Country 2 Country Comes To Germany: Q’s With Semmel Concerts’ Sina Hall

Semmel Concerts project manager Sina Hall speaks to Pollstar about overseeing the first edition of AEG’s successful Country 2 Country brand in Germany.

Hall runs her own department at Semmel Concert’s Berlin office, which is in charge of all of the promoter’s non-traditional touring projects, including Disney shows like “Violetta”, US dog-whisperer Cesar Millan, or the world-famous Flying Steps break dance crew from Berlin.

Country is a private passion of Hall’s. She said it had to be, “because it’s really different to the professional rock and pop business. Having a personal affection for this genre makes it easier to navigate around.”

We’ve been watching the genre’s development in the U.S. and the UK for quite a while now, and we are in constant contact with Greenhouse Talent, who’s been working the Dutch market really well for several years.

There’s huge potential for the genre in the German market, but there has to be a strategy to help it grow. 

The reason it works well in the UK and the Netherlands is that there is no or at least much less of a language barrier, and, after all, Country’s all about the lyrics. So while that made us hesitant at first, we realized that there was a lot bubbling beneath the surface. Labels in Germany, for instance, are making Country a bigger priority.

We did a focus group, where we played the Spotify Country playlist for people and asked them how they felt about it. 99 percent of them were like, ‘that’s really cool, what is it? What are we listening to?’

They don’t even realize that they’re listening to Country. One of the biggest challenges is to break the stereotypes that are attached to the genre. Festivals like C2C are definitely helping to bring a new vibe to markets like this, and show what it’s really all about.

It’s amazing what AEG did in order to grow the brand in the UK. It means a lot there now. And the audience is extremely young. We conducted a study through a ticketing company in Germany, looking at the demographics of Country fans here. Right now, the average age is 46. There’s clearly a much younger audience at shows in the UK. That’s why we need young artists in particular to come over here and build a young audience as well. 

I spent a week in Nashville talking to managers and labels about how we could become a little more strategic in the German market.

One of the things we noticed, for instance, was that if you visited the websites of the largest ticketing companies in Germany, there was no category for Country.

So one of the first things we actually did was to speak with Eventim and get them to add another category, which is quite a technically challenging task. The category’s been out there now for a week. It may seem basic, but it’s very much necessary to get people interested, and to enable them to find it, especially if they want to watch it live.

It was very interesting to learn about the relationship between the BBC and C2C.

Hopefully, once Germany’s media realizes that Country is popular, we’ll hear more Country music on our radio stations as well. Right now, it isn’t happening anywhere on the mainstream radio and TV channels.

In the long run those are the main challenges that we’re all facing together. Not just us, but the other promoters and labels as well. It’s a team effort.

Sometimes media only pay attention to what’s happening in the market after the fact. We’ve had the same experience while working one some of our Disney projects. Our ticket sales were gigantic, but the media didn’t understand what we were doing at first.

We had lot of meetings and conversations, listening to what worked and didn’t work in their markets, and discussing which of those things that did work could be adapted to Germany. There’s different dynamics in the market, you have to watch out for that. 

AEG was looking for a partner that, for one, has a base in Berlin, which is where one of our biggest offices is located. They liked our strategic approach, which is why we are now co-promoting C2C Germany. It says AEG Presents and Semmel Concerts right next to it.

One of the things they took away was to start smaller and grow slowly. That’s why AEG’s new building in Berlin [Verti Music Hall] is perfect. It’s in the middle of the city, easy to reach, it’s got fantastic acoustics and great facilities for customers.

verti.de – Verti Music Hall
The host of the first C2C in Germany

We’ve sold 2,000 tickets in the first 24 hours of going on sale.

Our capacity is probably going to be around 3,600 per day, standing and seated.

Our objective is definitely to take what you have in London, bring it to Berlin, and give it a Berlin identity. London’s C2C is different from the other UK ones. We want to achieve the same in Berlin. To make it live up to the brand’s expectations, but at the same make it special by giving it a Berlin feel.

Since this whole vicinity around the new building only opened ten days ago, it delayed the conversations around how we could utilize it all. But it is an objective to bring the entire Country experience to Berlin, not just the music.

It is. We did the same for Cesar Millan and the Disney products. And, on some level, we did the same thing when it comes to Schlager music and Helene Fischer. We’ve broken a lot of stereotypes while working with her, and the genre in Germany has become a lot younger. There’s been a new target audience, since she’s been around.

Five years ago, nobody in GSA would have thought it would ever be possible to sell 1.2 million tickets with a German “Schlager” artist and for someone from this genre to become Europe’s most successful live artist.

I think, bringing country music over to the German market is somewhat the same challenge, you know, breaking stereotypes and finding that new audience. There is a great audience already, but there is a lot of potential to open it up to new, more poppier and mainstream artists coming out of the U.S.