2024 Impact 50 Honoree: Rich Schaefer

PRESIDENT, GLOBAL TOURING
AEG Presents

YEARS IN THE BUSINESS: 24
MENTORS: Randy Hoffman & Gary Gersh

Getting promoted to president of global touring in September was a whirlwind,” Rich Schaefer told Pollstar, when asked about his challenges this year and how he’s adjusted. “As someone put it, it was like ‘drinking out of a firehose’ and finding time to be available to the touring team as well as our partners, artists, managers and agents while also balancing my personal life was a challenge and something I am still working through. It’s a fun challenge, though! So many amazing shows and artists to see, so little time!”

To wit, he enthusiastically reels off a number of shows for 2024 he’s most excited about. “I am really looking forward to our tours in 2024 with Carin León, Childish Gambino, Journey/Def Leppard, Sleep Token, Kacey Musgraves, ATEEZ, $uicideboy$ and many others I can’t talk about now.” This he punctuates with a tantalizing winking emoji.
Since joining AEG Presents, Schaefer has helped build out its global touring division when it launched in 2018, and in his current role, he oversees all of the promoter’s worldwide touring deals, operations and talent relations.

Schaefer points to AEG Presents partnering with fellow 2024 Impact 50 honoree Henry Cárdenas as one of the promoter’s biggest milestones of the year. “As we integrate our teams together, there are many more opportunities globally for our teams to work together,” he says.

He also cites several specific tours: “We have big tours out right now with Luke Combs, Zach Bryan and Kane Brown in stadiums and arenas with many more exciting tours coming this summer and fall. I was also proud to see Kane Brown headline C2C this year and see how that event has grown so significantly as well as Kane and his team’s efforts to grow internationally.”

As for predictions about 2024 and the years ahead, Schaefer says: “If we don’t price tours properly, ticket sales will suffer. Artists who lean in and help market their tours will have way more success than those who don’t.” This echoed wisdom he shared while a panelist at Pollstar Live! When asked what could slow or arrest the Golden Era, Schaefer answered with one word of wisdom: “Greed.”