✖️ Are investors looking for a fire sale in independent live music?
Live Nation's Michael Rapino weighs in on ex-WME Marc Geiger's plans to "SaveLive".
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Are investors looking for a fire sale in live music?
Live Nation's head Michael Rapino has called the plans of ex-WME music chief Marc Geiger to acquire 51% stakes in struggling venues a "fire sale".
The background
Geiger recently announced a $75m fund to create a "partnership plan" called SaveLive. It will see the fund buying up stakes of at least 51% and “backstop all these clubs”. This received very mixed reactions, partly due to the altruistic-sounding name, despite there obviously being more to it than that. The New York Times sees potential:
"As SaveLive partners, Geiger said, they would gain economies of scale as well as access to favourable deals for ticketing or sponsorship — suggesting that SaveLive would, to some degree, resemble a mom-and-pop version of Live Nation or AEG."
Why the shade from Rapino?
For most of this year, I've been concerned about the ability of venues to maintain their independence beyond the pandemic. Then back in August, paired with their Q2 financial results, Live Nation announced their intention to expand:
"We believe that over the next 24 months there’ll be ongoing opportunities for us to expand our global footprints in foreign and international markets that we’ve have been looking to get into and build some businesses around."
How they'll get into those markets is unclear, but the company has a history of expansion through acquisitions. It also bears keeping in mind that the above statement came at the end of the same quarter that saw Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund acquire a $500M stake in Live Nation.
The differentiator between Geiger’s SaveLive and Live Nation seems to be the geographical focus. Rapino opines that US independent venues won't sell cheaply, because "there’s a lot of capital out there."
What's the take-away?
It's a waste of time trying to figure out who's right or wrong in these types of debates, because that's not why the actors of the debates participate in them. What's valuable about it is that you can spot intentions and see headlines that clearly point towards trends.
To me, the takeaway here is: independent music is at risk of becoming less independent. That’s always so, but more so now. Prominent music business veterans can raise funds of tens of millions of dollars and incumbents have all but announced their intention to spend cash to expand.
It may be worth checking in on your local music venue organisations and seeing what forms of support they can use. Each territory has their own unique challenges, economically and politically, so it’s a global plight with a local character.
Chart of the day
Here’s what happened to the price of Live Nation shares when Pfizer announced their vaccine’s looking pretty, pretty good. Other entertainment stocks also jumped.
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CORONA
Will livestreamed concerts be a thing after the pandemic? In my mind: definitely. Just last weekend Niall Horan (formerly of One Direction) sold 125,000 tickets to his livestream. Kylie Minogue sold 30k to hers. It might be harder to sell tickets to livestreams in a post-pandemic world, but there will still be money on the table and I don't imagine artists & teams will just leave it there. 🎫
Samantha Hissong and David Browne look at the plight of over 250k US crew workers in music left without much work, if any. The piece also does a good job explaining how unfeasible it is to tour when you can't hit all the cities on your route due to local lockdowns. 🚚
It's not just film, theatre and music shows that are affected by the pandemic: fashion shows haven't had it easy either. Creative fashion promoters have been turning to music videos instead. 👗
A refreshing interview with a group of artists called Inquiry Collective who leveraged their livestreaming skills to make money producing streams for clients. The interview also dives into best practices, diversifying livestreams beyond the music industry, and livestreaming's future. 📹
Cherie Hu kicked off a new monthly column for DJ Mag about the intersection of gaming and music. This instalment dives into in-game concerts and emphasizes player agency, rather than assigning concert goers with a passive role not well-suited to a highly interactive environment. 👾
TECH
Fun piece in the Guardian about "deepfake" music, meaning AI-created music generated in the style of well-known musicians. 👨🎤
More on that theme: here's six different attempts of letting OpenAI Jukebox finish Cardi B's WAP. Attempt #5 reminds me a little of Macklemore. Loads more on Broccaloo's channel on YouTube. 🤖
The CD feels like a remnant of tech, although if you combine US and German numbers for 2019, nearly a 100 million were sold in those two markets. Recycling CDs is problematic, an NYT article details. 💿
The debate about whether AI can truly be creative is still raging. Now a research project has led to the creation of a play for human and AI spectators. 🎭
After 9 years, Google Play Music's story has ended with the service being shuttered recently. Ron Amadeo has a terrific write-up about Google Music's nine-year run, including lots of screenshots of the service's interface changes throughout the decade. ⚰️
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