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When it comes to convincing major artists to use sustainable merch on tour, it doesn’t take much work, says Bravado president Matt Young. As he puts it, a little competitive spirit goes a long way.
“For us, it’s just about using the platform to tell the story,” Young said at the Billboard Live Music Summit on Monday (Nov. 3) in West Hollywood, California, noting that stars including Billie Eilish, Paul McCartney, Shawn Mendes and Lorde used sustainable merch options on their most recent tours. “And it gets our competition to follow suit. The artists are saying, ‘Hey, how come we can’t do that?’”
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Young was speaking during the panel “Building Touring’s Sustainable Future With Maggie Baird.” Moderated by Billboard senior music correspondent Katie Bain, the panel also featured Adam Gardner, frontman of the band Guster and co-founder of the environmental music nonprofit REVERB; and Maggie Baird, founder of nonprofit Support+Feed and mother of Eilish — arguably the most outspoken major artist on the subject of sustainability.
Below are four major highlights from the panel.
The price point for sustainable merch is trending down as more artists adopt it.
While noting that sustainable merch tends to be “a few dollars more” than non-sustainable, Young said that once artists and their teams realize it’s an option, they tend to be open to it.
“The ultimate sell is, ‘This is the right thing to do,’” said Young. “A few months ago, we did a summit in Nashville, where we were sitting down with partners in town and just talking about the options. And half the time, they go, ‘I didn’t realize that.’ And the other part about this is, because we’ve done so much over the last three or four years, we’re starting to see the price gap close a bit.”
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Added Gardner, “Once enough artists are asking for the same things, they make permanent change.”
Offering plant-based meals at concerts is actually cheaper.
You know which sustainable option is actually less expensive than the status quo, according to Baird? Plant-based food. That’s helpful when it comes to her organization, Support + Feed, selling organizations on offering more non-meat options.
“One of the whys [to offer plant-based options] is you can save money,” said Baird. “That’s really an important part of the storytelling, is getting arenas to understand it’s actually cheaper to serve whole, plant-based foods. And then we offer tools — tools about menu guidance, creating dishes, how to sell more of them. You don’t just put the vegan option at the bottom [of the menu]…you want it to be No. 2.”
Some sustainable options take a little more convincing than others.
In attempting to sell artists and their teams on battery-powered vs. traditional diesel-powered generators, Gardner says it took proof of concept to get more artists on board. That proof of concept came courtesy of Eilsh, who partially powered her headlining seat at Lollapalooza 2023 using zero-emissions battery systems, charged using solar power, without a hiccup.
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“The first step was just convincing folks that it was feasible and that it was okay,” said Gardner. “Because obviously, when you’re talking about powering the stage, nobody wants the power to go out during a concert. So it is scary, and yet it’s also necessary.”
Once Eilish’s 2023 Lollapalooza set proved it could work, the festival “has continued to use battery[-powered generators] since that year.” In 2025, Lollapalooza announced its main stage would be entirely powered by a hybrid battery system — a joint effort by REVERB, C3 Presents and Live Nation’s Green Nation sustainability initiative.
This is just the beginning.
While some strides have been made on the sustainability front in the touring business, there’s still a lot more work to be done. As Young optimistically put it, “The beauty of this is, every day, there’s a new, innovative, entrepreneurial company trying something new in this space.”
He added, “We’re just getting started.”
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Usher took the stage at the 2025 Billboard Live Music Summit Monday afternoon (Nov. 3) to reflect on all of the stages he’s taken over during his 28-year touring career.
The R&B superstar and Gail Mitchell, Billboard executive director of R&B and hip-hop, walked out to his 2001 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 “U Got It Bad” at the 1 Hotel in West Hollywood, Calif., which Mitchell reminded he previously said in his 2024 Billboard cover story that it was his favorite song to perform live. “I think because of the connection between me and the audience,” he said at the time. Today, he added: “I want to impress them. I would like to be as theatrical and use my imagination as much as I possibly can to lift the song higher than what it was when I delivered it as a piece of intellectual property.”
Following his two Las Vegas residencies from 2021 to 2023 and his Super Bowl LVIII halftime show performance (also in Vegas) last year, Usher embarked on his most recent Past Present and Future Tour. The 83-date international jaunt became his highest-grossing and best-selling tour yet, according to Billboard Boxscore, by grossing $183.9 million and selling 1.1 million tickets over 80 shows. He has a reported career gross if $422.6 million from 3.3 million tickets over 334 shows.
But before becoming a marquee act, Usher served as an opener for Diddy‘s 1997 No Way Out Tour, Mary J. Blige‘s 1997-98 Share My World Tour and Janet Jackson‘s 1998-99 The Velvet Rope Tour. “I had another notch on my belt in terms of what I was capable of being able to handle, so that when I went to try to headline my own tours, we knew that we had the ability to hold a crowd,” he explained.
He told industry audience members a story about his time opening for Diddy: As his 1997 hit “You Make Me Wanna…” was steadily climbing the Hot 100 (where it eventually peaked at No. 2), the crowd coming to see Usher gradually grew from 10 people to a packed house. Diddy told Usher he wanted him to come out during his headlining set, but Usher recalled saying, “Nah, I’m cool. I’m gonna stay right where I’m at because I wanna earn my keep. I’m here for a reason. I want to someday be where you are.”
By the time Usher embarked on his debut headlining tour, the 8701 Evolution Tour in 2002, he remembered “the importance of paying tribute” during those shows. “I’m an artist who was inspired by the legends. If I study the legends, then hopefully one day, I will be one,” he said, adding that he performed covers of Bobby Brown, Babyface and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis because he didn’t have enough of his own hit records at the time and wanted to still captivate his audiences.
The Coming Home artist also teased “something coming. I’m in the midst of working on something that may shine a light on a very specific period of my life and around performance. Just stay tuned. There is true value in live,” he said. He later argued that there’s also true value in R&B. “I want people to continue to celebrate the music and legacy that is the foundation that I am. It comes from soul music, it comes from the South. It comes from a very wide collective of being exposed to many different artists from many different genres, but most importantly, R&B.
“In the same way that I think all other industries have managed to monetize what they are — whether it’s hip-hop, rock & roll, country — I want the same thing for R&B,” he continued. “That is the thing that I haven’t done yet. I want us to celebrate the legacy of what it is that we created, not just look at these nostalgic things that have come and gone, but be able to savor them and savor their legacy.”
Mitchell later presented Usher the Legend of Live Award following the panel. He isn’t the only superstar panelist during the Live Music Summit. Billboard cover star Rauw Alejandro and Hans Schafer, senior vp of global touring at Live Nation, will sit down with Billboard Español/Latin chief content officer Leila Cobo later this afternoon to discuss the reggaeton artist’s emergence as one of the live sector’s most sought-after stars.
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When scrolling through TikTok following the onsale of Chappell Roan’s Visions of Damsels & Other Dangers Things tour dates, Foundations Artists Management’s Lauren McKinney noticed something interesting: In a stark contrast to most fans of major artists in 2025, the reviews were overwhelmingly positive.
McKinney and Roan’s team at Foundations scrolled the social media site to find “fans being excited they got tickets, and saying how calm the process was and how nice it was that they weren’t having to battle other fans,” McKinney told the audience at Billboard’s 2025 Live Music Summit in Los Angeles on Monday (Nov. 3) during a panel titled “No Bots Allowed: Inside Chappell Roan’s Fan-First Ticketing Strategy.” She added, “Our team was just so happy with that.”
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Wasserman Music Nashville’s Kristen Mitchell echoed McKinney’s excitement about the results of the ticketing strategy that they, along with AXS ticketing, implemented to ensure tickets for Roan’s nine-show summer run made it into the hands of fans instead of resellers. “I was obsessively reloading the AXS mobile reporting app, and I saw that at the Kansas City show, it was a 97% check-in. So, there was very little attrition. That’s incredible,” said Mitchell.
In 2025, concerts across the country are seeing higher-than-normal attrition rates (where far fewer fans show up to shows than the number of tickets sold) because many tickets are purchased during onsale and immediately placed on the secondary market for double or triple the face value. When fans are unable or unwilling to pay those exorbitant prices, those seats are left empty at the venues.
When tickets went on sale for Roan’s stadium dates, she and her team knew the demand for tickets would far outweigh the demand, so they turned to Fair AXS for a slower approach to selling tickets.
As Billboard reported in the 2025 touring issue, Roan’s fans signed up over a three-day period, after which AXS used a proprietary system to verify that each registrant was a real person, including those who had purchased Roan tickets in the past. AXS then delivered a list of registrants who met the criteria to her agents at Wasserman. The AXS team subsequently released a batch of ticket-purchasing invitations to fans across 24 hours. Based on the ratio of those fans who actually purchased the tickets, they subsequently released a second batch the following day, and a third the day after that.
“It requires a lot of trust in the fan to be patient in that process and know that they will have to sign up, wait a week, maybe receive an email,” McKinney said during the panel. “Overall, we learned that people are willing to be patient and willing to jump through some additional steps, if they can feel like the end result is equitable and that it’s a fair process all.”
AXS head of North American venues Dean Dewulf added that with Fair AXS, “we’re essentially deconstructing [the onsale] process.”
“We essentially are having a unlimited registration window where everybody can register. And what’s really important about that is that fans have two to four days, depending on the configuration of the program, to register when it’s convenient for them,” Dewulf explained on the panel, moderated by Billboard’s touring director Dave Brooks. “Once the registration ends, then we run it through our process to essentially hand pick and invite specific fans to buy the tickets.”
The process is a lot more intensive than a typical onsale and requires a lot more human power. As Mitchell joked, “AXS was not sleeping.”
“This was such a great passion project for a lot of the folks that worked on this,” said Dewulf on the panel. “We loved every minute. Honestly, this is why I got into the business. I don’t know about any of you, but getting tickets in the hands of real fans is really cool.”
When asked about how they deal with tickets that do end up on the secondary market, Mitchell said Wasserman has worked with AXS to combat the high prices by fighting fire with fire.
“AXS has something called AXS Distro, which actually allows you to — it sounds counterintuitive — but you’re feeding tickets to the secondary market. But you’re undercutting the pricing,” Mitchell said. “So, what happens when you undercut the pricing is people aren’t purchasing those higher price tickets.”
“I don’t know that that exists across other platforms, but I personally think that might be the future of what we’re looking at in ticketing,” Mitchelle continued. “I’m not saying that we want scalping, but it’s going to be there no matter what. So, it’s really on us as an industry to figure out how we’re dealing with that, and, in some cases, competing with it.”
Trending on Billboard Anyone who’s received an email inquiry from promoter and music manager Barrie Marshall might need to double-check that it was really him. Representatives from Marshall Arts sent out a rare press release on Friday (Oct. 31) warning that someone is impersonating the AEG-aligned promoter, who works with stars like Paul McCartney and […]
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The staff at the Atlanta’s Masquerade can’t say for certain if the music venue is haunted, but there are stories – lots of stories.
The sprawling four-room venue first established itself in Atlanta in 1989 – two years after the first venue of its name was opened by the same owners in Tampa – and took over the former DuPre Excelsior Mill at 695 North Avenue that had come to life a century earlier. The mill produced a packing material to fill mattresses and other items (before foam eventually made it obsolete) and, like many 19th century factories, several workers were injured in the production process, and the belt of the mill took the life of at least one man.
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While no one has managed to exchange names with those haunting the various Masquerade venues, no one claims to be specifically visited by mill workers. There’s a woman who was seen by several staff members hanging around the freight elevators at the 695 location. One of Masquerade’s owners Berta Ochs says he was supervising the construction before the venue first opened one night and a leftover coin operated basketball machine started up. He could see a man shooting hoops and after yelling at the figure to leave, Ochs said, suddenly he was gone.
Employees have often felt like they were being watched when no one else was around and one employee who was working the venue’s haunted house Chamber of Horrors says she felt a tap on her shoulder, turned to find no one except a medical instrument from the prop table flung at her feet. There have even been online rumors that Masquerade has vampires.
Greg Green, Elena de Soto, and Brian McNamara.
Josh Martin
“Not to dispel the rumors,” says Masquerade marketing manager Camilla Grayson, “But I think that was because there was a plaster vampire up in the rafters that was left over from an event.”
“There’s also a popular roleplaying game called Vampire of the Masquerade that people go around doing live enactments of,” chimes in Masquerade GM and talent booker Greg Green. “That might have played into that whole vampire rumor too.”
Masquerade has not helped itself in the matter with rooms that denote the afterlife. Since its first Atlanta location, it has featured multiple rooms named Heaven, Hell and Purgatory and referred to them as a trinity of nightclubs. The rooms were stacked with Heaven obviously at the top, Hell on the bottom floor and Purgatory somewhere in-between.
“The upstairs Heaven room was known for the bounciness and sway of the floors,” recalls Green, who has been with the venue for nearly 35 years. “When people would get to jumping in unison and you were downstairs, you could see the ceiling looking like a trampoline. When you hear about people reminiscing, it is like, ‘We were jumping on the trampoline floor in Heaven and we just knew we were about to fall through, but never did.’”
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The venue’s 695 North Avenue location was a behemoth on the streets of Atlanta’s Fourth Ward – with an entirely black stone exterior save for a purple cursive neon sign that read Masquerade. It was an intimidating figure brought to life by founders Ochs, Brian McNamara and Dean Riopelle that attracted all forms of rockers and punks in the early 1990s including Fugazi, The Ramones, Foo Fighters, Radiohead and, of course, grunge legends Nirvana who were paid $200 to play for a room of maybe 50 people, according to Green.
Pay receipt for Nirvana’s 1990 performance at Masquerade.
Elena de Soto
With three rooms to fill, Masquerade was able to take a chance on many bands in their early years including Bjork, N.W.A and Coldplay. Green recalls a young Dave Matthews coming through at the start of his career with manager Coran Capshaw (a now-renowned artist manager who runs Red Light Management) selling the musician’s t-shirts out of his trunk.
In 2016, Masquerade had to leave behind the 695 North Avenue location when ownership sold the building as gentrification (and undoubtedly the historic music venue) made the Fourth Ward a desirable neighborhood to build a mixed-use development. Ownership was looking for another space to house the multi-room venue, when the city of Atlanta stepped in.
“The city wanted to keep us given the cultural institution that we were and [the city] had all these vacant spaces that they said, ‘Hey, is there any of this that you can use, even on a temporary basis,’” Green explains. The space is part of Underground Atlanta, a formerly neglected shopping and entertainment district that first opened in 1969, but the buildings date back to the mid-to-late 1800s when they served as the Georgia Railroad Depot and were a major hub early on for the city. “We didn’t really have a choice at the time. And wound up moving equipment, gear and all the stuff, building out on a small scale what it would take to operate temporarily and it just worked. That was nine years ago and we’ve stayed and we’ve expanded.”
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The Masquerade at Underground Atlanta now features four rooms Heaven (1,450 capacity), Hell (625), Purgatory (300) and Altar (250) connected by a shared courtyard. A fifth venue is expected to open in 2026.
Despite moving to a new location – surrounded by pedestrian-only spaces with shops and art galleries – Masquerade has not lost its spooky factor. Underground Atlanta’s custodial staff refuses to enter certain areas of the entertainment district at night and has heard people talking at night when no one was around. On one of the interior buildings there’s a plaque that says this wall was part of the first Civil War era hospital in Atlanta, “The dead and wounded were brought here,” explains Grayson.
A back hallway that connects all the venues is littered with creepy dolls with burnt-out eyes brought in by operations manager Howie Stepp – though no one knows where he sources the dolls from. Online, fans say they’ve seen a headless confederate soldier that walks around at night, and the courtyard is along Kenny’s Alley, which is named after a man who died in a jousting accident at the Georgia State Fair in the 1800s. That same courtyard is where fans from every room gather between sets to smoke, order some food, grab drinks and interact with music lovers of all genres.
New Found Glory play the Heaven room of Masquerade in 2022.
Elena de Soto
“The courtyard is the great equalizer,” Grayson says. “It’s awesome watching a K-pop fan interact with a ska fan because they’re both coming out of shows at the same time. It’s an awesome mix of people from all walks of life.”
With the ten-year anniversary of the new location looming, Masquerade is reaching new milestones. By the end of 2025, Green says the venue and their company Masquerade Presents, that promotes larger concerts in the city, will have presented a record 800 shows. Despite steep competition from various local venues including the more than 70,000-capacity Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the Live Nation-owned Coca-Cola Roxy and Tabernacle, and the home of NBA’s Atlanta Hawks State Farm Arena, Masquerade has continued to thrive by taking a chance on up-and-coming artists and seeing that goodwill returned.
“We really don’t look at the individual shows as a series of battles to be won or lost,” Green says. “We look at it as one long campaign. If we can come out just a little bit better off at the end of the year than we were at the beginning, then it’s a win.”
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In recent years, they have hosted shows with Japanese Breakfast, Mitski and Doja Cat. Alex G played 10 years ago at the 250-capacity Purgatory, worked his way up from Hell to Heaven and, earlier this month, he returned to Atlanta to play the 22,000-cap Eastern with Masquerade Presents as a co-promoter. Arena act Travis Scott played the Heaven room earlier this year to celebrate the 10th anniversary of his debut Rodeo.
“Part of our ability to maintain over all that time is an attitude of treating people just as well when they’re young and getting their start as we do when they’re superstars,” Green says. “Providing them with amenities they might not get at other small rooms like private green rooms and showers and laundry and all the things.”
“We’re able to take that risk on [rising acts] a second time, because we really believe in the music that people are creating, and not just focused on the numbers and the data. We were actually there. We’re talking to our staff that we’re working it that said this was really cool,” Grayson adds. “We’re like, ‘They are worth having back because they absolutely kicked ass to 30 people.”
Last Month’s Indie Venue Profile: Antone’s in Austin
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In today’s music economy, where streaming royalties remain thin and ticket prices continue to escalate, one of the fastest-growing and most resilient sectors is merchandise — and few companies are as prominent in the space as Universal Music Group’s wholly owned Bravado, which oversees the world’s largest music merchandise operation.
Bravado aims to unite artists and fans through products that aspire to be more than souvenirs, and at the center of its machine is its president, Matt Young. A 25-year merchandising veteran who joined Bravado four years ago, Young has shepherded the company through an era of unprecedented demand and logistical complexity, helping Bravado grow into a revenue engine that UMG says now generates over $900 million in annual business. But those top-line numbers tell only part of the story.
“We’re building bridges,” Young says, “allowing fans to touch something physical that represents the emotional connection they have to the music.”
Matt Young will participate in a panel at Billboard‘s Live Music Summit, held Nov. 3 in Los Angeles. For tickets and more information, click here.
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Young’s path to Bravado traces the broader arc of the merch industry. He began at Roadrunner Records in the late 1990s, when the label had started to flirt with what would become known as “360 deals,” which bundled merchandising with recording and touring rights. From there, he spent time at an independent merch company before moving on to Warner Music and helping it build its merchandise division. “I’ve seen this industry from every angle: indie, major, startups,” he says.
By the time Young joined Bravado in 2021, the merch sector had begun to mature into a sophisticated global business with its own supply chains and sustainability strategies. In his role, he oversees customized blueprints for artists who range from global superstars like Billie Eilish and The Rolling Stones to emerging bands on the club circuit. About one-quarter of Bravado’s roster is non-UMG acts, and the company’s model spans from tour merch sold directly at concerts to retail partnerships with American outlets like Hot Topic and others in Europe and Asia.
“Tickets and T-shirts,” Young muses, are now twin pillars of the touring economy, with some artists selling hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of items in a single night. For certain acts, particularly those with deeply engaged fans, the merch table rivals the box office as a source of income. This shift has also forced the industry to rethink product design, moving away from one-size-fits-all T-shirts toward fashion-forward collections, sustainable fabrics, upcycled inventory, exclusive colored vinyl, collectible collaborations and even action figures.
Billie Eilish posing with her merchandise at the Billie Eilish x American Express Hit Me Hard and Soft Pop Up on May 8, 2025 in Berlin, Germany.
Marcus Lieder
Meanwhile, the evolution of VIP experiences has further blurred the line between merch and fan engagement. Bravado’s premium programs for artist tours range from simple early-entry packages to elaborate meet-and-greet activations that command thousands of dollars. For bands like Pierce the Veil, VIP passes that grant barricade access and exclusive goodie bags have become essential fan experiences, while legacy acts like Def Leppard and KISS have offered photo ops and once-in-a-lifetime perks.
Yet challenges remain. The company must navigate tariffs and geopolitical disruptions to supply chains and shipping routes while managing its inventory and combating bootleggers — both the ones who have long hawked counterfeit shirts outside arenas and those in the Wild West of digital merch, where Instagram scammers selling fake band shirts is an ongoing issue. For Young, though, these obstacles underscore the stakes. In his view, merch is not only about revenue diversification but also about cementing culture through everyday objects that can transform passive listeners into active community members. Merch — and Bravado’s products — are both commerce and cultural currency. “This isn’t just what I listen to,” Young says. “It’s who I am.”
How big is Bravado’s business today?
Universal’s earnings reports show that merchandise generated north of $900 million last year. It’s a substantial piece of UMG’s overall revenue, and it means our side of the business gets attention at the highest levels.
You often describe merch as more than just souvenirs. What do you mean by that?
Music creates an emotion, and merch is the last tangible thing you can hold, wear or display that represents that feeling. A vinyl record — even for someone without a turntable — can be merch. A hoodie or a T-shirt is an identifier: It says, “This is who I am, this is the culture I belong to.” That’s more powerful than a simple transaction.
KISS posing with fans during a VIP experience on the band’s End of the Road Tour in 2023.
Keith Leroux
What does your job look like week to week?
It’s a mix. We run teams in cities across the globe — New York, L.A., London, Berlin, Tokyo, Sydney, Madrid, Nashville. So there’s operational management. But there’s also signing new artists, pitching them ideas, collaborating with labels and making sure our products fit each fan base. We also spend a lot of time on sustainability: upcycling leftover inventory, using recycled materials and building new processes to reduce waste.
How does upcycling work?
We partner with a company called Hallotex. They take old tour stock — unsold shirts, tote bags, whatever — break down the fibers and respin them into new cotton. That gets turned into new blank [shirts] for fresh merch. Or maybe it’s taking old tote bags and turning them into a blanket. It’s about turning excess into opportunity and cutting down on the warehouse full of leftovers that used to define this business.
How do the economics of merch work for artists?
There are three main buckets: tour sales, online stores and retail. On tour, there’s usually a truck following the band with inventory, and most of that money goes directly to the artist on a net-split basis. Online and retail work more like a royalty system since we handle production and logistics. Across the board, the splits are heavily in the artist’s favor — often 80% to 90% after costs. It’s often the No. 2 source of revenue [for artists] after ticket sales. It’s not unusual for a major tour to transact hundreds of thousands of dollars in merch in a single night.
What makes for a successful merch strategy?
Culture. If a band has a lifestyle built around them, merch thrives. Look at Billie Eilish, who insists on sustainability and explains it to fans every night. Or Olivia Rodrigo, who wore her own merch onstage. When the artist truly believes in it, sales follow. It becomes part of their identity and their fans’ identities.
What kinds of products are trending now beyond T-shirts and hoodies?
Exclusive vinyl colorways for tours, blankets for amphitheaters, memorabilia books like Olivia Rodrigo’s, collectible action figures like we did for Rihanna, Slipknot’s masks and jumpsuits. It’s all about matching the lifestyle of the artist with the passion of the fan.
Rihanna collectible action figure, “Rhenna”.
Courtesy of Bravado
How do global challenges — tariffs, Brexit, supply chain issues — affect you?
They definitely add complexity. Brexit alone changed how we move goods in and out of Europe. Tariffs can impact pricing and margins. But we have logistics teams built to handle that. We try to be nimble and find ways to keep delivering.
What about risk? Not every product is going to be successful. How do you deal with demand uncertainty?
The key is smart inventory control. We measure sales every night on tour and adjust orders quickly so we don’t get stuck with piles of leftovers. Years ago, I inherited a warehouse in Nashville that was literally two football fields wide full of unsold merch. That doesn’t happen anymore. We recycle, upcycle and design smarter so we’re not flooding the market. And when there is excess, we’ll sometimes move it online for fans who couldn’t get to the show.
How much do fashion trends dictate what you create?
A lot. Kids today don’t want the same cuts we sold 10 years ago. Right now, shorter, wider shirts are in. A few years ago, it was skinny fits and super-thin fabrics. Hip-hop audiences might prefer heavyweight blanks, while pop audiences want pajamas or skirts. It’s about curating for each fan base — answering their call rather than handing them a generic black T-shirt.
Machine Gun Kelly wearing a shirt from the collection he collaborated on with his hometown football team, the Cleveland Browns, at the start of the current football season.
Sam Cahill
Do you work outside music, with comedians or podcasters?
Yes. We do VIP and merch for Kevin Hart, and we also work with Shane Gillis, who’s one of the biggest comedians in the country right now. Comedy is different — comedians don’t pile into vans for long tours; they fly in for weekends. But they have catchphrases and bits that translate perfectly to merch. We also work with YouTubers and media personalities if it makes sense for our demographic.
Do macroeconomic shifts — inflation, politics, consumer confidence — affect your numbers?
On tour, not really. Since COVID, merch numbers have been the highest we’ve ever seen. People are celebrating being back in shows and merch is part of that. At retail, yes, you see slowdowns when inflation hits or tariffs drive up prices. But live is resilient. People are buying hoodies, vinyl and collectibles as part of the celebration of going to a concert.
Bootleggers have been around forever. Are they still a problem?
Always. If you’re buying from a guy in the parking lot, it’s not legit. And while the shirts might be cheap, they fall apart. But there’s also a fascinating subculture of vintage band tees. Original Nirvana or Nine Inch Nails shirts from the ’90s can sell for thousands of dollars today. That market is booming, and in some ways, it fuels demand for new designs, too.
Looking ahead, where’s the growth?
Digital. We’re learning as we go in video games and online platforms — it’s still the Wild West. There’s also a fight against online piracy, with fake ads on Instagram and Facebook. Beyond that, it’s about converting casual fans into superfans with unique, culturally relevant products. At the end of the day, it’s about making sure fans feel closer to their favorite artists.
This story appears in the Oct. 25, 2025, issue of Billboard.
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MUSEXPO has announced Kirk Sommer, senior partner and global co-head of music at WME, as the recipient of the 2026 “International Music Person of the Year” Award. The honor will be presented during MUSEXPO’s 26th global edition at its annual awards luncheon on Tuesday, March 24, 2026, at Castaway in Burbank, Calif.
The prestigious award recognizes Sommer’s profound global influence and artist-first leadership within the music industry. Across his nearly 25-year tenure at WME, Sommer has earned a reputation for integrity, mentorship, and visionary representation — guiding the live careers of some of the most celebrated artists of the modern era. His roster spans genres and generations, including Adele, Billie Eilish, The Killers, Andrea Bocelli, Hozier, Arctic Monkeys, Sam Smith, Steve Aoki, Benson Boone, Lewis Capaldi, Nine Inch Nails, Foster the People, and Weezer, among others. Sommer also worked closely with the late Amy Winehouse, a testament to his long-standing commitment to nurturing emerging talent into global icons.
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In his current role as global co-head of music, Sommer helps steer WME’s worldwide strategy across touring, festivals, and live entertainment. His artist-first approach has earned him wide respect from peers and clients alike, shaping the careers of artists from their first club shows to sold-out arena and stadium tours.
Sommer’s accolades reflect his influence across the business. In 2025, he was named Pollstar’s “Agent of the Year” and inducted into New York University’s Hall of Fame. He’s been a mainstay on Billboard’s Power 100 for more than a decade, and has also appeared on Variety’s Top 500, Pollstar’s Impact 50, and PAPER magazine’s list of the most influential booking agents in the world.
Beyond his professional impact, Sommer and his family are dedicated supporters of causes focused on mental health, children’s welfare, and healthcare access.
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This article was created in partnership with AEG Presents.
The Billboard Live Music Summit returns to Los Angeles on November 3, honoring Usher as Touring Artist of the Year. With 8 Grammy Awards, 9 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hits, and countless sold-out arena tours, Usher has built a career few can rival. From his record-breaking Las Vegas residency to his electrifying world tours, he continues to redefine what it means to be a live performer. Another notable name in Latin music is Rauw Alejandro, who will be speaking with Hans from Live Nation and Leila Cobo on his rise in the Latin music space and his experience on touring.
Usher and Rauw Alejandro will appear in conversation during Billboard‘s Live Music Summit, held Nov. 3 in Los Angeles. For tickets and more information, click here.
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From iconic festival to global tour promotion for superstar artists, to some of the most iconic and well-known venues, AEG Presents is a world leader in the music and entertainment industry. They are a part of every step of creating a live music experience, bringing fans and artists together, which will all be covered at the Billboard Live Music Summit and Awards.
This year’s Live Music Summit will bring a wide range of touring executives and music industry professionals together for a day of insights and conversation. The event featured Usher along with other top artists and key touring executives sharing their perspectives throughout the day.
AEG Presents will be sponsoring the Luncheon, which will be held in between panels during the Live Music Summit. The Luncheon will allow artists, attendees, and panelists an opportunity to talk in a more relaxed setting, allowing for additional conservations and networking opportunities.
Usher will sit down with Gail Mitchell to speak about his current tour and how he went from being an aspiring artist to a household name. Usher’s legacy is unmatched – a 28-year touring career, which has taken him to arenas, residencies and the world’s largest stage: the Super Bowl.
Rauw Alejandro and Hans from Live Nation will join Billboard Español’s Leila Cobo in conversation about his rise in Latin Music and touring. Both Usher and Rauw Alejandro had two of the biggest tours in 2025. Which makes them the perfect representatives on the artists front. They will both appear on November 3 at the Billboard Live Music Summit and Awards in partnership with AEG Presents.
Rauw Alejandro
Marco Perretta
The Ticketing Panel panelists include Kristen Mitchell (Wasserman), Lauren mcKinney (Foundations Artist Management), and Dean Dewulf (AXS) and will be moderated by Dave Brooks (Billboard). Ticketing is one of the most important aspects of the touring industry, connecting fans to their favorite artists. The panel will focus on accessibility to tickets, fan first ticketing, and the steps ticketing partners are striving toward for the future.
The Agents Power panel will bring together top agents from WME, CAA, UTA, AGI, and Arrival Artists to cover all things related to artist development and representation.
Following the Ticketing, Usher Legend of Live, and Agents Panels in the morning, the AEG Sponsored Luncheon allowed leaders and attendees to come together by creating a space for networking and discussion in a relaxed, professional setting.
Live Music Summit 2025
Courtesy Photo
Billboard Live Music Summit 2025 returns on November 3 in Los Angeles. Click here for more information, the programming schedule, and to buy tickets.
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It’s the tail end of September’s Climate Week: NYC when Maggie Baird gets on Zoom from her hotel in the city, ceramic mug of tea in hand.
The mother of Billie Eilish and FINNEAS, as well as a staunch activist for sustainability and plant-based food access, Baird calls her time at Climate Week a “mixed bag of emotions”: She has participated in troubling events addressing the grim effects of climate change, but has also learned about the more hopeful work that’s happening around the world to address it.
“It’s a very dark time and there’s a lot going on,” she says. “Climate change is a threat multiplier. Every single other issue you care about, climate is there making it worse.”
Maggie Baird will participate in a panel at Billboard‘s Live Music Summit, held Nov. 3 in Los Angeles. For tickets and more information, click here.
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But Baird, who quotes Joan Baez’s famous “Action is the antidote to despair” declaration, has been a force during the event. Support + Feed, the organization she founded in 2020 that provides hot, plant-based meals to people in need, distributed roughly 2,500 of these meals, along with pantry items, across New York. She and representatives from the nonprofit used this time in the community to talk about plant-based diets as crucial mechanisms of positive environmental impact, with the week’s efforts also connecting various community organizations with climate thought leaders. The week ended with a Support + Feed “friend-raiser” event that hosted climate activists, community members and celebrities like Martha Stewart and Eilish, who turned out to support her mother.
“The main thing I would say about this time is that it’s a moment for radical collaboration,” Baird says. “Every organization I know and work with, we’re just like, ‘How can we be better together?’ We have to multiply — exponentially.”
For Baird, however, every week is Climate Week. Having worked with her children and their respective teams to meaningfully integrate sustainability into their careers, she’s essentially a frontline reporter on sustainability within the music industry.
One sector where she’s seeing “really exciting advances” is merchandise. Baird is a longtime collaborator with Bravado, the merchandising and branding division of Universal Music Group that recently sent 400,000 obsolete and unsold tour T-shirts and other unused items by ship from Nashville to Morocco, where they were repurposed into new yarn by sustainability-focused textile manufacturer Hallotex. The yarn will be used to make new items in Europe to avoid the emissions of shipping them back.
Maggie Baird, Finneas, and Billie Eilish at the Support + Feed Fall Fundraiser Event on Oct. 24, 2023.
Zoe Sher
For Eilish’s merch, the Bravado team has successfully collaborated with upcycling and sustainability-focused clothing companies Rewilder and Suay and designer Iris Alonzo, the co-founder of the Everybody.World brand. Suay, for example, took hundreds of dead-stock work shirts, added sleeves and embroidered “Billie” on each piece, while some of Eilish’s old merch was repurposed into bags. “The upcycled items sold out so fast,” Baird says, “because there were limited quantities and they were extremely unique, and unique to Billie.”
Meanwhile, a program developed by Eilish’s Live Nation touring team, Support + Feed and Reverb, the long-standing nonprofit focused on music industry sustainability, now requires that any venue hosting an Eilish show must sell at least three plant-based main courses — and some venues have even gone entirely plant-based for Eilish. (Her sold-out Hit Me Hard and Soft world tour began in fall 2024 and runs through November.) The team also hosts educational webinars for venue culinary staffers to educate them about plant-based eating.
“It’s about trying to help them understand that the arena has an obligation to clientele, to planet and to cost,” Baird says. “It’s all done in a friendly, helpful way. We’re very welcoming and excited that they’re willing to even take the call, frankly.” The goal is for venues to maintain more robust plant-based approaches long after Eilish leaves. “It’s really about helping people understand that you’re not just serving your customer better while being better for the planet,” Baird explains, “but that you can actually save money.” These savings are achieved by reducing reliance on meat and incorporating more dishes made with lower-cost ingredients like beans, lentils, grains, fruits and vegetables; meals built around whole-food ingredients are often significantly more affordable to produce.
She is aware that implementing such programs takes resources. Eilish has helped fund Support + Feed and Reverb to be on-site at shows by rising artists who don’t yet have the funds to host these groups themselves. “I think it’s important that we reach down,” Baird says. Fans can also buy more expensive “changemaker” tickets for Eilish’s shows, with 50% of the revenue from each tagged for sustainability projects. One dollar of every regular ticket sold is also donated.
While Eilish is among the most visible musicians promoting sustainability in the industry, Baird’s hope is that even if artists don’t want to publicly discuss their efforts, “they’ll still just do it. They don’t have to make it as outward as what we’re doing, but they can just do it as a given.”
Maggie Baird and Hayley Williams of Paramore deliver meals on June 28, 2023, as part of Baird’s volunteer work for her nonprofit organization, Support + Feed.
Zoe Sher
All these initiatives are happening in a year when Support + Feed has responded to a host of disasters. It fed locals in Los Angeles following the devastating California wildfires in January and in Tennessee after intense flooding in April. (Baird notes that in the wake of such events, Support + Feed representatives stay on the ground long after many other response organizations move on to the next crisis.) The communities Support + Feed serves have also been “very impacted” by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, “so we’ve had to really be nimble in how we feed people and how we convene,” Baird says.
Still, the organization is expanding its offerings, now providing, in addition to hot meals, free produce from local farmers and cooking classes and recipe cards for people who may be unfamiliar with the produce they’re receiving.
“We’re really increasing our education and our outreach as much as possible,” Baird says, “but also just feeding, feeding, feeding, feeding, feeding. The need now is tremendous with all the food programs being cut.
“It’s a very intense time,” she continues, “but there are so many people doing great things.”
This story appears in the Oct. 25, 2025, issue of Billboard.
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When Baz Halpin first spoke with Justin Timberlake to plan the star’s Forget Tomorrow World Tour, the concert production designer suggested: “Let’s talk broadly about concepts and what you want to say on the tour.” Timberlake cut him off. “No,” he said. “I want to understand lighting, special effects, pyro, video. I want you to tell me everything that’s new.”
Halpin compiled a 100-page deck, including links to the latest video technology, for the pop superstar to study. Together, they concocted the centerpiece of the 14-month tour, which concluded in July — a massive, five-sided monolith, 17 feet by 30 feet by 7 feet, festooned with tiny LEDs for elaborate videos. At the end of every show, Timberlake surfed atop the giant rectangle, floating above the audience as it displayed gravity-defying bubbles on every side. “Screens have gotten infinitely lighter. They’ve gotten infinitely cheaper,” says Halpin, founder and CEO of Silent House, a Los Angeles design and production company that has worked with Tyler, The Creator, P!nk, Doja Cat and others. “A lot of things came together to make the process easier and more achievable.”
Billboard‘s Live Music Summit will be held Nov. 3 in Los Angeles. For tickets and more information, click here.
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No longer are video screens confined to the giant postage stamps bookending every live stage. Because LED technology has rapidly advanced over the last 30 years, artists can display more detailed scenes bounded only by their imaginations, spread across screens of all shapes and sizes, for audiences. SZA sits on a ledge, silhouetted beneath a moon, clouds and stars that seem like a real night. Phish jam at Las Vegas’ Sphere amid psychedelic canvases ranging from the ocean floor to the cosmos to abstract patterns. And some concerts employ the fast-growing technology to simply magnify the fans in attendance, like that infamously canoodling couple caught on a circular stadium kiss cam in July at a Coldplay show.
“The quality of LED in terms of image projection is insane these days,” says Adrian Martinez, co-founder and creative director of STURDY, which has designed visuals for such stars as Bad Bunny, Kendrick Lamar and Drake. “We’re getting to the point of watching HDTV.”
Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres tour, which broke worldwide attendance records in January with two concerts in India, anchors its stage with huge screens — circular ones on either side of the performance as well as a half-circle constantly running behind the band. It’s no wonder that amid the nonstop larger-than-life video stream of frontman Chris Martin, neon rainbows and explosions of light that the unwitting couple found themselves on the kiss cam.
“Privacy is a big issue, but we’ve always looked into, ‘How can we get the audience to actually be part of the show?’ ” says Joris Corthout, CEO of Prismax, a visual production company that recently worked with promoters Insomniac and Tomorrowland to create the EDM show UNITY at Sphere. Prismax is developing an on-site concert photo booth that transfers fans’ snapshots (with their permission, of course) to a huge stage combining lights and Polaroids. According to Silent House Studios president Alex Reardon, camera technology has improved to “pick up people in lower-light scenarios than [it] used to,” which helps artists integrate fans into the video aspect of the show. Silent House client Maroon 5 plans to do the same for its upcoming tour, “capturing the audience and trying to use those images as something emotional, something musical,” Halpin adds. “Think of it as another paint in the paint box.”
Nine Inch Nails perform during the Lights in the Sky Tour at the Mohegan Sun Arena on August 7, 2008 in Uncasville, Connecticut.
Courtesy of Moment Factory
Video technology for today’s concerts is basically limitless, thanks in part to groundbreaking tours like Nine Inch Nails’ 2008 outing Lights in the Sky, which spread tapestries of striking LEDs throughout all sides of the stage and ceiling, sometimes in the form of brightly colored grids or swirling mist. “LED in 2008 was very rare,” says Daniel Jean, producer/director of the music department for Moment Factory, which designed that tour. “It was more expensive and it was low resolution.” Ten years later, Childish Gambino’s Pharos concerts in New Zealand were among the first to present an elaborate animated world, toggling between fish, burning trees, colorful coral shapes and industrial sculptures. “I likened it to a planetarium,” says Christian Coffey, tour director for those shows and others by Lamar, A$AP Rocky and more. “The band is performing, but you’re watching the screen for so much of it.” In 2024, multiple suspended screens displayed flickering lights and images of Billie Eilish singing throughout her video-heavy Hit Me Hard and Soft tour.
It was in 1997, while watching colorful LEDs flash behind U2 during Las Vegas dress rehearsals for the band’s seminal PopMart stadium tour, that special-effects whiz Frederic Opsomer turned to his wife and said, “You are now looking at the future for the rest of my career.” According to Opsomer, CEO of the 30-year-old production company PRG, PopMart was when concerts first took advantage of the blue LED, invented by Japanese engineers in 1993. Enabling use of every color rather than just red and green, the development kicked off the LED era in lighting and video, replacing Jumbotrons using heavy and expensive cathode-ray technology.
By the time PopMart rolled around, Opsomer adds, video equipment that historically required 14 touring trucks needed two. And installation time took two hours rather than two days. “Suddenly, all the possibilities are open,” he says. “We’ve been playing with it ever since.”
The U2 PopMart Tour stage set at Sam Boyd Stadium on April 25, 1997 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Rob Verhorst/Redferns
In addition to unlocking limitless shapes, sizes and images at concerts and festivals, state-of-the-art camera and LED technology has let production experts be more nimble and improvise along with the artists. For its four-night 2024 run at Sphere, Phish hired producers at Moment Factory, which also works with stars like Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo, to “play the visuals in real time,” as Jean puts it; in one widely shared moment, an intricate, rainbow-colored forest transformed into fireworks exploding above the stage. “We’re playing miniature video games,” adds Manuel Galarneau, the company’s multimedia director. “Depending where we were at in the music, we could have trees grow, turn into fireworks.”
As video technology has expanded, production companies have boomed alongside it. High Scream, which puts on large events starring David Guetta and DJ Snake, among others, has increased its employees from two in 2012 to 240 today. “We went very, very big for the last five, six years,” says Romain Pissenem, the company’s founder and show producer. “It’s a lot of work, not a lot of sleep.” Moment Factory launched with six workers in 2001 and employs 480 today.
A crucial period for some concert video specialists was the coronavirus pandemic, when they could stop focusing on the day-to-day grind of setting up shows and contemplate innovation. Corthout pivoted to virtual festivals, including a digital iteration of Tomorrowland, and when traditional live events returned, “We just decided to work on that methodology we created for the virtual festivals,” he says. “We used to be and mix video files, but now we build a whole world.” Artificial intelligence, Corthout adds, has been a “fantastic tool” that reduces production costs.
Almost every video designer refers to some aspect of world-building. For this year’s Grand National stadium tour co-starring Lamar and SZA, the rapper’s world was “street and concrete and very raw,” according to tour director Coffey, while the R&B star’s landscape was “very lush.” The challenge, he says, was to use screens and high-resolution video content to “transport one world to another and make it seem seamless so it’s not jarring.” Corthout adds: “That’s the future of live entertainment — you can transport people to a completely different world.”
Phish perform during night three of their four-night run at Sphere on April 20, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Courtesy of Moment Factory
With all the fantastical potential, for many in the touring business, one risk is overstimulating the audience. “The resolution and the processing have gotten better,” says LeRoy Bennett, the longtime concert production designer currently working on Paul McCartney’s tour, in which the singer duets seamlessly with his late Beatles partner John Lennon on “I’ve Got a Feeling,” with assistance from documentary director Peter Jackson. “But we’ve got 30 songs in the show, so there’s not all content all the time. We try to give it a break. It becomes redundant if every single song has video on it.” Shows at Sphere, Bennett adds, are perfect for EDM artists who don’t necessarily need the audience to look at them, whereas pop and rock stars want to avoid “the whole audience looking up at the ceiling and not looking at you.”
Still, Sphere lets designers innovate in ways they can’t on traditional tours. “Sphere allows us to immerse people 100% as far as the eye can see,” Corthout says. “An old stage would give you physical boundaries. Sphere takes those boundaries away.”
Sphere productions like UNITY use innovative ideas that point the way for others to follow. “I haven’t personally worked with an artist who has said, ‘Look what Sphere is doing, I want to do that,’ ” Coffey says. “But Sphere is pushing the envelope forward.” In this way, according to Martinez, Sphere productions offer “proof of concept” for experimenting with video ideas. “The bar has been set so high,” he says, “it has opened the door for those of us on the creative side to say, ‘We know this works. How about we try this?’ ”
This story appears in the Oct. 25, 2025, issue of Billboard.
