No matter where the price of gas is, the consumer's still got to get out. They've still got to save their money to go see Tim McGraw.
The biggest cost of my business is competition - promoters bidding against each other to get a tour.
A hit is a hit, and when you have a hit great things happen.
We believe that the Internet is the live concert promoters best friend although it might have crippled the record label business.
Adding C3, the leading festival portfolio in North America, to our global portfolio of Insomniac, Festival Republic and Country Nation provides Live Nation with the world's largest festival platform.
We can't say to a Ticketmaster venue that says they want to use a different ticketing platform, 'If you do that, we won't put shows in your building.'
In early days of Live Nation, we really believed it was important to be a direct-to-consumer business, which the labels aren't and no promoter was at the time. By merging with Ticketmaster, we could we give the artist a direct relationship with the fan.
I'm known for having a very small to-do list and a big don't-do list.
I'm an introvert by nature.
To be the music company of the future, you have to figure out a way to be a great business and distribution partner of younger bands, midsized bands, and ones that break out, like Arcade Fire.
We do a big business with our midsized-venue model. We don't need bands to be on the top-ten charts to make money.
I've met plenty of CMOs in life, and I always say that I've never met any that can hold a candle to rock stars, who I truly believe are the greatest brand managers in the world.
You look at the Rolling Stones. It had the lips, the logo and the style. You look at Jay-Z, who I think is probably the smartest brand marketer I've ever met. These people understand the core of what their brand is and what their fans want.
There's always a fine line between 'What is the market going to bear?' and, 'By the way, I've got 2,000 unsold seats.'
We as an industry need to do a better job of increasing the awareness of the show, decreasing the ticket price, and making it a better experience online to buy tickets.
BottleRock has these incredible VIP cabins where a chef is preparing sushi for you in your cabin or lounge decorated by Restoration Hardware.
Dave Matthews, Tim McGraw, U2, The Rolling Stones - there are a lot of artists selling out stadiums around the world that we work with regularly. And end up making most of our money with those artists.
We need to bring down service fees, become much more transparent and regain trust from consumers.
Corporate America couldn't be more excited about the demise of the record companies.
Our job is we work for the artist and we service the artists fans. And the better service and the better company we can provide for the artist, the better job we can do for the fans, from flexibility in selling to lower service fees.
