CIC Looks To The Future

The concert industry is undergoing dramatic changes as the entire music business evolves in the 21st century. The program for the February 6-8 gathering of the Concert Industry Consortium in Los Angeles will attempt to deal with some of these seismic shifts with fresh discussions on a variety of topics.

A power panel certain to be one of the most important discussions about the industry will be an attempt to predict what will be “The New Face Of Music Companies in 2012.” The digital music revolution has made the existing global recorded music companies vulnerable to obsolescence. So who will be the big players in the music world in five years? The only thing certain is that it won’t be the status quo and that live music revenues will be even more important to the artist.

Innovative music mogul Terry McBride of Nettwerk Entertainment will moderate a discussion that includes four past CIC keynote speakers. Michael Rapino of Live Nation, Rob Light from CAA, AEG’s Tim Leiweke, and The Firm’s Jeff Kwatinetz will share their differing visions of the future.

They will be joined by artist manager Gary Borman and music business attorney Don Passman, who is also widely known as the author of the best teaching book on the industry, “All You Need To Know About The Music Business.”

Another panel sure to create sparks will be “There’s Nothing Secondary About Ticketing,” which will explore the evolving world of primary and secondary ticketing. Ticket queen-to-the-stars Shelley Lazar will moderate a panel that includes the top execs from the secondary ticket market in their first-ever appearances at a concert industry gathering.

CEOs Jeff Fluhr of StubHub and David Lord from Razorgator, former agent Bernie Driscoll from TicketsNow, and eBay director of tickets and media Greg Bettinelli will do the verbal jousting with highly vocal anti-broker forces including veteran tour manager Stuart Ross and Little Big Man’s Marty Diamond.

Please note that discounted hotel rooms at the Century Plaza are limited and early registration rates for CIC expire December 15th.