Germany: Live Nation, Promoters Associations

LN Marketing Partnership With Stage Ent.

German show and musical experts Stage Entertainment are cooperating with Live Nation Brand Partnership & Media to realign their sponsoring and marketing activities.  

One of the main goals of the partnership is to find naming rights sponsors for Stage Entertainment’s musical theaters, of which it runs 11 in Germany, in cities like Berlin, Hamburg, Essen, Oberhausen and Stuttgart. In 2016, the company attracted some 4 million visitors.

It also just announced the opening of a new musical stage in Munich. Aside from naming rights partnerships, Stage Entertainment and Live Nation will look into acquiring strategic partners that can help grow the audience for musicals and make the most of city trip and theater bundles.

Stage Entertainment Germany CEO Uschi Neuss said she was looking forward to working with Live Nation’s consulting and marketing experience as well as its network of brands. Lars-Oliver Vogt, president Live Nation Brand Partnership & Media GSA, said Stage Entertainment’s musical theaters were among “the most beautiful and well-frequented venues in Germany.”

He added that the partnership with Stage Entertainment would enable Live Nation to develop “absolutely unique opportunities for brand staging” in a hugely emotive environment.

Promoters Associations Prepare Merger

– German Promoters Associations Merge
Klaus Wollny, Felix Hansen, Stephan Thanscheidt (bdv), Michaela Russ, Folkert Koopmans, Michael Herrmann, Michael Russ (VDKD), Prof. Jens Michow (bdv), Sonia Simmenauer (VDKD), Pascal Funke, Elisabeth Ehlers, Christian Diekmann (VDKD), Christian Doll (bdv).

Germany’s promoters associations bdv and VDKD met in Hamburg July 11 to fine tune the merger contract and the statutes of the future consolidated association and set a timeline for the completion of the merger.

The “long-overdue” fusion of Germany’s Bundesverbandes der Veranstaltungswirtschaft (bdv) and Verbandes der Deutschen Konzertdirektionen (VDKD) has been in the making for a year, according to a joint press release.

The plan is to work out the elaborate contractual agreements at each association’s upcoming meetings, and to complete the consolidation by January 2019.

VDKD president Pascal Funke said he was glad that the members were able to “set the course for a joint future,” and added: “the safeguarding of the German event industry’s interests will be significantly strengthened by the merger.”

bdv president Prof. Jens Michow said it was important for the “entire industry to appear as one voice, in particular in the light of the ever growing legal challenges for our economic sector.”

The entire association would actually represent 100 percent of the entire sector and all event genres under one roof from 2019, Michow added. “This impressively underscores [the event sectors] significance and its professionalism.”

bdv and VDKV members include almost 500 agencies, tour and concert promoters, who generate revenues of around euro 4 billion each year through the sale of more than 120 million tickets.