,” Cussins said. “However, on the whole, everyone acted in good faith and used this program as intended.”
The band ultimately sold 135,446 tickets for its 16-date Sacred Sands tour and granted 750 refunds, equal to about $77,852.24, or .55% of the revenue generated from 2024 tour.
“These numbers clearly show that this is a successful formula for a band,” Cussins explains. “As this tour was largely sold out, nearly all refunded tickets were resold. Even in the case of a less well-attended tour, this loss would be worth it based on the statistics from our post-tour ticket buyer survey.”
According to the survey, 65% of buyers were aware of the refund policy and of those who were aware, 82.3% said that the band’s refund policy made them feel more comfortable buying tickets.
“There is a strong case to be made that losing less than 1% of tickets later is still worth the overall boost in consumer confidence,” Cussins concludes.
Based on their experience, Cussins noted that promoters, venues and artists could improve the ticketing ecosystem by offering refunds to “verified fans (not resellers) up until 14 days before a show, with the option to extend this to 7 days depending on stakeholder determination,” Cussins says.
That doesn’t mean taking an aggressive stance against resale, but instead allowing the practice “with a few guidelines to avoid abuse” like speculative ticket selling, where a reseller lists a ticket they have not already purchased. Abuse and price gouging can be limited through thoughtful ticket distribution practices and market monitoring, coupled with dynamic pricing models that keep prices affordable on the secondary market, Cussins said.
“Adding the security of a refund option,” on top of the above secondary market reforms, Cussins concludes, “will increase consumer confidence and drive more early ticket sales, which limits risk for bands, venues, and promoters.”
When Jaclyn Kinnon was seven, she lived more like a roadie than a second grader. Because her mother, Shelley Kinnon, headed the backstage catering for Southern California’s Irvine Meadows (now FivePoint Amphitheatre) from 1988 to 2010, she spent many evenings and weekends helping her mom pamper rock stars. One particular chore later became a rock ‘n’ roll fable.
“I remember my mom tossing me bags of M&Ms and having me pick out all the brown ones for Van Halen,” says Jaclyn. “But I didn’t throw them out — I kept them for myself.”
When it comes to hospitality riders — a list of requests in an artist’s contract fulfilled by promoters or venues — the most famous is Van Halen’s demand for no brown M&Ms in their dressing room. But whether technical, practical or outrageous, the rider is an industry staple. It is also an endless source of fascination, finding its way into pop culture, such as the This Is Spinal Tap character Nigel Tufnel, played by Christopher Guest, who complains that the bread provided backstage is a catastrophe because it’s too small for the deli meat. For those of us who live far from the galaxy of stardom, this is an inconceivable world of entitlement and excess. But for those who work in the live music industry, this is their reality.
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Touring may seem like an endless bacchanalia, but it is nonetheless challenging. There are long hours spent on the road and on airplanes, late nights, early mornings, meet-and-greets, energy-zapping performances, sleeping (or not sleeping) in foreign beds, pre-parties, after parties, and unbridled access to all manner of intoxicants. Since ticket sales make up a large portion of an artist’s revenue, ranging from Taylor Swift‘s billion-dollar Eras Tour to throw-everything-in-the-van-and-go indie bands, the industry has developed a set of best practices for how musicians are treated while on the road, and creature comforts, especially for A-list artists, make a big impact on tour. Swift’s humble 2008 tour rider included simple indulgences such as one quart of 2% chocolate milk, one stick of butter, one small jar of dill pickles, and three boxes of Kraft macaroni and cheese. Her Eras Tour version would presumably go further.
Particular types of food and meal preparations are rider staples that offer a respite from drive-thrus, greasy spoons and gas station nachos. While some artists travel with a personal chef, others may expect the venue to provide a fine dining experience.
“For Van Halen and Sammy Hagar back in the ’90s,” says Shelley Kinnon, “they had to have a big, lavish, sit-down dinner in their dressing room. We supplied the dinner, and it was one of the most expensive riders I can remember. In fact, I even hired a chef from the Ritz Carlton to come in.”
Kinnon has seen it all. Her eponymous catering business has decades of experience at venues such as the aforementioned FivePoint Amphitheatre, L.A. Sports Arena and Orange County’s Segerstrom Center for the Arts. She roasted a whole pig for an Ozzfest end-of-tour party. She whipped up a juicy roasted pork loin from a special recipe provided by members of Rush. She supplied many bottles of Cristal. While some of her food requests were easy to fulfill, like Jimmy Buffett‘s three grapefruits, others were more daunting, like finding chicken feet for the Jamaica-based Reggae Sunsplash tour of the early ’90s. Now, most rare food items are more readily available, but 30 years ago when, for example, various British bands would require HP Sauce — a tomato and tamarind condiment as popular as ketchup in the U.K. — she was at a loss.
And then there were drugs — something that was oft requested but always unwritten. Since it was the ’80s, an era that was covered in white dust, it came as no surprise. (And no, Kinnon never provided it.) She also witnessed other high-maintenance requests of which rider lore is made.
“For Michael Jackson at his ’89 L.A. Sports Arena show, they were measuring the table cloths because they had to be a certain length,” she says.”Somebody had to taste all his food before he ate it. We even had to set up a separate dressing room for Bubbles, his [chimpanzee], who was wearing a frickin’ suit.”
As the music industry evolved, so have riders. While artists are still making headlines with their demands — lest we forget Beyoncé‘s alleged 2013 request for over $900 worth of titanium straws, which she needed, according to E! News, for drinking alkaline water — at least some lean toward a more cause-driven purpose.
“Florence and the Machine was a solidly expensive rider — a few thousand dollars,” says Tadia Taylor, who has worked in artist relations, tour and artist management, and event production. “Florence is focused on sustainability so it was important to her that there’s no paper plates, no paper cups, no plastic cutlery. I had to buy stuff like china, glassware and real silverware, but it didn’t bother me because it was coming from a good place. Even though it was expensive, it wasn’t frivolous.
“I actually kept all that stuff and reused it for other events,” she adds.
The rider comes from humble beginnings. In the early ’60s, they were utilitarian, consisting of performance essentials like payment preferences, sound equipment and lighting, which these days is categorized as a technical rider to differentiate it from the hospitality version. Chuck Berry, who traveled with his guitar in hand, asked to be paid in cash upfront or he would not play. (This was used against him when the IRS charged him with tax evasion in 1979.)
Alex Hodges, 82, CEO of Nederlander Concerts, who has represented artists such as The Allman Brothers and Stevie Ray Vaughan, says his first experience with the rider was in Macon, Ga. in the early ’60s when he worked with the now-defunct Walden Artists & Promotions. While still in college, he started managing local bands around 1961 and eventually landed his first big star: Otis Redding.
“Regional bands would tell us stories of the bare dressing room or the lack of equipment or water on the floor,” says Hodges. “The first rider I ever did was probably no more than a page or two. For Otis, it became more essential and technical, just the minimum requirements. And around 1970, when The Allman Brothers came out with their first album, it became a little bit more interesting.”
That is due in large part to John Hartmann, 84, a Canadian-American author, educator and music industry legend who has worked with artists such as Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and the Eagles, and who helped reshape the rider into what it is today — which can now be upwards of 15 pages. And it all began with Perrier.
“We invented the rider,” Hartmann claimed in Michael Walker’s book Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock-and-Roll’s Legendary Neighborhood. “I remember the big thing I wanted was Perrier. I drank Perrier. So I got everybody around me into it, and we ended up putting Perrier on the riders and no one knew what it was and people were sending to France to get it. Those kinds of things crept in as the managers and the artists gained power.”
With Perrier, Hartmann was one of the first to request an indulgence on tour that was something other than technical equipment or a per diem, making venues and promoters scramble to either hunt down or import the bubbly beverage. His request was honored, and later, when the British duo Chad & Jeremy called him with a venue issue, these combined occurrences revealed an opportunity.
“I sent Chad & Jeremy to San Diego to play a concert,” says Hartmann. “When they got down there, they called and said, ‘There’s no PA.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about? It’s a venue, they’ve got a PA,’ and they said, ‘This is the kind of PA a teacher uses to talk to a class. It won’t hold rock and roll.’ That’s when we started, as agents, analyzing this whole need for proper sound and really got into the technical aspects of it all for the first time.”
Eventually, riders began to help artists and managers gain more power. If a rider was fulfilled, it meant the contracts were read. If they weren’t, it meant the artist had the ability to cancel their show. Since promoters and venues needed performers in order to run their businesses, the dynamic shifted from offering the bare minimum to ingratiating artists and management. The demands to elevate the standards of sound and lighting quality quickly became the norm for most venues, allowing artists to fill their riders with other, more personalized, requests. Thus, the hospitality rider (versus the technical rider) was born — and it didn’t take long for artists and managers to catch on.
In essence, riders evolved into binding contractual terms. Hodges once demanded in Stevie Ray Vaughan’s rider — whose last name was frequently misspelled as “Vaughn” on marquees, tickets and posters — that if his last name was misspelled on any marketing materials, the promoter would have to pay the hotel bill for the entire band and crew. As a fond reminder of this, Hodges keeps a framed poster featuring Vaughan’s misprinted name in his office.
“That’s in essence what the rider’s about: To be sure the promoters are given the information they need,” Hodges says. “Some of the funny stuff you put in isn’t necessarily intended to be funny or difficult, it’s to be sure that they read the rider and take it seriously. We’d check everything to see if they spelled the artist’s name right, whether it’s a marquee, dressing room, or on a cake — anything that might let us know they weren’t paying attention.”
“The rider evolved based on the specific interests, needs or whims of the acts, especially as they got bigger,” Hartmann adds. “Those requests became rigid, and eventually no artist performed without a rider. When I went to Europe with the Eagles, America and Crosby and Nash — before Stills — we had unwritten needs. It wasn’t on the rider, but you gotta give us pot or hashish when we crossed the border into your country.”
If there’s anyone who knows about riders based on specific interests and needs, it’s Darrius Washington, who is Steve Aoki‘s tour and production manager. Dubbed the “$30 million DJ” by Forbes in 2019, Aoki is not just known for rattling arenas with his high-energy big room house but also for lobbing cakes at eager audience members.
Known as “Cake Face,” these are not regular store-bought cakes picked up by a production assistant, but rather a particular recipe made by a local baker in each city of the tour. They are so specific that the cakes have their own rider, shared with Billboard, which offers a diagram, dimensions (12×16 inches), ingredients (plain white sponge cake, no chocolate or sprinkles), and the ratio of cake to frosting (25% white sponge cake and 75% whipped cream frosting). The rider also says, “A great test is to see how easily you can stick your finger in the top of the cake. If you have to use force, then the cake is not prepared correctly.” Even the foundation of the cake is explicit and must be made of expanded polystyrene foam board because it is soft and breaks upon impact, avoiding injuries that could be incurred by cardboard or plastic careening at one’s face.
“What most people don’t know about the cake,” Washington explains, “is that it’s all contractual. So if you fuck up our cake rider or your cakes in any way, it’s a $5,000 fee.
“We’re actually refining the rider even further because Steve has mentioned that they are on the lighter side,” Washington adds. “He’s been featured on Barstool Sports for how accurate he is with the cakes, but if you want to continue that accuracy, the cakes have to be a certain weight, a certain size, or else they don’t go as far. So all of these things have to come together to make this perfect cake for throwing.”
According to Washington, they go through about 800 cakes per summer.
Now, some venues go above and beyond the riders, not only fulfilling them in their entirety but organizing customized activations for artists and their entourage. Christy Castillo Butcher, senior vp of programming and booking for SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, believes in the broader definition of hospitality, which is welcoming people into your home.
“You wanna create a comfortable space for them, an inner sanctum to decompress before the show,” Butcher says. “Hospitality riders are key in creating some consistency from venue to venue so the performers know what to expect. From a venue side, it’s really trying to tap into some of the nuances around that. What are some of their favorite things? Is there a specialty coffee or food particular to the artist or crew? Are they fond of a certain tequila?”
From Butcher fabricating a personalized SoFi football helmet for Kenny Chesney to organizing a carne asada cookout during a press conference — complete with a local youth mariachi band — for the Mexican Norteño-banda act Grupo Firme, the rider continues to evolve via the venues and the artists themselves.
“With the rider, the power went from the criminal conspiracy known as the record business to the artist and managers,” says Hartmann with a laugh. “The rider is now an institution. The ridiculousness is unlimited and it’s up to the artist — what are they not ashamed to ask for? Well, most of the time it doesn’t matter and they’ll just ask for it anyway.”
Renowned U.K.-born singer-songwriter Corinne Bailey Rae has signed with Independent Artist Group (IAG) for exclusive representation across North America. Managed by Anthony Patterson and Taylor Cottrell at Roc Nation, the six-time Grammy Award-nominated artist now joins the ranks of IAG’s R&B roster, which includes legends like Mary J. Blige, Ne-Yo and Keyshia Cole. Since her […]
In May, Olivia Rodrigo was due to be one of the first artists to play at Manchester’s Co-op Live Arena. The city’s new indoor arena, funded by Oak View Group and has Harry Styles as an investor, was beset by delays and resulted in a number of canceled shows, including two dates by Rodrigo. Now […]
Mexican superstar Luis Miguel will close his international tour in Mexico City at the GNP Seguros Stadium on Nov. 30, Mexican promoter Ocesa announced on Tuesday (Oct. 8).
Known as “El Sol de México,” which loosely translates to “México’s sun,” Luis Miguel has chosen the Mexican capital as the stage for one of the most important moments of his career to make a spectacular closing of his Luis Miguel Tour 2023-2024, which grossed $318.2 million and sold 2.2 million tickets in its first 146 concerts, according to figures reported in September to Billboard Boxscore. This made it the highest grossing tour of all time among Latin artists.
Tickets for the last show will be available at the Gran Venta HSBC on Oct. 14 and 15, and the following day at the venue’s box office or through ticketmaster.com.mx, Ocesa said.
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The singer of “La Incondicional,” “Culpable o No” and “Suave” returns to Mexico City, where he began a series of concerts at the Arena Ciudad de Mexico on Tuesday that will end on Oct. 24, with which he will set a new record as the artist who has had the most number of concerts at that venue, with 18 presentations, according to the promoter Zignia Live.
Luis Miguel’s current tour began last summer, with 10 concerts at the Movistar Arena in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and then another 10 at the venue of the same name in Santiago, Chile. Those 20 initial dates grossed a total of $28.1 million and sold 227,000 tickets, establishing it as the third highest grossing tour of his remarkable career. After that, he toured the U.S., Mexico and Latin America, returned to the U.S., traveled to Spain and, most recently, returned to Latin America.
Luis Miguel’s U.S. stint was fruitful, grossing $49.8 million, but his return to Mexico — his native country — was even more successful, generating $57.5 million from 20 concerts. By the end of 2023, he had earned $141 million, still far from the all-time record, but enough to easily surpass his own 2018-2019 Mexico Por Siempre tour, which grossed $101.4 million, making it his most successful tour to date.
Luis Miguel has captivated generations with his unmatched voice, unique style and stage presence, which continues to establish him as the most beloved Latin artists of all time. He has been honored with multiple awards, including Billboard Latin Music Awards, Grammys and Latin Grammys. His discography is one of the most acclaimed in the industry, selling more than 15 million copies of his album Romance. He holds the record for the longest tour by a Latin artist, and is also the singer with the most performances at the Auditorio Nacional, one of the most important cultural venues in Mexico and Latin America.
On Aug. 28, just over six months after the death of country music star Toby Keith at age 62, NBC celebrated his work and his influence on some of country music’s biggest stars in a two-hour special, Toby Keith: American Icon. Eric Church, Tyler Hubbard, Parker McCollum, Jelly Roll, Darius Rucker, Carrie Underwood, Clay Walker and Lainey Wilson were among those who feted Keith, an oilfield worker-turned-musician known for his steely determination; burly, commanding voice; and top-flight, often witty songwriting that fueled many of his 20 No. 1s on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart.
The special drew 4.7 million viewers, was the No. 1 show in its time slot and was NBC’s most-watched primetime entertainment special of 2024, according to the network. And Luminate data shows a bump in the Oklahoma native’s streams in the weeks following its airing. On the Sept. 14-dated Digital Song Sales chart, streams of “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” totaled 3.4 million; a 344% jump.
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Spearheading the special behind the scenes were UTA’s Curt Motley — Keith’s personal agent for approximately three decades — and his colleague Nick Barnes. The duo packaged the concert and worked with Keith’s longtime manager, TK Kimbrell; the late artist’s family members; Universal Music Group Nashville; the label’s newly launched Sing Me Back Home Productions film/TV division; and Thinkfactory and its CEO, Adam Reed.
“We wanted artists who had connective tissue to Toby, whether they were his friends or had toured with him,” Motley says of the special’s lineup. “A lot of artists came forward and said, ‘We love Toby, and we sing his songs every night.’ There were also a handful of people on the show who had never actually met Toby but were huge fans. We wanted to honor that legacy through multiple generations of country music.”
Motley, who joined UTA in 2016, also reps a roster that includes Jamey Johnson and Sawyer Brown.
“This [wine] bottle celebrates the life of the King of Wyoming, Chris LeDoux,” Motley says. “Music legend, [1976] world champion bareback rider and one of the finest humans to ever walk the earth.”
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Barnes, who joined the company in 2017, specializes in connecting music artists to projects in TV, film and branding while overseeing UTA’s Heartland division, which focuses on family- and faith-based storytelling. Those clients include film/TV creators the Erwin Brothers and Dallas Jenkins (The Chosen).
UTA’s Nashville team has simultaneously fostered the success of a crop of country newcomers that includes Megan Moroney (“Tennessee Orange”), Dylan Gossett (“Coal”), Brittney Spencer (“Bigger Than the Song”), Chayce Beckham (“23”), HunterGirl (“Ain’t About You”), Ian Munsick (“Long Live Cowgirls”) and Oliver Anthony (the Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper “Rich Men North of Richmond”).
What can new artists learn from the career Toby Keith built?
CURT MOTLEY: Toby was fearlessly unapologetic. He had a vision for what he wanted to do, and he didn’t waver on that line. When you’re good at something like he was, you don’t need other people to validate you. It’s a much harder road, but the fruits at the end of it are so much greater.
How does UTA Nashville differ from other agencies’ country music divisions?
NICK BARNES: An artist’s career should be multihyphenate to have longevity. They should be touching film, television and branding. We are starting earlier than ever in artists’ careers to find opportunities outside of touring to broaden their reach. Historically, these opportunities have existed for artists that were well into their careers. For instance, a feature film based on a hit song or a theatrical tour documentary — [intellectual property] that reflects country music’s way of life. For a long time, it was an antagonistic view. Now this community is embraced more for what it is. The Heartland division serves as the crossover arm for music artists here and is having success in feature film, television, unscripted productions, book publishing and more.
The Toby Keith “Super Bowl” ring was created by Live Nation’s Brian O’Connell to commemorate his 11 USO tours and over 240 shows in support of America’s armed forces, Motley says. Only four exist.
Diana King
TikTok and other social media outlets have changed the game for new artists. How do you sift through viral moments to find acts that won’t be one-hit wonders?
BARNES: It’s a balance between a gut feeling based off our experience and the data that is brought and analyzed by our team at UTA IQ — a world-class group of data analysts with proprietary tools we have built and continue to improve.
When you consider signing an artist, do you determine if they’re a strong live act? It’s key to an act’s longevity.
MOTLEY: You also have to look at consumption numbers, including streaming and social growth velocity, as an indicator for live viability.
UTA recently launched a Christian music division that has Brandon Lake, Phil Wickham, Lecrae and Forrest Frank among its clients. What do you feel is driving the growth in that genre?
BARNES: When we told one of the artists on our roster about the announcement, they said, “That’s like the Avengers of Christian music.” There’s a broader trend afoot in the faith community. In the aughts, a lot of Christian bands wanted to cross over. They were like, “We are Christian bands but we want to be rock bands. We don’t want to be labeled as [contemporary Christian music].” We are seeing Christian bands and artists now that are leaning into who they are, and that’s resonating with the fans. When Forrest Frank is printing merch that says, “I am a child of God,” and he’s selling them as fast as they can put them on the merch table, and his shows are filled with kids and teens that are on fire for his music — I think that’s the correlation.
“I’m proud of the moment that Heartland comics are having right now,” Barnes says. “Both posters are from sold-out Nashville shows by two clients: John Crist and Leanne Morgan.”
Diana King
What kind of market share do you see Christian music attaining in the next five years, and what are the demographics of the fan base?
BARNES: We think consumption will double. Similar to other genres, streaming artists that aren’t dependent on radio are bringing a younger demographic into the market. Streaming has created a multigenerational fan base for the genre.
Country music streaming is surging globally. How does that affect your work?
BARNES: When we’re watching the algorithm trends on the [digital service providers], they’re the same in Dublin as they are in Nashville. They’re the same in Australia as they are in Brazil, which are all burgeoning markets for country music. And we are starting to take artists to the U.K. first to build fans.
MOTLEY: Oliver [Anthony]’s Out of the Woods tour started in the U.K., and we started Dylan Gossett’s [No Better Time] tour in the same areas. They were incredibly well received.
What else are you doing to build fan bases overseas?
MOTLEY: Agents across the globe — especially in our London office — are leaning into country music and integrating it into the fabric of our business here. This allows us to get in early with partners abroad and leads to opportunities that allow aggressive first-look tours. Recent examples are Megan Moroney, Oliver Anthony and Dylan Gossett.
For a newer artist, what are other advantages of launching a tour abroad?
BARNES: One advantage is being able to start a business over there that you can return to when you need to take a break [from touring stateside]. In the American markets, oftentimes our clients have played a lot of hard- and soft-ticket tours and they need to let the U.S. cool off a bit. [If they have played overseas], we’ve already built relationships with promoters and have a base of fans.
“I’ve always been a Marty Stuart apostle,” Barnes says. “Marty once opened for The Steve Miller Band at the Ryman, and Steve signed this poster to Marty — including a few special doodles. It ended up forgotten in a closet, but when we moved offices, it was passed on to me as a gift.”
Diana King
MOTLEY: It is expensive to travel and perform abroad, but when you’re just starting out, your costs are going to be a lot less [because you’re doing smaller-scale shows]. If you wait too long, that opportunity cost is hard. But when you build that fan base from the get-go — we’re going back with Dylan this year and playing big rooms, and we just started in February.
Touring costs in general have increased significantly. How are artists navigating that?
MOTLEY: Post-COVID, we had that big wave where everyone had to get out and go see a show. There wasn’t a bus you could rent; there wasn’t a venue that was available anywhere. I think we are at the tail end of that now, but everything has remained more expensive. Just to lease a bus right now is more than twice as expensive as it was in 2019. It’s almost impossible for acts that tour in a window that’s only four to five months a year to be able to afford that, so we’ve got to charge more for tickets. The big, white-hot shows are largely unaffected right now, but for other things, people are making choices again. It’s probably a bit cyclical as well. I think we will see it even out. There has been a lot of debate about the climbing prices of concert tickets.
Do you think they’ve hit a ceiling?
MOTLEY: Although the pandemic curve has flattened, as it pertains to white-hot stadium-level artists, it does not appear that we have hit a ceiling — especially given the number of tickets and pricing on the secondary market. But underneath that, artists have to be conscious of the market to have the best chance at success.