My Take: Aspen Live 2016

Aspen Live took place last week at the Limelight Hotel in Aspen, Colorado, Dec. 7-10. 

As usual this tightly knit group rocked all day and night (skiing, shopping & dining) and also delivered high level cutting-edge content.

Because the conference is small and there is no major media covering the event, a lot of inside information is traded openly in the sessions as well as in various small cliques around the hotel.

– Jay & Steiny
Jay Marciano (AEG Live) and Dan Steinberg (Emporium Presents – Nashville) share a Kodak moment at Aspen Live.

Now, unless you’re livin’ in a bubble, you know we’re in a global business that isn’t just about music today, but live entertainment of every imaginable variety. There is more capital than ever moving into our industry from institutional resources and, consequently, expansion and diversification is everywhere.

Everyone is trying to take a little piece of everyone else’s cheese. What it’s really all about, of course, is the ticket.

There is a lot of talk about the fan experience, but the bottom line is moving tickets. It was noted that some major shows are selling half of their inventory through as many as six different entities other than the primary ticketer.

You have fan clubs, brand exclusives, VIP packages, the artists themselves and, oh surprise, secondary sellers.

Needless to say, controlling sales is always an issue. What is interesting is that anything and everything that has to do with a ticket not only requires creative marketing, but allows for some very innovative analytics.

Identifying the customer and their habits is only the beginning and continuing to upsell the ticket buyer from the time of the purchase up to the event creates even more opportunities. With all of this, more ways are opening up for finding and vetting the customer.

There are some successful new start ups and we will see more in the new year. It was also nice to see a lot of enthusiasm expressed for various causes and social concern. Maybe an improved economy facilitates this type of thinking for all of us, hopefully.

The overall takeaway for this year is that there is tremendous optimism for our business in 2017, incredible opportunities abound and you will need to be light on your feet or you might get left in the rear view mirror.

I must add that Jim Lewi does a great job of producing Aspen Live and really creates a family environment, which is really special when you consider the level of players that attend every year.