Pollstar’s 2023 Year End Executive Survey (Part 2)

The past year saw live music pushed even further into the stratosphere with Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Bruce Springsteen, Ed Sheeran, P!NK and Elton John all out on the road. Not to mention U2’s residency at Sphere in Las Vegas. Throughout 2023 the industry experienced massive highs including Taylor and Beyoncé grossing more at SoFi Stadium than most music festivals do over a single weekend, along with challenges like severe weather stranding thousands in the desert as well as inflation, ticketing and a glut of tours.

Pollstar reached out to many of the industry’s top executives to get their take on 2023, with promoters, agents, managers and venue execs taking stock of this year’s successes and failures. This is the third installment of Pollstar’s annual Year-End Executive Survey, with parts one and two now available online. A final installment will be printed next week.

Participants
Lindsay Arell
Principal, Honeycomb Strategies (which is a partner of ASM Global)

Mike G
Agent and Partner, United Talent Agency

Matt Galle
Agent, CAA

Margaret Galton
Talent Buyer, C3 Presents

Jordan Harding
Senior Vice President, Nederlander Concerts

Jen Hass
Talent Buyer/Co-Head of Booking, I.M.P. / 9:30 Club

Sean Saadeh
Executive Vice President, Entertainment, Prudential Center

Doug Thornton
Executive Vice President, Stadium, Arena and Theater division, ASM Global

What were you and your company’s greatest successes in 2023?
Lindsay Arell: Our greatest success of 2023 was working with venues across ASM Global’s massive network to identify and commit to the ASM Global Acts goals.

Mike G: Working cohesively and exceeding our budget by eight figures in a record year.

Matt Galle: Janet Jackson’s highly successful “Together Again” tour, which sold out everywhere; My Chemical Romance’s sold-out return tour in 2022/2023; as well as T-Pain’s continuous growth.

Margaret Galton: Working together to effectively book, ticket, market and produce all of the shows that made one of our busiest years to date.

Jordan Harding: We wrapped one of our best years ever at City National Grove of Anaheim, which we have been operating for over 21 years. Key performance indicators across the board outperformed expectations. Concerts routinely beat their individual forecasts by more than 40%.

Jen Hass: Having a record-setting All Things Go Festival at Merriweather, opening up our new 450-cap venue The Atlantis with 44 incredible underplays and having all of our venues – the 9:30 Club, The Anthem, Lincoln Theatre, Merriweather Post Pavilion and The Atlantis – ranked as some of the best in the world in their respective capacity category.

Sean Saadeh: We have taken great strides to be recognized as one of the most diverse buildings in the world to reflect our great fans and our community. Prudential Center is known to many as the North American capital of K-pop, the Northeast hub for Latin music, a must-play for all hip-hop and R&B tours, a burgeoning sports properties portfolio and so much more. We recognize that tours have an option in the New York area, so a major priority for our organization is to provide a first-class experience from the moment the artists and their teams get off the bus to the moment they leave the venue.

Doug Thornton: 2023 was a great year for the ASM Arena, Stadium and Theatre Division with many highlights. We added several new accounts that brought on new clients. Our stadiums had a record year hosting 42 concerts that produced $390 million in gross ticket sales and attracted more than two million guests. As a company, we also overperformed in many of the key revenue areas that we use to measure success. For example, big increases were realized in food and beverage per cap spending which increased 26% over the previous year, premium seating income per event up 21%, and net income per event increased by 48% collectively across ASM Arena, Stadium, and Theaters. These and other factors enabled ASM to produce great results for our many clients.

What were the greatest challenges this year and what strategies did you implement in response?
Arell: Our greatest challenge of 2023 was working to get a baseline of our venue impacts. We have spent much of the year identifying our key performance metrics to support our sustainability goals and implementing strategies to gather that information.

Mike G: The economy was the greatest challenge, so we responded by being conscious of ticket pricing and scaling.

Galle: With higher than normal amounts of traffic amongst artists touring, acts trying to get venue holds on good days of the week – or even in general – was very hard.

Galton: One of the greatest challenges we had this year was managing large show (stadium/arena/amphitheater) schedules. With so many big and amazing shows there were a lot of details to figure out. The production team did an amazing job coming up with new systems in order to streamline load times, stagehand calls, travel logistics, production needs and staffing.

Harding: One of the biggest challenges was continuing to adjust pricing to catch up with inflation and support higher levels of operating costs. With gas, food and home prices up 29%, 26% and 47% respectively since the start of the pandemic, a $100 concert ticket may not seem as extravagant for folks as it used to. A/B testing and variable pricing for both tickets and ancillary products helped shed light on the elasticity of demand, and I think you’ll continue to see those prices increase and finally stabilize sometime in 2024.

Hass: Keeping up with the high volume of shows – it’s great to see live music thriving again after the pandemic but with so many acts touring at the same time, we’ve had to be smart in how we market each show individually. Also inflation – everything is more expensive, so working with the acts to find new creative sources of revenue in order to still keep the ticket price affordable for fans.

Saadeh: The New Jersey market is one of the strongest markets in the country. As of 2021, New Jersey’s population is around 10 million. It’s the number one state in the nation by population density but it is also one of the most competitive markets in the world.

Thornton: Much like the prior year, managing cost was something we focused on in 2023. The increased cost of commodities, labor, materials and services presents a challenge when trying to maintain high margins from events and operations. However, our general managers did a great job of following the processes we put in place to track operating expenses on a show-by-show basis. That allowed us to actually improve our average per-event gross margin compared to our budget targets for the year.

How did the glut of tours and events in the marketplace impact your business?
Mike G: It made it more challenging to have your tour stand out, but our marketing team, with its creative resources, rose to the occasion and enabled our tours to exceed the level of success we set for our clients.

Galle: For the most part, knock on wood…they were highly successful. People want to go out and see live music!

Galton: It was a good problem to have but it certainly contributed to the major challenges we dealt with this last year. The number of shows forced us to think efficiently and effectively about how we were approaching managing staff schedules so that each show got the attention it deserved.

Harding: It’s glorious, and I hope the wave continues. I’d love to set more records in 2024.

Hass: There certainly was a lot – but we’re still seeing shows sell out right and left as well, which means fans are really hungry for live entertainment and that’s not slowing down. We have a venue for each building step in an artist’s live career so I’m very grateful that it’s kept us busy.

Saadeh: Prudential Center finds itself in the busiest marketplace in the world. The market is 27 million strong with multiple events happening each night across many different sized venues. Hosting over 60 concerts this past year, Prudential Center is thriving in a highly competitive market while ticket sales have continued to be strong. We have done a great job of carving out New Jersey as its own standalone market in the busy metropolitan area.

Thornton: It was all very positive for us. Our venues worked with our promoter partners to maximize the number of shows and effectively manage the traffic. The overall event count for ASM Arenas and Stadiums was up 25% over the previous year, which helped to produce record financial results throughout our network.

Ticketing was a hot-button topic with the issues of transparency, access, pricing and secondary market widely discussed and legislated. Did any of this impact your business?
Galle: I actually feel like there was a lot more transparency in 2023 than years before, and it is going to continue to be that way. I think it’s great for the artists to be able to participate in the majority of the secondary income and create the highest grosses possible.

Harding: We favor transparency. We don’t want our fans getting sticker shock when they reach the end of their cart. I would love to include any surcharges and parking into the initial price of the ticket to reduce the cart bloat. But if venue A employs those methods and venue B doesn’t, consumers will undoubtedly choose venue B, all other things equal. That suggests greater regulation is needed if we truly want to improve the concert ticket marketplace and buying experience.

Saadeh: We continue to keep an eye on various ticketing issues and so far, the impact has been minimal. Internally we are keeping up with all the different ticketing changes/laws in New Jersey but at the end of the day, we want to make sure that we do what is best for the artist, fans and our community.

Thornton: No; not really. These are the same issues the industry has been dealing with for a while and they are not likely to go away any time soon. We will continue to adapt as change occurs.

Inflation dropped to 3.6% this year, but was still felt acutely by many, how did that impact your business strategies?
Mike G: Knowing your customer and being conscious of ticket pricing was crucial.

Galle: From my perspective, it didn’t really impact the live industry very much.
Harding: Inflation has moderated to a more acceptable level but that doesn’t mean prices have come down. Now, consumers must get accustomed to the new normal of prices where they are. Costs to put on a show have increased dramatically, too. In hindsight, we didn’t increase ticket prices as dramatically as we could have. Volume overcame the reduced margins.

Hass: The cost of everything has gone up across the board; touring costs for the artists, venue cost for upkeep, production, staffing, all of it. So we have had to pivot to find new ways to make it work financially – for example, everyone does VIP experiences now, which requires a lot more work but can help the artist hit their bottom line. It takes working together with the artist’s team and really trusting one another to find a middle ground.

Saadeh: Knowing that fans’ pockets are hurting more than ever, we have redefined the fan experience that further elevates Newark’s Prudential Center as a marquee destination for sports and entertainment. We have worked hard to make sure the guest experience is as great as ever with various arena enhancements including a long-term commitment to the fans of New Jersey to provide a world-class hospitality service with Levy.

Thornton: Over a two-year period from 2022-2023 we saw construction costs rise as much as 25% in some cases, mainly due to the increased cost of materials and labor. Of course, that kind of cost escalation impacts your capital replacement and improvement decisions. Several of our stadiums and arenas were in the midst of major renovations during this period and were forced to either reduce scope or alter plans as a result of rising construction costs.

What tour, festival and/or show meant the most to you this year?
Mike G: Coachella with LAROI and Latto’s first time playing.

Galton: Personally, the two nights of Pearl Jam in Austin and the Moody Center were the most meaningful. It was one of the shows I was most looking forward to which was a part of a tour that had been adjusted for years due to COVID and availabilities. It was a nice worth-the-wait moment, and one of my favorite PJ set lists to boot.

Harding: We’re excited to ring in the new year with a few reunion shows by Orange County-based Something Corporate at City National Grove of Anaheim. We saw incredible demand for these shows through the Ticketmaster request lottery system. In May, we hosted the Children’s Hospital of Orange County gala, raising $5.2 million in support of pediatric research with a performance by Earth, Wind & Fire.

Hass: How to pick…All Things Go was really special this year – the lineup was out of this world and everyone was so happy to be there, fans and artists alike. But also having the Foo Fighters take the stage at The Atlantis for the first time and rock out in a 450-cap club for two and a half hours was really unforgettable.

Saadeh: There have been so many great experiences this past year, as the live entertainment business continues to boom in this post-pandemic world. For me, anytime that we can put not only Prudential Center but the great state of New Jersey on a global stage it is a huge win for us. With that being said, Prudential Center also hosted the 2023 MTV VMAs for the second year in a row and the third time in the last five years.

Thornton: Without question, Taylor Swift. We were fortunate to host 18 shows in five of our managed stadiums that generated phenomenal results. And it wasn’t just our stadiums that benefited. Municipalities also benefited from the “destination effect” of her tour.

What business or tech innovation helped you the most this year?
Mike G: Embracing AI.

Harding: We are getting pitched new technologies constantly. We love the innovation and entrepreneurship. We’ve been exploring many of them, but have found they’re not quite ready for prime time. We hope to implement some of them in 2024.

Hass: We started working with r.Cup to eliminate the use of single-use plastic in our venues so it was meaningful to see the company make such a significant step toward sustainability.

Saadeh: This summer we launched a long-term commitment with Levy, the market leader in world-class hospitality, to create an elevated food and beverage experience that is grounded in New Jersey, featuring Jersey Signature menu offerings that will roll out across concessions, a roster of restaurateurs, products, and purveyors with roots in the Garden State, and elevated premium hospitality in clubs and suites.

Thornton: From a business operations standpoint, our Revenue Optimization program has produced unprecedented results in our venues.

If you had to sum up your 2023 in 23 words, what would you say?
Arell: 2023 was the year that sustainability shifted from a buzzword to an action item for the live event industry. Accountability, transparency, and authenticity.

Mike G: It was a record year in all areas, and I’m very thankful to exceed expectations given the dual strikes and economy.

Saadeh: The live entertainment business is all about having fun, the success of touring in 2023 has made it fun for all of us, especially the fans.

Harding: 2023 was a post-pandemic tremendous and record-breaking transitional year with unprecedented demand. We are hopeful to see that continue into 2024 and beyond.

Thornton: Congratulations to our team of venue professionals who created the opportunity for our company to achieve unprecedented growth. What a great year!

Looking ahead to 2024, what are your predictions for the live industry in the year ahead?
Arell: We foresee sustainability coming more to the forefront of the live event industry, especially within the music industry. The leadership from acts like Coldplay and Billie Eilish demonstrated that musicians are holding both their vendors and tour operators accountable for their sustainability impacts.

Galton: I think we are going to continue to see a robust live business. Shows are more accessible than ever and people value the experience of live more than ever.

Mike G: It’ll have its biggest year. You’ll see more records set.

Harding: I’m optimistic that current trends will carry into the new year.

Hass: More shows. Also, artists getting creative with their touring – maybe doing multiple unique underplays or finding ways to bring new and immersive experiences to their fans.

Saadeh: For a person who tends to look at all things as glass half full, I am very bullish about what the next year and beyond will bring to the venue industry. I predict that we will continue to see many new and established artists continuing to tour despite some real economic challenges we are facing.

Thornton: All of our leading indicators point to another good year for the industry. The confirmed show counts in Q1 and Q2 are already ahead of the 2023 pace. We likely won’t see another Taylor Swift effect, but there are a number of major artists touring both stadiums and arenas next year.

What are you most looking forward to?
Arell: In 2024 I am most looking forward to working with our partners like Voltus to support our ASM Global Acts Sustainability Goals.

Mike G: We’ve set the bar and now need to keep the standard of excellence.

Galton: I am most looking forward to seeing the creativity that touring artists continue to come up with as far as production and accessibility to their fans. Every year I see a show and think “This can’t be outdone,” and then it is!

Harding: I’m most looking forward to our expansion efforts, notably the development of a 6,200-seat outdoor amphitheater in San Pedro as part of the city’s West Harbor project, and the Spring opening of our new 3,500-capacity outdoor stage in Sacramento called The Backyard.

Hass: Continuing to build new acts through our rooms – it was always incredible to see an act that I booked at the 9:30 Club just starting out and they go on to headline Merriweather. Now that we have The Atlantis, we really get to be a part of breaking new acts in the market, so that’s exciting. Also, expanding in the comedy scene.

Saadeh: What excites me most for 2024, is the power of the entire HBSE venue portfolio and what is on the horizon. From continuing to book Prudential Center and White Eagle Hall to laying out opening plans for Loew’s Jersey Theatre in Jersey City, and now leading the booking efforts for HBSE’s most recent purchase of FedEx Field.

Thornton: I am really excited about the integration between ASM Global and Legends as a result of the recent acquisition announcement. Combining the two organizations will create a vibrant competitor in the industry, and result in greater opportunities for our clients, employees, and stakeholders.