Executive Profile: Brian Wagner, IEBA’s New Exec Director on This Weekend’s Conference, The Biz, Following Pam Matthews (Again), Grateful Shred

When the 55th annual International Entertainment Buyers Association Conference in Nashville kicks off Oct. 5-7, there will be one significant difference: Brian Wagner, the new executive director, will be filling the estimable shoes of Pam Matthews, who retired last year after 13 years at the helm. He seems particularly well-suited to take up the IEBA mantel, having worked for such notable buildings as the Ryman Auditorium, B.B. King’s and The Cannery, as well as The Tennessee Department of Tourism. We spoke with Wagner to find out more about his career, his agenda for IEBA, following in Matthews’ wake (again) and his music proclivities (Grateful Shred!).  

Pollstar: Is IEBA now your full-time gig?
Brian Wagner: IEBA is my full-time gig. I had been back out on my own doing talent buying and event producing primarily for some tourism clients because after working in the concert business for most of my career, I led marketing for the Tennessee Department of Tourism. They had a big music brand they launched and became known for. I’ve been transitioning out of those gigs; my last one was in Chicago during the US Travel International Conference. So yes, IEBA is my full-time gig, and I’m thrilled to be doing it. 

And you’ve worked for both venues and as an agent? 
That’s right. Very early in my career, going back to college, I managed a band in Indiana and at Ball State University. I was on my university program board. When I moved to Nashville, I started a company called Flashpoint Entertainment. I was working in radio at WRLT, a Triple A station here. I got to know some of the artists and assembled a roster, booking and managing some signed and unsigned acts. I did that for a couple of years before my friend, Chark Kinsolving, opened the Mercy Lounge. Within a month, I was booking all the acts. Then B.B. King’s Nashville came calling. We opened The Cannery, which was 1,000-cap. So I transitioned out of the booking and management side fully into concert promotion, which, frankly I was better suited for. 

So agent versus promoter, where do you fall? 
Most of my career I’ve worked as an independent promoter, but really within a venue. I was the in-house guy at the Mercy, The Cannery and the early days of B.B. King’s Nashville, where I was handling all aspects of marketing and production. And then at Ryman Auditorium, I was recruited to basically lead marketing and work with the promoter partners. We also produced a lot of shows in-house. Ultimately, I ended up buying talent for the bluegrass series and a Christian series with host Steven Curtis Chapman called Sam’s Place. All the country and bluegrass at the Ryman was booked in-house.

That role was fantastic. I got to work with so many different promoters, Live Nation, AEG,  Beaver Productions, NS2, and Outback, most of the established promoters coming through Nashville. 

I also helped nonprofits in Nashville who every year had benefits. That’s always been a passion point to see the power of live and what it can do in a community, whether it’s the Mental Health Association of Tennessee or Cumberland Heights, you name it. I could advise and essentially be the promoter for those shows and that was a great way to serve the community. You look at what it can do, how people respond in times of need, like they’re doing right now in Texas and in L.A. with the fires. What’s so exciting about this job with IEBA is those are all our partners out there doing good in their communities across the country and beyond. So very humbled to be in the position and excited to get to serve that group of people.

How many members do you have? 
We are at an all-time high right now. We’re just north of 2,100 members. 

Is it primarily buyers/promoters? 
It’s 67% talent buyers, with the lion’s share of those identifying as venue. And then we have general fairs and festivals, casino buyers, corporate buyers. 20% of our members are agents, so just over 400. And then 10% are what we call affiliated, which would be managers. Then you have ticketing companies, production companies, vendors that provide services to our industry. 

What are some of your goals for IEBA? 
First of all, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say how grateful I was to Pam Matthews in her leadership at IEBA over 13 years because she is handing off an organization that is thriving. It’s in great shape. It’s on a growth trajectory. So one of my most immediate goals is don’t screw it up. 

Knowing Pam Matthews a bit and seeing her in action, I feel sorry for you. She’s a dynamo – how do you follow that? 
It is a tough act to follow, but you may not know this, but Pam Matthews hired me 20 years ago to work at Ryman Auditorium. She ended up transitioning out of her role as general manager because she got married and her husband was in the army and they moved to California. I ended up being there nearly a decade. It was an incredible experience. So for the second time in my career, Pam Matthews has swung a door wide open for me. She brought me on two years ago to help at the conference, I actually worked the last two conferences and then, of course, in the past attended and represented the Ryman at IEBA. So yes, she’s a tough act to follow.  She’s a Pollstar Hall of Famer and I do feel supported. So I’m going to try to not screw that up. Her methods and philosophies around how to program a good conference and what makes a good panel and making sure everyone is represented throughout the membership, that’s something I will continue. 

What are you looking forward to this year? 
I’m excited this year because we’ve been at the Grand Hyatt in Nashville, which is part of the Nashville Yards development. And now The Pinnacle has opened and that’s where our evening agency parties will be. We are actively partnering with our agency members to deliver awesome nights at the Pinnacle. Everything’s walkable. This will be really fun to get to do that. And we have both that venue and hotel locked in for the next few years. Near-term, program a great conference. Continue that. I love being neutral and serving the industry. Of course, it’s also my responsibility to make sure things are equitable and we are serving members big and small across geography and genres so they all feel represented.

So you were talking earlier about this year’s IEBA Hall of Fame?
We announced recently that Chuck Morris will be coming into the Hall of Fame. And he also has been recognized as an educator of the year at IEBA because of the work he’s done at Colorado University, starting their music business program. He’s such a sweet guy. And when you look at what he’s accomplished in the Denver area as a venue operator and promoter, you know in those early years at that club level, he’s  doing it all. And then just moving into bigger venues and putting Red Rocks on the map and then even working in management with Nitty Gritty Dirt Gand. I People like Chuck, these are icons in our industry who have helped shaped it.

We haven’t announced our other Hall of Fame inductee yet but it’s Alex Hodges at Nederlander. His impact’s just been tremendous. When you look at the artist management and the people he managed, like Otis Redding and being there and hearing “Sitting On The Dock of the Bay” for the first time, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, and then you know the innovations at venues. In fact, this is more recent, but you talk about only being limited by your creativity and kind of your chutzpah look at what he did during COVID with the drive-in movie theaters and helping navigate that and forge a path that others looked to and did the same things in their communities. I mean, the Allman Brothers? I’m just some kid that grew up in Indiana that moved to Tennessee. I think I saw the Allman Brothers damn near every year at my local shed, right, at Deer Creek Amphitheater or up in Chicago at Poplar Creek or Alpine Valley. Ad  I’m one of millions and millions you know to see one of the greatest live bands that we’ve had. So he’s just another one of those titans in our industry so truly excited to have the opportunity to honor these guy

So what are you hearing from your constituency about the general health of the industry? Sometimes it seems like a tale of two cities in this industry with the haves and have-nots. 
When you talk about the haves and the have-nots, when you start getting into the data – and by the way, I don’t want to fail to mention how lucky we are to have Pollstar to cover our industry and I always pour over it – when there’s record-breaking tickets sold and grosses, when you drill down into the club level and even for a while at the theater level, it was softer coming out of COVID.  I’m intimately familiar with the rising costs and diminishing revenues because when I was in the club business, the joke was “you think you’re in the music business, but you’re really in the beer business,” because you make your money off selling beer. Well, young people don’t drink like that anymore.

So the combination of artist guarantees going up, promoter percentages of profit shrinking, guarantees going up, (bar revenues decreasing), these are the conversations our members want to hear about. One of the first things I did when I came in was a member survey with opportunities for people to comment about the types of things they would like to see at our conference and this area was a recurring theme. 

I spoke with NITO, who represent agents and managers, and they’re working on issues like venue requiring artists to have insurance (see page 35), PRO venue fees, contract templates for independent agents and ticketing.  Is IEBA getting into advocacy? 
Being with IEBA, we’re serving the buyers and sellers of talent and a big part of our membership are also venues and venue operators. But they’re of all sizes. We have folks that operate big arenas and stadiums and theaters down to clubs. NIVA certainly has a presence in its members at IEBA, and they are welcome. I had a great call with Stephen Parker (NIVA Executive Director) last week just to get to know one another. With my background working in state government and helping navigate the COVID crisis for tourism and hospitality, and by extension the music industry and extending aid in trying to get grants for people to survive, I learned so much about the power of data and how to monitor and leverage that. 

I applaud everything NIVA has done to help so many people with the Shuttered Venues Act they passed. For our organization, we need to serve our members big and small. Creating a forum to discuss these topics and collaboration, that’s part of what IEBA does at the conference. In terms of jumping into advocacy on Capitol Hill, down the road, if that’s something that our members want us to become more involved in, potentially.  In the near term, I’m interested in providing research that has value to help serve our members.

Things like economic impact calculators that folks I know in the tourism industry and in the sports world make available to members so that they can more accurately measure and get real data on the local tax, state tax, economic impact, employment for their events so they can advocate within their communities, but also make a case for more sponsorship dollars and things like that. We want to be a good partner to all these different organizations – NIVA, NITO, IAFE Convention, Venue Alliance, IAVM. Long term, I want to develop those relationships and see how we can collaborate.  

For immediate goals, I want to make sure we continue programming exceptional conferences, provide forums to discuss these topics and networking opportunities. IEBA is, again, very narrowly focused on serving the buyers and sellers of talent and providing an opportunity for them to come together and do business. 

What about future goals? 
Putting more energy into the educational outreach fund because I feel we can get more engaged with some of these educators and that talent pipeline.  I think incremental strategic growth for the organization, there’s opportunity there. There are areas of growth, to some extent, internationally. We are the International Entertainment Buyers Association. We’ve seen a lot of our current members doing more and more internationally. But also here in the U.S., bringing more people into the tent who are working in this business. And then longer-term, doing research that brings value and determining our data sources so we are tracking metrics for the health of our industry is something I’m interested in doing. When there is a time for advocacy or there’s another crisis, heaven forbid, having those metrics on an ongoing basis can be really helpful to the industry.

What good music have you seen lately? 
One was this guy named Nick Govrik. I went to his show at 3rd & Lindsley. We’re in Nashville so it was a musician’s musicians show with Nick Govrik, Tom Bukovac, just this great band. He was phenomenal. Then I saw Darius Rucker, and his band was fantastic. The other band I thought was really, really good was Grateful Shred. I saw them at Skinny Dennis in East Nashville, and they were freaking awesome.