2026 Women of Live: Michele Bernstein

Michele Bernstein
Michi B, Inc. | Founder

“My partner Kris ‘Red’ Tanner and I rely on Michele for her exceptional creativity, innovative thinking, and candid perspective. She is a problem solver of the highest order – someone who can quite literally see around corners. Bernstein is our brilliant friend.”
— Bernie Cahill, founding partner, Activist Management

Michele Bernstein’s illustrious career is easily one of the most impressive. Over the course of four decades, she’s worked with some of the most successful touring artists of our time, including The Grateful Dead, Bruno Mars, Pearl Jam and Kendrick Lamar/SZA, among others, as well as with legendary executives and their foundational businesses where she forged her mettle.

“I feel so lucky, I worked with some of the smartest, most trailblazing people,” Bernstein says, looking back at her career. “What a bunch of great examples I had around me. It’s crazy the people in my orbit.”

It’s an entire constellation. Some of the pioneering execs she worked with include Jennifer Perry, Barbara Skydel, Claire Rothman, Cara Lewis, Brian Murphy, Patrick Whitesell, Ted Mankin, Peter Grosslight, Troy Carter, Don Muller, Marc Geiger and Jim Guerinot, among others.

A native of Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley, with New Yorker parents and brio, Bernstein at a young age worked for two of the city’s most important concert businesses. “I was an intern at Universal Amphitheater,” she says of the famed L.A. venue where she worked for Missy Worth before heading to Avalon Attractions.

Like many women, she began by answering phones before rising through the ranks. “I learned to put together show files, insurance certificates and do all administrative work – I learned how to do everything. I started working shows and worked the front office and called buildings for avails.

“In those days, agents didn’t always call the buildings, the local promoter did because they knew local promoters. If Barbara Skydel was routing, she wouldn’t call Dodger Stadium, she would call Brian (Murphy) and say, ‘You call Dodger Stadium.’”

She would leave Avalon after roughly five years to work for Andy Hewitt and Bill Silva who booked venues, including the Hollywood Bowl and The Joint owned by Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas – where Bernstein worked exclusively for the next five years.

“I was the venue booker and booked all the Hard Rocks,” she recalls. “We were doing artist development tours in all the Hard Rocks and had a deal with A&M Records,” that is until another opportunity came up.

“I was really close to the William Morris Agency guys – it was WMA before WME,” Bernstein says. “David Levine said, ‘I really want you to go to lunch with John Marx.’” This led to her hiring and where for the next 19 years she established and led the agency’s music tour marketing division.

When Bernstein started at WME there were 65 agents in three offices and, by the time she left, there were 170 in five offices globally and she would be made a partner.

By then Bernstein was already planning to put out her own shingle. “I came home one day and drew a vision board,” she says. “I put in the middle of it a name, which was pretty close to what it is (Michi B). I was like, ‘OK, I think it’s a business. I went in and talked to Mark Geiger (WME music head) about it and he said, ‘I think this is genius.’”

Michi B, Inc. launched in 2022. Some of her recent clients include Rush, Florence & The Machine, Machine Gun Kelly, Ivan Cornejo, Alice Cooper, Tool, Evanescence, System of a Down and, until recently, one of the most important bands of the last decade, who she worked with in an earlier iteration when they were the Grateful Dead.

“Over the past decade, Dead & Company became a touring phenomenon – selling out stadiums and breaking attendance records, from landmark runs at the Sphere to historic shows in Golden Gate Park – all with Michele Bernstein leading our tour marketing efforts,” says Activist Management founding partner Bernie Cahill, who co-managed the band.

Today, when she speaks about some of her recent marketing initiatives, it’s clear that creating epic ideas and executing them at the highest level continues to spark immense joy for Bernstein.

This is evident as she tells of hiring drones to photograph Kendrick and SZA’s SoFi Stadium shows, turning buildings pink in Cleveland to honor Machine Gun Kelly, making Halloween “scream parties” and shrines for Florence & The Machine’s “Everybody’s Scream;” and viral videos for Rush.

For Bernstein, the thrill still remains in dreaming up ambitious ideas, making them happen and completely blowing minds.