It's a solid write up. As someone with a lot of experience in this industry, though, the biggest factor here was really poor artist representation. The Black Keys fired their manager and they...
It's a solid write up. As someone with a lot of experience in this industry, though, the biggest factor here was really poor artist representation. The Black Keys fired their manager and they should fire their agent, too. Any rep who claimed to be even halfway decent at the job would have known an arena tour was a terrible idea for that band. The J Lo stuff is the bigger surprise, but even that could have been very easily foreseen.
The article touches on this, but I think it's the primary factor. Live Nation being shitty and costs going up are ancillary to the fact that you have to recognize where your band actually stands and the rep's job is to deliver bad news sometimes.
Two years ago, both demand and pricing were through the roof as fans rushed to return to live events after the lockdown blues. Today, “revenge spending is over,” Kurland says. “People [were] just spending money on experiences because we didn’t have that for two years. I think people are having to be more cautious with their money.”
“Coming out of COVID, there was so much pent-up demand for live concerts of any type,” says Brown. “I think a lot of decisions have been based on that demand. Now, things are starting to stabilize after that post-COVID touring bump. [In] 2022, there were people really excited to be going to concerts again. Maybe thought they wouldn’t be able to see their favorite band the Black Keys for many years. That might have given their team a sense that demand was a little bit higher than it was.”
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“Everything is ridiculously expensive,” says a tour manager who works with major acts and asked not to be named. “There’s not enough gear for everyone to share, so the vendors are having to pay high amounts for equipment. A single bus for a six-week tour can cost $100,000. Multiple that by multiple buses, and then trucks, and then crews are at a minimum, so they’re getting top rate right now because there’s not enough crews.”
COVID, of course, exacerbated this crunch. “What happened after the pandemic is, everyone was ready to tour at once,” the tour manager says. “There’s not enough gear to cover all of that. A lot of bands have had to cancel tours because they don’t have gear or they couldn’t afford the gear,” the tour manager continued. “I was on a tour with somebody last year where we had to book a private jet because there were no buses available. For the first week of the tour, we had to charter planes.”
It's a solid write up. As someone with a lot of experience in this industry, though, the biggest factor here was really poor artist representation. The Black Keys fired their manager and they should fire their agent, too. Any rep who claimed to be even halfway decent at the job would have known an arena tour was a terrible idea for that band. The J Lo stuff is the bigger surprise, but even that could have been very easily foreseen.
The article touches on this, but I think it's the primary factor. Live Nation being shitty and costs going up are ancillary to the fact that you have to recognize where your band actually stands and the rep's job is to deliver bad news sometimes.
From the article:
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