Chambers No Longer 'Last Man Standing'

Tim Chambers’ exit as Live Nation’s senior vice president for corporate development may have come as a surprise, given the time he’s been with the company, but it may also be further indication of where the U.S. entertainment giant has been heading since its merger with Ticketmaster.

Chambers is putting his departure down to “musical differences” and is happy a non-compete clause of as little as three months means he’ll be able to take up a new position at the start of next year.

“I’m too old to retrain,” he joked, although the range of his music business experience suggests it won’t be long before he’s back to work.

Confidentiality clauses in his severance agreement mean he’s not in a position to give more detail on what’s happened, although he still has a good word for “a number of colleagues and friends who I deeply enjoyed working with over the last 14 years.”

Since the merger with Ticketmaster, so many of the ticketing company’s top execs have departed the new firm that many of Chambers’ colleagues jokingly referred to him as the “last man standing.”

Since the two companies got together at the end of 2008, former Polygram chief Roger Ames – who came in as Ticketmaster’s chief exec for international in 2009 – a year later moved to Irving Azoff’s Frontline Management. Sean Moriarty, his predecessor, was gone as soon as the merger was made public.

Anyone who’s tried reaching former TM European vice president Tommy Higgins since the merger would have got more success visiting his garden.

The list could also include other top execs such as Eric Korman, Ticketmaster president between 2008 and 2010, Brian Regan – chief financial officer during the same period – and Brian Pike, who succeeded Regan and also lasted for only two years.

It might also have other top execs including technology and software boffins Alan Waldman and Carl Trudel, and a variety of others such as Kevin McLain, Greg Consiglio, Vito Iaia, Lars Schmidt, Selina Tobaccowala, Scott Boecker, Sean Ferigan, Joe Carino, Tom McLean, and Lauren McKenna. Most of them exited in 2009 or 2010, or within two years of the merger being completed, which explains how Chambers got tagged as “the last man standing.”

Although their departures may be no more than part of what would be expected when two huge companies merge, the fact remains that most of the casualties at top exec level have fallen on Ticketmaster’s side of the line.

It also means the people who helped create a profitable ticketing company are no longer running that side of LNE’s business.

There will likely be speculation whether Chambers is the last of the first round of departures or the first of the second round.

Rumours of impending structural changes at Live Nation Europe and how it will in future report to its L.A.-based HQ suggest the shakeup isn’t over and the merged Live Nation Entertainment is still in the throes of change.

Chambers’ own career extends from managing the Brixton Academy and Shepherd’s Bush Empire, the formation of the McKenzie Group (now Academy Music Group); the launch of TicketWeb UK, and then – after joining Ticketmaster at the end of the ’90s – leading the development of the European music services and business development teams.

That’s involved heading the negotiations that led to the acquisitions of Ticketnet (France), Serviticket (Spain) and the expansion of Live Nation into Croatia, among other projects.