CIC Day Two

The international contingency showed up today, which is not only welcome but fun to watch.  It’s like Day One with a different flavor. The first day of the CIC is always fun to see because so many people want to say hello to each other that simple tasks like registering are complicated with interruptions as delegates stop to talk to each other between the short walk between getting their pictures taken and getting their conference bags.

With European powerbrokers like Ossy Hoppe and Marek Lieberberg arriving on Day Two, it was the same scene all over again, but this time the hallway is filled with a reception line of comrades for keynote speaker Harvey Goldsmith.  It’s really like a family get together; we’ve been waiting and now, with everyone here, the week can truly begin.

Day Two is also the day of roundtable discussions, strategically placed in the early morning and going to noon.  Each table gets two cycles, with the roundtable “mentor” picked for his or her expertise on a given subject.  But the CIC is also the place where friends, colleagues and sometimes enemies spend time at the lobby bar, go to showcases and travel to late-night get-togethers, each competing for who’s got the greatest hookup for the most inside party.  In other words, roundtable discussions usually have a larger crowd on the second, later go-around.
 
It is time for Maria Brunner to get her own classroom or, at least, if she does her marketing roundtable again, we’ll bring her a wall stretcher.  Brunner’s expertise in marketing, along with the people who join her, has been an overwhelming success two years’ running.  What she had to say sometimes seemed to conflict with Jared Hoffman’s table just feet away.  What is the way most people learn of a concert these days?  According to Brunner’s research, it’s not the Internet, nor print, nor television.  Eighty-one percent learn from good ol’ WOM, word of mouth.  The question is how to get people to start talking to each other.  At least in the case of one tour, print adverts were the far away winner for getting the WOM going.

But over at Hoffman’s table, it was all about getting the word out through the Internet.  Print, while dropping in readership, is charging more for advertisements, which is curious when show notices can be considered an increase in readership.  Why pay the newspapers more for helping them out anyway?  Screw it.  Myspace, Facebook and other web sources can help get the word out but requires a lot of time.  Knitting Factory Entertainment used to have one person who spent half the work day marketing online.  Now there are three full-time staffers.

There was plenty of good stuff to go around – from how to organize orchestra concerts to green touring to hip-hop tours to “protection” clauses – but one of the largest roundtables was the least sexy.  How to read contracts.  It’s almost heartwarming to see delegates take advantage of their time at the CIC to increase their abilities, rather than just have fun.  Tom Alexander of AEG was surrounded by the masses, yearning to figure out WTF was coming out of their fax machines.  On the other end of the spectrum, Elliott Lefko’s concept of a campfire chat, where industry participants shared their crazy stories, was popular and particularly animated for the early hours.

But across the hallway from the roundtables was the competition, a discussion between former NACPA leader Ben Liss and Bob Lefsetz, all-around commentator on the concert and recording industries.  Liss read off questions and, near the end, quotes from industry bigwigs and let Lefsetz go off.  

With Harvey Goldsmith, Marek Lieberberg and Brian Murphy in the front row, Lefsetz went into his concerns.  For instance, he said the Rolling Stones have been overpricing their fans for years, basically because everyone wanted to see them before Keith Richards died.  But if Richards can fall out of a coconut tree and not die, what value did the pricing have?

He is also someone to say that “We don’t need to get Led Zeppelin to go on tour,” which got a chuckle out of Goldsmith.  Some of the other quotables:

"We don’t work in a business of realism."

Major labels are "based on fraud."

"Going to see Dave Matthews Band, Tom Petty, Santana, Jimmy Buffett is a religious experience. Seeing Earth Wind and Fire and Chicago is not."

Michael Rapino says the average fan goes to 1.1 concerts per year. He also says he wants personal data on every fan who buys a ticket. “That’s the scariest thing I’ve ever heard.”

"Concert promotion is not an intellectual pursuit."

"Business has become about the deal.  The soul is gone."

On 360 deals:  "You should have the 360 deal with the manager, not the labels."

After a lunch that included incredible tamales and a trade show room devoted to desserts, the afternoon panels started up.  Independent managers got together and Tom Waits manager Stuart Ross asked questions of personal managers including Paul Korzilius, Doc McGhee and Steve Rennie such as their opinions on scalping – er – secondary ticketing and why they haven’t joined The Firm or Front Line Management.  McGhee, of course, said it was simple – competing with management firms kept him sharp and they could never pay him enough to join, anyway.  Meanwhile, Korzilius mentioned Bon Jovi is doing a European stadium tour this summer.

Meanwhile, it was an afternoon where the financial elite got together talked venture capitalism at the “Money Talks” session.  It included JP Morgan cofounder Jeff Walker, who managed the sale of House of Blues Entertainment to Live Nation and basically said it was just a matter of waiting for the right deal to come along to do so.  The tribal casino panel had amenable agents in the audience, all in agreement that casinos have lost their stigma as a questionable play for some artists.  For instance, Aaron Lewis of Staind loves casino shows and will “live and die” there.  Paradigm’s Ed Micone, moderator and sole agent on the panel, got a fair share of ribbing from the talent buyers, but gave as good as he got.

The afternoon was also time for the international panel, which is always packed, the corporate sponsorship panel and “Stadium Tours – Dead or Alive?”  The question wasn’t answered, by the way, but The Jonas Brothers and Sugarland got mentioned.

Day Two also included a private party by SMG, which is celebrating two new arenas, and a visit to the wonderful Orpheum Theatre.  Among the crowd was The Amazing Kreskin who got his photo taken with half the crowd.  Doc McGhee showed off his new band Crooked X at the Cat Club and delegates were treated to two showings of “U23D.”

The evening also included a vodka tonic bought by TKO agent Jenny McPhee who said it cost $7.50 and, after checking, it turned out the agent actually gave an accurate quote. 

Joe Reinartz w/reporting by Deborah Speer, Ryan Borba, Dana Parker-McClain and Tina Amendola