Miller Jumps To Live Nation

House of Blues Denver booker Jason Miller left the company March 9th for rival Live Nation, where he joins the touring division.

He’ll be booking under 6,000-capacity venues nationwide from the company’s Beverly Hills office, industry sources told Pollstar.

That leaves House of Blues without a talent buyer in Denver, though the company reportedly maintains a staff of about nine to handle marketing and production duties in the market. HoB operates the Coors Amphitheatre and partners with Nobody In Particular Presents on select shows at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, and promotes some at other venues.

Denver-area concerts will now be booked out of HoB’s Los Angeles office. Executive VP Alex Hodges told Pollstar that’s in line with the company’s operations in other parts of the country.

“In Atlanta, for example, we can book from L.A. but we take advantage of the physical office space in Orlando, where our point guy is Jim Mallonee. We can use the talent buying team there and cut down on a lot of travel,” Hodges said.

“In Denver, it was a little bit different because we were talking about whether or not we move Jason Miller or a team to another city and then book it,” Hodges said. “We could have allowed Jason Miller to be part of an environment in Los Angeles but, in the meantime, Live Nation gave him a great offer. We wish him well.”

House of Blues is still committed to the highly competitive Denver marketplace, Hodges insisted.

“We’re going to have more of a team-oriented booking strategy and it takes time to get up to speed when you redeploy people’s energies,” Hodges said. “Certainly, they have to get used to the lay of the land.”

Onetime Denver concert impresario Barry Fey, who ran the HoB office in the city several years ago, told the Rocky Mountain News that to be successful in the market, a promoter needs a building. “You have to have your own real estate to be able to compete these days,” Fey told the paper. “They (HoB) have no place to call their own, except the place that holds 18,000 people.”

Hodges told Pollstar that the company intends to have a piece of real estate in the area to call its own, in due time.

“It’s a great market. One day, like in many other cities, we’re going to have a House of Blues club there. But I don’t know when that would be.”

– Deborah Speer