The concert and music industries are being forced to change quickly and at a pace that they were not previously equipped to handle. Along with the artists themselves, the companies that handle ticketing for live events, and those who book them, are experiencing extreme financial hardships. Live Nation has reported a 21% drop in revenue for its first quarter, with concert revenue alone dipping 25% and ticket revenue dropping 16% year over year. Shares of Live Nation — which also owns ticketing company Ticketmaster — have dropped about 48% since the middle of February.
President and CEO Michael Rapino said the company would test crowdless broadcasted shows along with drive-in concerts and reduced capacity festival shows over the summer.
“Whether it’s in Arkansas or a state that is safe, secure and politically is fine to proceed in, we’re going to dabble in fanless concerts with broadcasts, we’re going to go and do reduced capacity shows because we can make the math work,” Rapino said. “There are a lot of great artists that can sell out an arena, but they’ll do 10 higher end smaller theaters or clubs. We’re seeing lots of artists chomping to get back out once it’s safe.”
We’ve already seen a couple examples of drive-in concerts implemented successfully in Europe, so it’s not as if it’s a completely unknown new frontier.
Rapino added: “So it’s important for us to keep doing drive-in concerts, which we’re going to test and roll out, which we’re having some success with, fanless concerts which have great broadcasting opportunities, reduced capacity festival concerts, which could be outdoors, could be in a theater, could be in a large stadium floor where there’s enough room to be safe. We have all of these plans in place depending on the market and where that local city may sit in their reopening phases.”
via Rolling Stone
