Top 5 Booking Strategies from Top 5 Venues
Panelists:
Paul Davis, MGM Resorts International (19 properties and multiple Las Vegas venues including T-Mobile Arena, Michelob Ultra Arena, and Dolby Live)
Rick Hansen, Historic Theatre Group (Orpheum Theatre, State Theatre, Pantages Theatre, Dudley Riggs Theatre, and The Hennepin)
Sean Saadeh, Prudential Center & White Eagle Hall
Dana Warg, 313 Presents (Little Caesar’s Arena, Fox Theatre Detroit, Comerica Park, Pine Knob Music Theatre, Meadow Brook Amphitheatre, Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre, and SOUND BOARD at MotorCity Casino Hotel)
Moderated by:
Starr Jemison, Oak View Group
Relationships, Relationships, Relationships
Questions for this panel were submitted by IEBA Members. Moderator Starr Jemison opened with: “You all run some of the busiest venues in the world. What sets you apart?”
Paul Davis answered, “For any venue, you always want to use what you have at your disposal. In our case, we have over 40,000 hotel rooms in Las Vegas. We have nine properties on the Strip. We use things like our marketing reach and our top-rated operations teams. We’ve been told that we’ve established a reputation – whether artists are playing for us in Vegas or Springfield, Mass. or in Biloxi, Mississippi – there’s a certain expectation of quality. We don’t have board members crashing dressing room hallways or forcing meet & greets. We love and respect our promoter partners, but we spend a lot of time and effort fostering relationships that go beyond just the promoter relationship. We are always searching for ways to best service the clients on both sides of the stage … so that we can do it again. These are long-term relationships.”
Rick Hansen added, “Minneapolis is not like Vegas. It’s not like everyone is coming up to see us all the time. If we have a big show, I like to coax people up. They don’t have to work. They can hang out and see what the show is like on our end. I do that with a lot of promoters and agents. We want them to experience the scene and the city, and that’s helped a lot with relationship building.”
Dana Warg highlighted the synergy of 313 Presents’ seven venues, “We promote, produce, and market. We schedule, cater and sponsor – we do everything in-house. And we do the Tigers, Red Wings, and Pistons. We do 2 million visitors every year over 300 – 325 events a year.” Warg does a lot of unique artist gifting ramping up to the actual event. “It was different pre-COVID,” he said. “You don’t see as many artists backstage. But we try to give the tour the best hospitality, the best service. And, at the end of the day, we give everybody on the tour a big duffle bag full of Little Caesar’s swag – pizza cutters and all kinds of stuff. And we give them 100 pizzas.”
Jemison noted that New Jersey is a hugely competitive market and asked Sean Saadeh, “What makes you guys stand out?” He replied, “We doubled down on New Jersey. We’re in the New York DMA, probably the most competitive market in the United States. We look at the Prudential Center as an incremental play to New York. When I took the job eight years ago, I had to create our story and tell it to the industry. The incremental play makes sense. We pull from 7.5 million people in northern New Jersey. It’s a market that can do multiple plays and we want at least one of them. The story has resonated. We’re able to sell strong while New York gets a play, whether that’s Barclay’s or MSG. Or we can do a different leg of the tour. On top of that, we really focus on the relationships and making sure that the experience in the building is top notch.” This segued into Jemison’s next question: “How are you creating memorable experiences for artists who may be in the middle of a 7-16 day run?” Saadeh answered, “First, let’s make sure that the boots on the ground are having a great day. If that’s right, the artist will have a good day. Let’s make sure the place is at the highest level of cleanliness. And it’s what are the little things you can do to welcome not only the artists but also everyone who is on the road with them. They’re on the road. They’re not at home. How can we make them feel like they’re at home? It could be little things in the dressing room or a welcome banner … we have a candy bar, our thing we do. It’s simple and easy and they love it because it’s not something they normally get. We have an LED screen they see first thing. It says welcome and thank you for being at the Prudential Center.”
Hansen has limited space in his theaters, but his team will research every artist’s likes and have those things waiting for them. “But I think the biggest thing for us,” he said, “What makes people want to come back is that our production staff is extremely welcoming. We create a nice, positive presence so that the day goes smooth. Down to counting merch in and out. Solid positivity between the crews creates an overarching positive experience.”
Davis echoed the commitment to the artist experience and added, “I can’t overemphasize the importance of the relationship between operations and booking. We have a company with 60,000 – 70,000 employees. All departments, down to frontline employees, must know how to properly treat the artists and how to handle that experience. Whether you’re a GM or the VP of Booking, you never want that call that the tour manager would like to see you in their office backstage. We’ve all gotten those calls – the rigging is screwed up or the cold food wasn’t cold and the hot food wasn’t hot. You just can’t have those issues. The show is only going to be as good as the worst thing that happened that day. You gotta be firing on all eight cylinders. There are so many things out of reach for the person who booked the show. You have to have those internal relationships and you have to manage upward. You have to have support from all the departments to make the show come off without a hitch.”
Building Trust
Rick Hansen makes 6-7 trips every year to visit with his industry partners. “Getting quality facetime when there isn’t 1,000 people around really makes a difference,” he said. “These folks know our venues already -- to build more of a friendship is my biggest tip.” Saadeh agreed, “You gotta put yourself out there and I think the hang is one of the best ways. We have a lot of industry in New York and we’re able to go to a lot of shows and hang. It’s more casual; it’s not talking business. It’s more about, ‘Hey, how’s your family? What did you think about that show?’ Or that it is a relationship not just an industry relationship. Dana’s been in the business a long time. He has relationships that go way back. I’m sure some of these relationships weren’t perfect all the time. Sometimes you’re in disagreements. Those disagreements sometimes actually build those relationships because, I hope, we’re all solution-oriented and that’s really important. And we have to be flexible. It’s not just wants on paper. We want everybody to be successful. Build that trust factor. When they think about where to play next time, they think ‘Those guys in New Jersey, they’re gonna take good care of us.’”
Davis added, “This is a people business. You can’t do it through email and text. You gotta have the hang, do the dinners. If any of you are taking notes, write the word FORD – family, occupation, recreation, dreams. Those are your conversation starters to get to know people. We’re humans. There is a trust factor. An agent and manager are handing their artist to us for the day. They could give their artist to four other venues. You’ve gotta build that trust. You wanna be known as an ethical, standup person and someone who makes the right decision even though it’s the harder decision.”
Residencies & Under-Plays
Moderator Starr Jemison posed another question submitted by IEBA Members: “Do you think there are more opportunities for under-plays in smaller venues now? Have you scaled a one-price house to maximize gross and booking options?” Hansen answered, “Yes and Yes! My next big project, my five-year project is to get more big artists in for a week-long residency. We’ve seen huge success when we’ve had these under-plays. The people want more, more, more and the artists absolutely love it because they can have this intimate show with their fans. Ed Sheeran’s show before his stadium gig is a good example. He played for 2,100 people before he played for 61,000. After our show, he kept talking about doing more of these. He got to play his new album in its entirety and talk about each song. Then he second half of the show he played all the hits. But I think you’ll see a lot of storytelling, maybe like ‘MTV Unplugged’ kinda shows, coming into more theaters soon. A lot of artists are seeing the value of sitting down for 6-7 nights and not touring all the time. And they can really reach their audience. We’ve had Neil Young and Paul Simon. And Ed. With all these we did one price, which I think is very nice for the venue and the promoter because you’re not toggling a bunch of things and trying to see who’s gonna buy here and here. But with a one price show, you need an artist who can demand that – a big artist with fans who just wanna be in the room. They know they’re not going to see this artist in a room this small again. With smaller artists, it’s tougher.”
Davis chimed in, “Dolby Live is a residency-driven venue – Aerosmith, Queen, Usher, Bruno, Gaga, Maroon 5. You just charge more for tickets and we make those models work. We have a wonderful yielding team that uses all the tools at their disposal -- Platinum, Pricemaster. We tell the agents that we’ll set the price where it’s a ‘promoter-friendly deal’ but, if the public steps up and is willing to pay, we’ll make sure we grab all the money and take it away from the scalpers and 90% will go to your artists. It works. People are willing to pay to see these artists in a 5,000-cap space. And the artists love it. We give them a blank palate to work with. This isn’t an arena with a moat. I’ve been doing residency deals for 14-15 years now and I’ve never seen an artist who didn’t want to do it again. Rather than jumping on a tour bus, they get to sleep in a hotel. And their costs are much lower. You can’t pay them what they would get in arenas, but they can actually net more versus touring 8-9 cities. But it’s a deeper, longer conversation with the artists. It requires hustle and effort.”
Warg’s residencies at the Fox in Detroit and at Pine Knob are generally 2-3 nights but there are other opportunities. He explained, “We jumped in with ‘Twas the Night Before …’ [by Cirque du Soleil]. It was a big guarantee, but we did two weeks of almost SRO business at 4,800 seats.”
Securing Televised/Streamed Events
Jemison’s next question to her panelists was “How do venues get in the queue for televised/streamed special productions like boxing, award shows, esports, comedy specials, etc.?”
Davis was first to respond, “We ride the wave of history – so many televised events play Vegas. It’s an easy flight from L.A. and we have all the hotel rooms in easy access to the airport. It’s the convenience as much as anything. And we have the glitz and glamour. The award shows are great for exposure but there’s not really money to be made on them. You get your expenses out. You don’t charge rent. They’ll come in 2-3 weeks before, load-in and rehearse, then you get one show out of it. We comp tons of hotel rooms in exchange for beauty shots and the mentions on TV. They check some boxes and not others. It’s a cool-to-have segment but if you’re looking for something that’s going drive EBITDA, this isn’t it.”
Hansen has never really pursued taped/televised events. “I just think of it as a show,” he said. “Since the end of COVID, we’ve filmed 8-9 HBO/Netflix comedy specials at our theaters in Minneapolis. There are a few reasons for that: comedy is huge in Minneapolis – massive! Secondly, Minnesotans are too polite to heckle. And third, I don’t charge an origination fee because I think of it as just a show. The biggest issue for us is when an artist has three shows on sale and then they decide they want to tape it. Then my team has to take everything off sale, figure out camera positions, refund those people and tell them ‘sorry, you don’t have a seat’ or ‘we’re gonna move you to another show.’ That’s a hassle when it’s not planned. But we make it work. Again, this goes back to relationships and trust. But we don’t see a ton of business because, just like any comedy special, I’m never gonna remember where they played unless it’s like the Hollywood Bowl or MSG. Theaters all look the same so it’s not giving us tons of business. But it’s nice to know that all these comedians know they can come up and film comfortably in Minneapolis. And the show wants to come back, which is what I’m really after versus trying to get the taping. But it’s really kinda cool when you see it. Like when we had Jimmy Fallon at the Orpheum when the Super Bowl was in Minneapolis. They took over everything for a week and then filmed for an hour and a half the night after the Super Bowl. We charged them an arm and a leg but, for me personally, we don’t see an extra business from it but it’s nice to know we’ll get more shows from artists who want to tape up here.”
Warg recently hosted a big boxing event, and he just finished a soccer match at Comerica Park with Crystal Palace vs Sevilla. “We learned a lot,” he said. “It’s not just streaming. You have to bring in announcers and production – Bally’s is the great production team we use for the Pistons and Red Wings. With artists, we probably do 15-20 productions a year. What we talk about is the number of days you have to block out for production and the cost of that versus doing other live shows on those days. So do we really want to do the production … or not?”
Prudential Center has hosted MTV VMAs for three of the last four years. Saadeh stated, “It wasn’t obvious to do award shows in New Jersey. I knew some of those folks from my Barclay’s days. I just asked the question ‘what would it take to bring VMAs to New Jersey?’ At the time, they said there was no chance. Their challenges were 1) the cost of bringing talent in and 2) expenses in general. Starr and I sorta convinced them they could solve both in New Jersey. The talent is right there in New York. All you have to do is cross the river. And in New Jersey, you don’t have to pay New York prices. And really, it’s a made-for-TV show so what does it matter if you say, ‘live from New York’ or ‘live from L.A.?’ That was my pitch. It took a little while, but we got them. And since then, we’ve worked our butts off to make sure they have a great experience. It’s three weeks in August. There’s some opportunity loss but less in August than in other months. I think it’s been great because the VMAs brings cache and it’s the gift that keeps on giving through social throughout the year. We like it and it puts us on the map.”
Sales Patterns
When asked “Are your venues selling tickets at the on-sale or is it more walk up? Does this vary based on the show?” Jemison’s panelists agreed that ticket sales depend on the artist and their demographics. Warg added, “With urban shows, hopefully you’ll have a strong on-sale and then you’ll have a strong walkup. It can also depend on what you have as a pre-sale and as a fan-based pre-sale. Is there an AmEx or other promotional pre-sale? You really want to have 20-30% pre-sale in the box before you go on sale. Maybe 40%, actually. You do have to worry about the brokers, though. They fill the system with bots, and you look pretty good, then you find out that 15-20% was in the brokers. Then when you’re on the walkup, they’re trying to dump them for $15 a head.”
Some artists are immediate sellouts. Davis mentioned Matt Rife and said, “You couldn’t even pronounce the word pre-sale before the tickets were gone. That said, we do a lot of shows on Mexican independence weekend – we had thirteen major concerts over those days – and, on the Saturday, we walked up 5,000 ticket sales across the three arenas. You have Latin walkup. Urban comedy is heavy walkup. I heard Bob Roux say this on a panel 20 years ago, ‘Don’t say a show is going to do great just to get the show if you’re not sure about it.’ You gotta know the artist and you gotta know your market. You gotta know when to panic and when not to. If something comes out of the on-sale with an anemic amount of tickets, that might be okay. But that might not be okay. It’s not one-size-fits-all. If you know the content and the crowd and your local market, you’ll know what advice to give the agent and the promoter. This ties back to our theme – to where we started – knowledge builds credibility and trust. It’s the thing that helps you get more shows.”