Pollstar Live! 2020 Wraps Tears, Data & Sir Elton

Black Coffee Productions – Feeling The Love:
Elton John surprised and humbled the Pollstar Awards audience when picking up his award for Best Major Tour of the Year.

Sir Elton Frigging John!

What a sublime head-explosion to have knighted superstar legend Sir Elton John make a surprise appearance at the close of the Pollstar Awards. Not only did he bring the entire International Ballroom at Los Angeles’ Beverly Hilton to its feet in rapturous applause, but John’s cameo capped the three days that comprised the phenomenal 31st Annual Pollstar Live! Conference, which in so many ways encapsulated the best of this industry.

Back in the day, in grade school, the vinyl record I wore out most was John’s Greatest Hits. Whether jumping off the bunk bed to “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting” (a precursor to air-guitaring) or crooning in off-key alto to “Your Song” and “Rocket Man,” it’s one of my life’s most important records. And in 1975, for nearly three months, it was the country’s, too, parking at No. 1 on its way to selling 17 million copies.

It’s incredible that 45 years later, Sir Elton’s “Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour” won Pollstar’s Major Tour of the Year honor. His three-year goodbye trek, which lasts through the end of 2020, grossed an astronomical $212 million in 2019, just behind Pink on Pollstar’s Year-End Top 100 Worldwide Tours chart. But in very tangible terms, the tour and this industry have allowed fans like myself, who had never before seen John perform, to fulfill childhood dreams and a long-idolized icon. Without the live industry that supported John and helped facilitate his career, it very well may never have happened, and John acknowledged as much.

“To have a career as long as I have,” he said in his acceptance speech, “A: you have to a bit of talent; and B: you have to have people who think behind the scenes, like all you people out there tonight. You’re the people who arrange for your artist to be on tour, you book them and advise them. I’ve had such great advice and that’s why I’ve lasted so long.”

“Great advice” is something John’s had in his back pocket going back a half century, with the support of a legendary executive. “When I played The Troubadour in 1970, I had an agent in Howard Rose who’s still my agent,” the 72-year-old John said. “I think that’s pretty amazing, 50 years. He’s guided me through a minefield and made my career interesting.”

That, in a nutshell, is what’s best about this business and gives it a Willy Wonka-like mien: building a transcendent career with deep and successful business relationships that become personal and often familial; extending the careers of icons far beyond predicted expiration dates (including the artist himself – see biopic “Rocketman” and terrific autobiography “Me: Elton John”); fulfilling childhood dreams that seemed long gone; creating peak experiences for millions; and, along the way, contributing to the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands if not millions across the planet. It’s alchemy. It’s taking raw artistic material and forging it into pure gold.

And many felt that frisson, or jolt of emotion, during John’s appearance at our lil’ awards show or when seeing John on the “Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour.” And it was repeated throughout this year’s conference. Tears were shed at least four times during Pollstar Live!, a true rarity during business conferences. One may not think of Production Live!, the conference’s first day that focuses on the essential art of producing concerts, as a place for emotional catharsis, but it often is. This indispensable and demanding part of the business requires high-level, state-of-the-art strategies, physically demanding work, copious overtime, transportation and budget pressures, precise execution and high-functioning teams of professionals with a tremendous work ethic. It’s all in service of ensuring the artists’ visions are realized and the fans are enthralled – and, along the way, unbreakable lifelong bonds are formed.

Black Coffee Productions – Irving Azoff and Nicki Minaj
shared more than a few heartfelt moments onstage during her keynote discussion at Pollstar Live!.

During an extraordinarily candid panel at Production Live! on the physical, mental and emotional toll touring can have on health, titled “Even Superman Gets The Blues: Stay Clean, Healthy and Strong as a Road Warrior,” tears were shed. Moderated by the inimitable and sober Michael Des Barres and featuring brilliant and wonderfully forthcoming musician Dave Navarro, insightful MusiCares senior director Harold Owens and the accomplished Lyn Morris of Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, the overall and inclusive message was simple: “You are not alone.” This was brought home vividly by Navarro’s recollections of his vicious struggles with substance abuse and depression. The great Charlie Hernandez of Just a Bunch of Roadies spoke from the audience about a team member badly hurting and in desperate need of help and how he and others on the crew saved this person’s life and got him help – leaving audience throats lumpy and eyes welling. It wouldn’t be the last time.

Two intimate keynotes were similarly emotional: One, with superstar Nicki Minaj, in conversation with Irving Azoff, chairman of the Azoff Company (and co-founder of Oak View Group, Pollstar’s parent company), was a free-wheeling conversation that covered everything from social media to Larry David to the pain Minaj and others in the ballroom had felt upon Kobe Bryant’s passing.

The loss of the beloved basketball Hall of Famer touched many in the live business and left more than Minaj teary-eyed. Meanwhile, Scott Stapp, who bared his soul before a full house to share his amazing recovery journey, brought the crowd to a state of empathy and pathos. The same day, another panel with the three industry-shaping founders of Austin promotion company C3 Presents, Charlies Walker, Attal and Jones, spoke of changes afoot in their company and elicited similarly strong emotions. Yes, business and life can be hard, even if they’re also filled with joyous experiences. But elemental to it all, and at the core of so much in this industry, are relationships forged with colleagues, incredible artists and many others who touch this business and with whom we create profound bonds.

When someone great is lost, it stings – often for a long time in this closely bound industry. Discussing the steps this industry can take to mitigate those losses and commiserating when someone is taken are signs of what makes this business special.

Pollstar Live! 2020 was also filled with discussions about the new: cannabis, gender inclusivity the millisecond news cycle, Brexit and the Wuhan coronavirus, K-pop, the proliferation of casinos, and other informed conversations that took attendees into unchartered territories. At the same time, brilliant veterans such as UTA’s Neil Warnock, WME’s Marc Geiger, Capitol Records’ Michelle Jubelirer, Jake Berry Productions’ Jake Berry, UTA’s David Zedeck, Live Nation’s Ali Harnell and Brad Wavra and tour manager Marty Hom offered collective wisdom to take this business to ever greater heights. And, as part of the “Rainmaker: NextGen” Q&A series, rising talents like C3’s Sophie Lobl, Rolling Loud’s Tariq Cherif and Sal & Co’s Dina Sahim pointed to live’s bright future.

Further hastening the industry’s growth were two titanic announcements concerning data and new technologies that Pollstar and its parent company Oak View Group are involved with: On Wednesday a panel moderated by Oak View Group’s director of bookings Eric Gardner with Parag Vaish and Nick Turner, founders in residence of Google’s Area 120, and Full Stop Management’s Jeffrey Azoff introducing groundbreaking data tool DEMAND.

Free to the industry, this data trove provides access to unique and robust data sets filled with unprecedented insights previously unavailable in a single platform utilizing Google and YouTube searches and trends, Pollstar data, ticket prices and other metrics. DEMAND’s applications include informing tour routing, optimizing pricing, selecting venues and realizing brand and sponsorship opportunities (see page 43).

A panel followed later that day introducing Pollstar Data Cloud, a game-changing platform powered by Pollstar’s industry-leading live data through a newly announced partnership with the Google Cloud Platform Marketplace. This leading-edge product allows for limitless customizable data sets and use with third-party applications that promises artists and their teams more robust analytics and actionable insights into the live market, propelling the touring business to greater heights.

With Data Cloud, customers can now view, filter and download reports in a number of ways based on Pollstar’s Boxoffice data from more than 60,000 artists and key live industry personnel, unlocking Pollstar’s contact database.

With all that transpired at this year’s 2020 Pollstar Live! – heartfelt tears, cutting-edge panel topics, veteran insights, game-changing data platforms, superstar acceptance speeches and more – it’s wholly appropriate that before Sir Elton accepted his Pollstar Award, his Oscar-winning song from the “Lion King Soundtrack” played with amazingly apropos lyrics, “Can you feel the love tonight? It is where we are.”

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