From Mumford To Venue Mogul: Ben Lovett Talks New Venues & Life On Tour

After playing at some of the most iconic venues in the world, Ben Lovett of Mumford & Sons, who is also the founder of tvg Hospitality and London-based label/music collective Communion Music, used his musician’s impulse and developer’s vision to launch a global portfolio of entertainment venues that includes The Orion Amphitheater in Huntsville, Alabama, and the 750-cap. Pacific Electric set to open this fall in Los Angeles.

A Grammy winner, respected producer, entrepreneur and philanthropist, Lovett didn’t reinvent the bus wheel but examined and incorporated what makes a venue great and a performance memorable into his flourishing business model. Lovett launched tvg (The Venue Group) in 2016 with a mission of developing and operating independent music venues across the U.S. and U.K., encompassing small listening rooms like the 320-capacity Omeara in London to the 8,000-cap. Orion, which opened in 2022.

Today, the company has more than 500 employees and offices in six cities with venues under construction across the U.S.

Pollstar: You do a really good job of surrounding yourself with people who share your passion for the live industry.

Ben Lovett: I’ve got a lot of perspective traveling the world and seeing kind of the good, the great and the ugly of it all so I’ve got quite a good bullshit barometer for people. I don’t really believe in hollow promises. I’ve always said that we really like to work with people – or I certainly always like to work with people that do what they say they’re going to do. It’s hard, you know, it’s hard to do what we’re doing – in all facets.

When I say that, I mean that from a tvg point of view, I mean that having just released my fifth album [Rushmere] with my band, I mean that from a communion point of view. Doing anything well involves digging in and finding quality through the practice and the commitment. There aren’t any shortcuts and there are no quick fixes. For venues, I’d say it’s one of the most challenging things to find people who are really up for doing the work.

When The Orion opened in 2022, you were focused on developing a venue in an underserved market. Now you are opening a music hall in one of the most competitive markets in the country. What’s your strategy?

The history of this company goes back to 2016 launching a 320-capacity venue in London. There was no shortage of 320-cap or 300- to 500-capacity venues in London before Omeara, but I had a feeling that there was a lack of service being delivered at venues of that scale. What I mean by that is that there wasn’t a room that was blowing people away to the point that they would go out, they would make an active choice to go and see an artist in that room at that cap. That is obviously applicable.

We say “no” to more things than we say “yes” to. There’s a lot that we vet through, and we kind of consider carefully whether or not we can do it both well, but also successfully. And successfully means that it’s going to have to be, in our view, the most beloved venue at that cap in the market.
You have a philosophy of adding ticket value for the artists. What does that look like?
We go after things thinking of it as like neutrality, creating canvases where artists of all shapes and sizes – rock and hip-hop, and pop and country, comedy, spoken word and the rest – can play on our stages without them feeling beige and like a non-event. Because that would go against our priority, which is to make places that people think of as being amazing. There’s a collaborative arms-open, let’s-figure-this-out-together, music-industry mindset to what we’re doing, with an intensity of excellence where it’s not OK to phone it in.

What’s the impact on fans of elevating the artist experience?

I think this comes from, honestly, from touring and meeting fans. I’ve really come to the appreciation of just how important these gigs can be to people. Sometimes I feel like people within the music industry forget that. People go to gigs and they’ll hear a lyric, or they will meet someone, or they will forget about something that’s troubling them, like epiphanies happening every day in these venues all over the world – moments are happening – and I think that’s a really beautiful and an important thing that’s happening.

The band is gearing up for a world tour of arenas and amphitheaters that kicks off in June. How do you balance your work with tvg and as a touring artist?

They feed into each other. We just did this thing called the ‘Tour Before the Tour’ around the world, and we did about 27,000 miles in five weeks. We played a bunch of rooms, some that we played before, but many that we hadn’t – that 1,000 to 4,000 capacity – and it just made me want to do more, inspired me. Touring these rooms and being out there on the road made me love humanity more than ever and made me want to travel more.

It was a great kind of setup for what we’re about to go and do, which is like a big, big world tour. The balance of this year and going into next year we’ve got a lot on the table. But I’m grateful to have been able to go to places like (Toronto) Massey Hall and Sydney Opera House, and the (Hollywood) Palladium and (Brooklyn) Paramount and Élysée Montmarte in Paris was a special one. Because the fun thing about those rooms is that you’re getting really close to the sort of thing that I’m talking about here, they are best-in-class venues. I’m just more inspired, basically, to do it better than ever.

When you’re playing a game of any sort against or with someone who is not necessarily at the top of their game, then you tend to kind of sink down, right? I think you can get motivated by being surrounded with people doing great work. So, I find when the band is active and I’m doing some of these other pursuits, I’m sharper and more inspired, basically, to do it better.

What attracted you to your new L.A. venture, Pacific Electric?

When this warehouse came up, I looked at where it was when I got the first email about it … and I felt like it was on the right side of supporting the arts in an area that wasn’t seeing that much in terms of deep investment. I wanted to do something that was really amazing.

We played the Bellwether two years ago and I loved that experience. And I’ve known the Another Planet [Entertainment] guys for a long time and got into some conversations with them – understood some of the challenges and also some of the wins that they’ve had in doing that. It just made me feel really confident that this really was what we should be doing.

How does your team lean into the culture of the community?

The space itself is great. It is five to 10 minutes from a lot of interesting residential neighborhoods, but kind of more of a light industrial and makers part of town. There’s an amazing history of concerts, both in the lot next to where there’s warehouses and Insomniac, but also the State Historic Park, which has had many beloved festivals and large performances for years.

Since its inception, this neighborhood has served the community in lots of different ways. There’s been changing demographics … and lots different but it’s been a very productive neighborhood. So, I love the idea that this is where music and events can be made.

I’ve always seen venues as congregation points where all of these different ideas and users can meet up for a drink or watch a show – where there are opportunities to prosper together. That really resonates with me.