2023 Impact 50: Gary Guidry

CEO
Black Promoters Collective

Gary Guidry, CEO of the Black Promoters Collective, and his team have taken a seat at the table among the top concert promoters in the world in just a few short years. He and his affiliated concert promoters have brought their extensive knowledge of markets, audiences and artists to the fore and finished 2022 at No. 22 among Pollstar’s Top 100 Worldwide Promoters, selling 855,384 tickets and grossing $100,073,154 on the year.

“It’s crazy. But those figures are undeniable,” Guidry says.

What else is undeniable is that Guidry and his team had a vision for the Black Promoters Collective, and have realized it.

“For us to come together as a group of individual companies and have BPC become operational in the marketplace, achieve the level of box office success that we achieved, solidify the original mission which was to prove that we deserve a seat at the table – not just in legacy artists, but in premium artists, A-listers, global brands and so on – is something we’re very proud of,” Guidry explains.

Among BPC’s successes in 2022 were tours with New Edition ($37.7 million grossed; 330,278 tickets sold), Mary J. Blige ($36.9 million; 280,170) and Maxwell ($22.4 million; 212,173).

“A huge initial challenge was finding the right acts to tour,” Guidry says. “Coming out of the pandemic, everyone wanted to go on the road all at the same time and the right choices needed to be made to position our company in the market space.”

It was tantamount for BPC to make the right touring choices, and to kick down a competitive door and, especially, a cultural one.

“It was key for us to focus on iconic brands that meant something special to our culture,” Guidry says. “New Edition are such a cultural staple of our community. Maxwell is another iconic brand. And then the Queen – Mary J. To have the opportunity to work with her and redefine what success means for her breaking her box office records. Those three brands mean so much to our culture and it was vital to choose them – because we had to come out big, and come out right.”