Oak View Group Begins With Bon Jovi

Earlier this week, Tim Leiweke unveiled the 22 venues that had signed up for the Arena Alliance, a network of top-grossing venues that includes Madison Square Garden in New York, Toronto’s Air Canada Centre and Chicago’s United Center.

Irving Azoff is handling the booking side of Arena Alliance and the first tour under the Oak View Group banner will be Bon Jovi, who signed with Azoff Management last year. Four underplays are planned next month at theaters in London, Toronto, New York and New Jersey to preview Bon Jovi’s new album, This House is Not For Sale, followed by an arena run in early 2017.

“We’re putting the finishing touches on that tour,” Leiweke told The Real in an interview shortly after the 22-venue alliance was unveiled. “It took six months to put this best-in-class group together, but now that the buildings have been announced we can begin those conversations with the agencies and start discussing some content opportunities.”

The Bon Jovi tour will be a chance for Leiweke to experiment with VIP packages, combining gourmet catering with premium tickets and high-end experiential offerings. The tour is going to be promoted by Live Nation and Leiweke says he shares a “deep personal friendship” with CEO Michael Rapino.

“Our content and traction is a result of working with Michael and Arthur (Fogel),” he said. “We have a vision that’s aligned and [Rapino] couldn’t be more supportive. Occasionally, we still have to go in and negotiate ticketing deals for places like Dodger Stadium,” where Leiweke helped secure concerts for Guns N’ Roses and Beyoncé this summer.

“Our doors are open to everyone,” Leiweke said, “but they came running through our door on day one and they have been unbelievably great and it’s already paid dividends” with two record-grossing concerts at LA stadium.

Another project Live Nation supports – clawing back revenue from secondary sites like StubHub.

“We’re looking at those who don’t take on risk or generate revenue that goes directly back to the artist,” Leiweke said. “Why are we allowing people that don’t have any skin in the game to cut artists out of billions of dollars?”

The solution will come from working with anti-resale technology to keep tickets off of sites like StubHub and collaborating with primary ticketing companies. Which ones?

“In our case almost every ticketing system we deal with is Ticketmaster,” he explained.