The Story Behind FireAid LA (Pollstar Live! Panel Recap)

Moderator: Sharon Waxman, Founder, CEO & Editor in Chief, TheWrap

Panelists
Irving Azoff, Chairman & CEO, The Azoff Company
Jeffrey Azoff, CEO, Fullstop Management, Fullstop
Shelli Azoff, Founder and Managing Partner, The Azoff Restaurant Group
Joel Gallen, Founder, Tenth Planet Productions
Daniel Griffis, President, Global Partnerships, OVG
Geni Lincoln, President, California Region, Live Nation
Allison Statter, CEO, Blended Strategy Group
Gillian Zucker, President Business Operations / CEO, LA Clippers & Intuit Dome / Halo Sports & Entertainment

It’s been nearly three months since the two-venue, 35-artist, six-hour FireAid concert that’s raised more than $100 million for relief from the wildfires that devastated the Los Angeles area earlier this year. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s almost mind-boggling to try and comprehend what went from a kitchen table conversation between Irving and Shelli Azoff to the stages at the Intuit Dome and Kia Forum (and to screens via dozens of streaming platforms) in just 12 days.

“As the fires really got started, Shelli said to me ‘We have to do something,'” Irving Azoff said. “And we aren’t that smart. All we know how to do is put on concerts. Within seconds, she called Gillian (Zucker) and she offered up Intuit and said the Ballmers, the Clippers and the Ballmer Foundation would cover everything.”

And things moved quickly. Shelli Azoff soon received a call from Kim Stewart — daughter of the legendary Rod — saying her father wanted to be the first artist to offer to perform. Irving got a call from Stevie Nicks shortly thereafter. Things moved so quickly, the Azoffs and the team at the Intuit Dome decided to just issue a press release announcing the concert and figure out how to pull it off later.

Things moved so fast, in fact, that Jeffrey Azoff — the couple’s son as well as head of powerhouse artist management firm Full Stop — started receiving inquiries about how to help before the devastation of the fires was even apparent.

“My phone started blowing up with people asking how they could help and I was like ‘Help with what?'” he said jokingly, as things were happening so fast he really didn’t know what they meant.

Among those early calls was from Joel Gallen, the director and producer responsible for many of the most successful benefit concerts in history.

“I have somehow become the go-to disaster guy in town,” he said.

One of his earliest challenges was staffing — both the Grammys and the Super Bowl were also prepping, taxing crew availability — and then managing an ever-growing roster of performers, plus putting together video packages featuring fire victims and first responders.

That roster – largely managed by Live Nation’s Geni Lincoln, who said the hardest part of the short runway from concept to executive was “turning people away who wanted to help.”

“We just didn’t have room for everyone,” she said.

The urge to help was so strong — and rapid — that Daniel Griffis, OVG’s president of global partnerships, was tasked by Irving Azoff with raising $20 million in sponsorships and met that goal in six days.

“Then we were at $30 million and then $40 million and two days before the show we hit $52 million,” he said.

Managing this constant swirl of activity — the group text used by the principals to coordinate the event had their phones buzzing by 5 a.m. daily — was Zucker, who credited her team at the Intuit Dome and Kia Forum, along with a legion of firms and companies that jumped in to pull off the undertaking.

“When you have big visionary ideas, you have to have somebody to execute that – and that was the Clippers and Intuit Dome teams. You have to do things like insurance and food and beverage and legal and merchandise. When you have that many streaming platforms involved, there has to be a way to link in a way that they don’t break down (when the donations begin),” she said. “The most extraordinary thing was how the community came together and there were no egos. You’d get into a place where there’d be an obstacle – for example, we had to lay a fiber line between the venues and that usually takes months, but it took one phone call to AT&T to get that done.”

Just the sheer number of contracts — with 25 streaming platforms and dozens of artists, the legal paper work was legion — would seemingly bury even the most seasoned attorney. Irving Azoff said all that legal paper was executed in less than 10 days.

But those complexities continue. FireAid partnered with The Annenberg Foundation to distribute the funds.

“It was so important to me and Gillian to make sure the money got to the right people and it’s complex to get from A to Z. It was really challenging to come up with a way that we could be confident with what the money could achieve,” Shelli Azoff said.

“The Annenberg Foundation put together a group of experts in the community, in both neighborhoods,” Zucker said. “This team at Annenberg really got into the weeds and took time and selected over 100 organizations. These were people who could get the money into the hands of people quickly. And the need is still enormous. You don’t wave a magic wand and push out this kind of money.”

Though prep time was short, recovery will be a lengthy one, but the success of the event is apparent, a testament to what can happen when egos are checked at the door.

“Nobody asked about billing, nobody asked who they were going on before or after,” Jeffrey Azoff said. “It was really incredible to see.”