Introducing The Pollstar Daily Pulse

Welcome to the first issue of the Pollstar Daily Pulse. Weï¿½re thrilled to deliver the latest in music industry news ï¿½ especiallyï¿½liveï¿½music industry news ï¿½ to your inbox daily. Ours is a dynamic, ever-evolving business, populated by hard-working, smart executives who are short on time. Hence, we believe that a daily music business newsletter, the first of its kind exclusively for the live business, is needed in our industry, delivering the biggest stories of the day directly to you.

Many of you know me from the many (many, many) years I spent atï¿½Billboard, where I learned as much as I could about this complex landscape, primarily from spending hours listening to the people that make the magic happen. As anyone who has been around this business longer than a couple of years knows, the business has changed drastically, and continues to.

When I started covering the concert business, the landscape was dominated by a group of hard-boiled, pirate entrepreneurs who risked their businesses every weekend to bring arena rock to the people. Or something like that. Every December, I would get on the phone and call the likes of Don Law in Boston, Ron Delsener in New York, Jerry Mickelson and Arny Granat in Chicago, Don Fox in New Orleans, Danny Zelisko in Phoenix, Jimmy ï¿½Mr. Connecticutï¿½ Koplik, John Scher in Jersey, Bill Graham and Gregg Perloff in San Francisco, Brian Murphy in L.A., Jack Boyle in D.C., and Louis Messina in Houston, among others, and they would tell me how the year had gone. Usually in very colorful language.

Many, if not most, of these guys were early believers and supporters ofï¿½Pollstar. And, as the industry consolidated in the 1990s, most of these colorful characters have gone on to move mountains for what is now Live Nation. They, and many other managers, agents, venue managers, and others associated with this crazy business, were kind enough to let me look behind the curtain and help me figure out what the hell is going on. Like them, I, too, was always a believer inï¿½Pollstarï¿½and I came pretty close to joining theï¿½Pollstarï¿½team a couple of times during my career atï¿½Billboard. But, I enjoyed my co-workers (one of whom now joins us on the Pollstar/OVG edit team, Andy Gensler), along with the beat and the brand, so it took a while to pry me out of the Bible. A year in at Oak View Group, Iï¿½m having a ball playing a role in the evolution of bothï¿½Pollstarï¿½andï¿½Venues Today. The irony is not lost on me, and I embrace the opportunity.

In the case ofï¿½Pollstar, that evolution includes the launch of the Daily Pulse. To be clear, weï¿½re not trying to reinvent the wheel over here. We just want to give our readers more. The backbone ofï¿½Pollstarï¿½has always been the best box office data (by far) in the industry, the most comprehensive, deep-diving numbers that exist, presented in a manner to really serve as a tool to help promoters, agents and buildings make the best possible decisions when going about their gigs, ultimately to serve the two main constituents of the industry: artists and fans.

OVG is a data-centric company, and weï¿½re doubling down in this department. Not only are we building up our data resources, but weï¿½re extending this data more than ever into the editorial ofï¿½Pollstar,ï¿½both digitally and in print. We believe the numbers provide context to virtually any story about our industry, so whenever appropriate, weï¿½ll do some of the lifting for you, doing our best to make it clear why you should care about a particular article or piece of news.ï¿½Pollstarï¿½has long been the best industry news curator for live entertainment, and we will continue to sift through the morass of information that floods across the Web every day in attempt to deliver what is meaningful to you.

When there is an incident of national or global impact (which seems to happen with increasing frequency), we will strive to tell you what it means to your business. And, more than ever, your business sits at the center of entertainment news, as it should. Those in live entertainment understand that live is the music business. I, like many of you, have watched the roles flip, as tours have gone from serving as support for a record release, to being supported by new recorded content. The tail is now wagging the dog. As important as streaming has become as the distribution channel of choice for fans, listening to music is a pretty passive experience compared to the effort and expense associated with buying a ticket and attending a show. There is no truer metric of fan passion than the purchase of a concert ticket. Plus, of course, thatï¿½s where the money is.

So weï¿½re going to chronicle the live content world by the week inï¿½Pollstar,ï¿½by the day in Daily, and by the minute on Pollstar.com. Weï¿½re committed to building onï¿½Pollstarï¿½s reputation and credibility as the ï¿½paper of recordï¿½ for the touring industry. Pollstar Daily Pulse is the first public manifestation of that effort, but you may already have noticed a heightened focus on Pollstar.com, and youï¿½ll see more of our ambitions at the 2018 Pollstar Live! Conference & Awards in February.

Along with the issues and topics that are of most concern to the live industry, discussed by those in the trenches creating and delivering concerts to fans, weï¿½re broadening the horizons of Pollstar Live! to include pertinent takes from visionaries and influencers from across the music industry, and beyond. Check it out at Pollstar.Live, and stay tuned, weï¿½ve got some major announcements coming in the form of unexpected professionals and arena-level headliners. In Pollstar Live!, founders Gary Smith and Gary Bongiovanni have already built the biggest live music industry gathering in the world. Under the OVG umbrella, we intend to make Pollstar Live! the largest (and most relevant) music industry gathering in the world, period. This starts Feb. 6-8 at the InterContinental Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

If it sounds like Iï¿½m tooting the Pollstar horn a bit, well, I am. Iï¿½ve long admired what the Garys have created and getting to play in this sandbox of premium data and concert industry connections is a career highlight and an opportunity for which Iï¿½m very grateful. With the Garys and Andy and the talented Pollstar team, weï¿½re going to reshape how this business is covered, and Pollstar Daily Pulse is a major step in that direction. Let us know what you think.

Sincerely,

Ray Waddell
President, Media & Conferences, Oak View Group

Kevin Hartz has served as an early-stage investor and advisor to a number of transformative companies, including the likes of Airbnb, Pinterest, Skybox Imaging, Trulia and Uber. Additionally, Kevin was an early adaptor of bitcoin, making his first investment in 2013. He is an early investor in numerous crypto/blockchain hedge funds, including Pantera Capital, Scalar Capital and Polychain. Kevin is also the Chairman of Eventbrite, an innovative ticketing technology company he founded in 2006 with Renaud Visage and Julia Hartz, who is currently CEO.

Kevin Shivers is a partner in WME’s Music division, representing leading artists in the hip-hop and urban genre, in addition to athletes and podcasts. His roster includes Brockhampton, Jimmy Butler, Kid Cudi, Pod Save America, Solange and Tyler The Creator.

Shivers joined the William Morris Agency mailroom in 2008, and transitioned to WME following the agency’s merger with Endeavor in 2009.

A graduate of the University of Texas, Shivers currently resides in Los Angeles, CA. Outside of the office; he is on the board for the charity Seeds of Africa and The University of Texas at Austin Moody College of Communication’s advisory board.

Max Smith has produced VIP programs for over 4 years for acts such as Post Malone, Future, Migos, 21 Savage, A$AP Rocky, and more. Prior to his time with Future Beat, he managed and produced private and corporate events in Washington, DC and has been involved in booking and talent management throughout the past decade, ultimately putting his full focus toward VIP activations for artists touring both domestically and internationally.

John Bollen serves as Chief Digital Officer at Mobilitie and he brings over 25 years of technology experience to the position. John has worked for various start-ups in the Silicon Valley as well as for multi-national corporations such as NBC Universal/General Electric. John is responsible for creating and executing the long-term strategic plan to evolve Mobilitie’s digital capabilities across all client/customer touch points. He has substantial experience in the field of information technology, specializing in digital strategy, construction, and guest experience design. His most recent employment comes from MGM Resorts International where he worked as the Senior Vice President & Chief Digital Officer to help implement the world’s largest hospitality Wi-Fi system.

John received his Bachelor’s Degree in Communications from University of California, Santa Barbara and Master of Business Administration from University of San Francisco.

Bruce Eskowitz is COO of Red Light Management. RLM is a multifaceted, privately owned artist management company. Red Light has offices in Los Angeles, London, New York, Nashville, Atlanta and Charlottesville. In addition to overseeing all of RLM’s management activities, Bruce manages artists including Lionel Richie, Il Divo, Icona Pop and Mat Franco.

Prior to joining Red Light, Bruce was CEO of North America for Live Nation. Prior to that he was President of Live Nation. He also held various senior level positions with Clear Channel Entertainment, SFX and Pace Entertainment.

Since 2016, Khalid has appeared on 18 songs that reached Billboard's Hot 100, including three that cracked the top 10. His debut album, 2017's American Teen, was certified double platinum, and he was nominated for five Grammys, including Best New Artist, at the 2018 Grammy Awards.

Khalid has also proven a formidable force on the road, claiming a spot on Pollstar's Year End Top 200 North American Tours with a gross of $8.9 million in 2018. His 2018 tour included a sold-out gig at New York's Radio City Music Hall, with 5,960 tickets sold for a gross of $487,441.

10th Street Entertainment President Chris Nilsson has a BA in Economics from Colorado College and an MBA from USC’s Marshall School of Business. He is a 20 year veteran of the music business, having begun managing singer-songwriters in the LA Hotel Cafe scene in the early 2000s. Chris has spent the past 12 years under industry titan Allen Kovac’s tutelage where he has been the primary manager for rock icons Mötley Crüe and their founder/bassist/songwriter Nikki Sixx. Over the years, Chris has been instrumental in cultivating and growing acts like Five Finger Death Punch, Breaking Benjamin, Sixx:A.M., Bad Wolves, Papa Roach and In Flames. He enjoys reading the novels of Haruki Murakami, takes Japanese lessons once per week, studies the Spanish guitar, is married to Elizabeth Stahl and has two dogs.

Steve Machin is a pioneer of the live entertainment & ticketing sectors. Steve speaks about technology and live entertainment at conferences worldwide such as the International Live Music Conference where he chairs the New Technology Committee. Throughout his career Steve has focussed on projects, solutions and services that use new technology to enhance how fans connect with live entertainment. Following senior corporate roles at Ticketmaster Europe and Live Nation, Steve has worked in the independent sector as an entrepreneur and co-founder of a number of businesses - ranging from data analysis of what was a nascent secondary ticketing sector, to a live event streaming company that brought the category of “Event Cinema” to the mass-market across Europe. More recently Steve has moved towards an infrastructure approach to the ticket sector. To that end, in 2012 Steve successfully applied to the internet regulator, ICANN, to operate a high-integrity domain name registry for the ticketing sector under the .tickets top level domain. In 2018 Steve has more turned his attention to blockchain and has joined FanDragon Technologies to bring his industry experience to bear on the next phase of ticketing technology.

Kacie Lehman is Senior Vice President of Partnerships for MAC Presents, a leading music sponsorship and experiential agency. In her seven years with the company, Lehman has played a key role in developing global partnerships with culture’s leading brands and artists. She has been instrumental in developing many award winning brand-artists programs including; Chance The Rapper’s brand ambassadorship with H&MxKENZO; Khalid’s partnership with Forever 21; MadeInTYO’s integrated partnership with Sprite; Southwest Airlines’ “On The Rise” program with Khalid; Southwest Airlines’ “Destination Dragons” tour and campaign with Imagine Dragons and Taylor Bennett’s partnerships with Urban Outfitters, Express and Diesel, among many others.

Lizzie Daniel has over 17 years of sales, media, marketing and management experience orchestrating global branded content partnerships, sponsorships, experiential marketing programs and strategic digital initiatives for the world’s leading brands. Prior to joining the MAC Presents team in 2018, she served as VP of Marketing at CMA, leading a team of 10 to drive the growth of country music around the world through strategic industry initiatives. Previously, Lizzie was VP of Brand Solutions at Tinder/Match Group, Luxury Advertising Sales Director at Editorialist, and Advertising Director at Rolling Stone. Earlier in her career Lizzie held positions at Gannett, iHeart, DreamWorks Records & Universal Music Group.