Executive Profile: CAA’s Cameron Kaiser Talks Stadium Packages & Wu-Tang Forever

It’s a question that seems to come up every year among live entertainment folks: Who in the rock world will emerge as the next stadium act after acts like The Rolling Stones, Metallica and Red Hot Chili Peppers hang up their instruments?

Green Day and blink-182 took that baton last year with successful runs of their own, but Creative Artists Agency agent Cameron Kaiser believes other acts can do the same using a simple equation: 1+1=3. The math may not be sound, but it makes perfect sense to those in the live industry. The idea behind it is pairing two arena acts and booking them in stadiums, and that strategy has gained traction in the global touring industry lately, especially with artists who rose to prominence in the late ’90s and early 2000s.

Packaging two headliners gives international fans more value for their money, Kaiser says, and such an approach has given acts sustainability in their careers they may not have had pre-COVID.

That 1+1=3 formula is especially working in Latin America, a region full of rabid, passionate rock fans who always show up. CAA clients Good Charlotte and Fall Out Boy are co-headlining the “I Wanna Be Tour” in Brazil, two massive emo and pop-punk stadium shows promoted by 30e at Curitiba’s Estádio Couto Pereira and Allianz Parque in São Paulo in August.

As a millennial, Kaiser understands the desire to relive one’s youth and enjoy the music of his high school and college days, and he’s been tapping into that nostalgia in all genres, helping clients like Diana Ross, Wu-Tang Clan and Evanescence expand their reach and find audiences outside the U.S.

Evanescence is one of Kaiser’s many success stories, with the rock band selling out its first-ever stadium show in 2023 and grossing nearly $2.7 million at Allianz Parque, according to Pollstar Boxoffice.

2025 is lining up to be another good year for Kaiser, not only with the I Wanna Be Tour but also Wu-Tang’s farewell tour and Diana Ross playing the Hollywood Bowl and European arenas. Pollstar caught up with the veteran agent to chat about nostalgic rock acts and working with Wu-Tang on what will likely be their biggest trek yet.

Pollstar: I found the “nostalgia acts” to be a fascinating part of the business because there are so many trends to keep in mind when routing their tours. How has that evolved since COVID, especially with artists on your roster?

Cameron Kaiser: I’ve never been a genre agent. I’ve never been like, “I’m just going to go work on electronic acts” or “I’m just going to be a hip hop agent.”

I work with everything. I was in the car with a buddy of mine. We went to Lake Tahoe over the weekend. It was on a Friday, and I was still making calls. One second, it was Lionel Richie’s manager. The next second, it was Good Charlotte’s manager. Then it was Wu-Tang clan’s manager. Then Public Enemy’s manager. He’s just like, “What is going on? That’s a weird, a weird, you know, mix of clients.” But I love it. Coming out of Covid, I think our business has become so big and people longed for live entertainment, being in that room with their favorite artists.

I’m 43. People my age are experiencing that same thing where they’re like, “Hey, we got a bit of money; we got a bit of disposable income. Let’s go and see our favorite bands that are still going.” And you always have that thought in the back of your head of, “Is this going to be the last time I’ll be able to see them?”

One of my clients that I’ve worked on for ever since I joined CAA is Evanescence, and this band had a monster single with “Bring Me Back to Life,” which was on their first album from almost 22 years ago. In 2023, we sold out our first stadium ever in São Paulo. The band has never sold as many tickets, nor have they made as much money as they are now on the road.

It’s very exciting. Offspring just played Allianz Parque; My Chemical Romance is going into stadiums; blink-182 and Green Day are still going and selling out everywhere. The rock space, these acts that have been doing it a long time, it has never been bigger, and it’s such an exciting thing to be a part of and one thing that we’re really bullish about.

The Latin American market is one that is growing every year. How essential is that market for those rock acts and your clients?

It’s been such a guitar band market, whereas other genres, such as hip-hop, are just starting to grow. Lollapalooza and festivals like that are obviously trying to build it, and it’s starting to grow.  The Weeknd went down there and did great business, but yeah, it’s primarily been a rock market.

These are markets that have always embraced rock a lot and are even more so embracing these artists and supporting them, the ones that have been around for a long time. They’re just these are massive countries with a lot of people, and they’re just soaking it up. It’s amazing to see.

We’ve seen a revival and growing interest in these pop-punk and emo acts of the 2000s, especially in festivals.

Another thing, too, is the power of packaging multiple acts in this world together. It’s more value for money for the fans. You follow that kind of 1+1=3. If one or two acts who maybe aren’t arena acts on their own, you package them up and get them in to arenas, and it gives the fans a better experience and better production. I just think it’s where these fans are at in their age and in their life, to be able to go and relive some of this.

These acts, they’re going to keep going for another 20 or 30 years the same way that Diana Ross and Lionel Richie are still out there.

Are you seeing that kind of success in other genres?

Yeah. In the R&B world, Boyz II Men is a group I grew up loving. I remember driving my car in high school listening to them all the time. And I think it was last year that they played their first-ever arena in London. They’ve been doing this for a long time, but they sold out Wembley Arena in April of last year. We just went on sale with shows packaging Earth, Wind and Fire and Nile Rodgers in Japan, and we’ve sold out multiple arenas in Tokyo and Osaka.

I’ve been on the Wu-Tang [farewell tour]. This is one that I’m very hands-on with and super excited about.. It was a group that needed to be kind of reignited and repositioned on the live front.

When we signed them, I think it was the 25-year anniversary of Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), one of them one of their most iconic albums. It was a long strategy of building this group back up to be viewed again as one of the most iconic hip-hop groups in the world, which they are with one of the most recognizable logos. We kicked things off in 2018. We did four nights at the Sydney Opera House, the first hip-hop act to play there, and we sold out four nights. We then brought them back in 2019, built a package tour called the “Gods of Rap Tour,” which was headlined by Wu-Tang but had De La Soul, Public Enemy, DJ Premier. That was 13 arenas in Europe that were sold out. Fast forward to 2023, we package up with NAS and did the “New York State of Mind Tour.” We took that all over the U.S., Australia, U.K. and Europe and did huge business.

And with the farewell tour, the onsale was bigger than anything they’ve ever experienced as a group. We packaged up with a really cool support act, Run the Jewels, who adds a lot of value. I’m actively working on the rest of the world plan, which is going to be in 2026, but the demand is massive. We’re talking about doing big kind of 25,000-, 30,000-cap outdoor events in Australia and South America and building iconic lineups around Wu.

And what’s cool about Wu is that there are so many artists, whether they’re new or older artists, who want to be part of that journey. You ask anyone who they look up to and you know who their influences was? It was Wu-Tang Clan. We’re really celebrating that as a company and putting everything behind it because it’s a special one.