House Of Blues Making Big Moves

It’s been doing so without fanfare for three years already, and plans are in the works for much more to come.

House of Blues Entertainment CEO Ron Bension told Pollstar that HoBE has grown from about 34 venues it owned, managed or booked to operating 42 venues and exclusively booking another 35, more than doubling its portfolio.

“This is a strategic initiative that we started about three years ago, and it’s an initiative that we understood because we felt that we had the best-in-class bookers and marketers around the country,” Bension said. “Having 34 disparate venues, we created a true portfolio that we believe really helps bands when they look at where they are going to play around the country.”

A look at the roster of HoB-affiliated venues, including the branded House of Blues and Fillmore clubs, bears out that strategy.

The HoB portfolio boasts several regions with vertical assets that develop artists from the 500-capacity club level to large theatres and ballrooms, to the point they can make the leap, for example, to a Live Nation amphitheatre. And there’s still gaps to fill.

“We’re in the 500- to 3,000-capacity marketplace and as we look at the country there’s a lot of cities that can accommodate, or already have, those venues and we think there’s a lot of partners out there that are looking for a partner to either invest in, book, or help them operate,” Bension said. “That’s what we’ve been doing for three years and it’s part of our going-forward strategy for the company.”

The 1,555-cap Paramount in Huntington, N.Y., is an example of that strategy. Paramount GM Brian Doyle, a former artist manager, is part of an ownership group that purchased the Long Island venue in 2011. Live Nation NYC booking VP Sean Striegel and his team from the HoBE office in New York exclusively book the venue.

“They do not own or operate my building,” Doyle told Pollstar. “They own buildings, and they get hired to operate and book buildings, and then they have buildings like mine that they book. I fit in the category that they are my exclusive booker. “For me, they are partners. We do everything ourselves, but it’s an exclusive booking arrangement for [HoBE]. I can’t say enough about [COO Ben Weeden] and Ron [Bension] and the team that I have out of New York. I don’t know what else to say other than it’s the best relationship I could have ever dreamt up,” Doyle said.

The Paramount is one of several HoBE and Live Nation buildings in the area, feeding an artist development market that includes the 2,800-capacity NYCB Theatre At Westbury up through 13,855-capacity Nikon at Jones Beach Amphitheatre. Live Nation acquired House of Blues Entertainment in 2006, and Weeden has seen HoBE “grow up” to become an integral part of LN’s long-range strategic plan.

“When Live Nation was spun off [from Clear Channel Entertainment in 2004], most of the focus was at the amphitheatres, the arenas, the festivals,” Weeden told Pollstar. “What Ron and [Live Nation CEO] Michael Rapino have allowed us to do is take the club and theatre business – which is the lifeblood for the arenas, the ballrooms and the festivals – and say, ‘We’ve got a really valuable proposition for a band here.’ “We all know that Lady Gaga can sell out. The Rolling Stones can sell out. But it’s the small bands that are trying to break through and really need the TLC. They really need the marketing, that not only can we help you sell tickets in Houston, Texas, but we’re going to give you this national overlay of really strong marketing and strong marketing partners.”

Part of that national overlay can be seen in HoBE’s “Ones To Watch” and “Noise” tours for emerging artists. By linking with partners such as Skype, they’ve been able to leverage those assets to further artist development, Weeden said.

“We’re trying to kind of come out of the shadows of our bigger brother (Live Nation),” Weeden explained. “Look at what we were able to do with The 1975. We were able to work together, take them through our club and now we’ve upstreamed them to our boutique amphitheatres and festivals. We allocated festival spots for them.

“It’s all been kind of cresting the last 18-24 months and I think Ron and I are now very comfortable saying that nobody does what we do, because of the size of the portfolio that we have and the strength of the marketing. It’s what we’ve been doing down in the laboratory for the past 2-3 years since Ron came and put this in motion.”

And there’s more on the way. Bension stresses that in addition to booking deals with existing venues, there are opportunities for more House of Blues-owned and -branded buildings, including Fillmore venues, and he and Weeden are “constantly” talking to developers who need an anchor tenant “that’s going to drive hundreds of thousands through and past our front doors.”

“I don’t think there will be doubling in the next couple of years but I think getting into another 20 to 40 buildings in the next couple of years is doable if you look at where we are, and start drawing circles around that,” Bension said of HoBE’s continued expansion efforts. “You can’t do a great job if you grow too fast and not strategically. But we really do look at it strategically and try to work off of where we have strength and grow out from there. We do look at it from a touring perspective and a quality of building perspective.

“We think the Aztec, for instance, has tremendous potential in that market with the TLC and expertise. Buildings will see the benefit of doing business with us, and we’ve been able to do that and will continue to do that,” Bension said.