News From This Week’s Pollstar Concert Industry Consortium

Trade magazine Pollstar’s Concert Industry Consortium is the annual gathering of the tribe for the North American live music industry.  The big announcement thus far was from Ozzfest who told the group of its plans for free admission on the 25 city tour. But there’s been a lot more action in LA and Hypebot’s been there to capture it:

• Concert giant Live Nation is opening up its web site to listings from competing promoters and venues in an effort to make it’s web site the premier destination for fans of live music. Some are less than pleased making comments like "There’s no way am I putting my stuff on their
  sites" and at at least one buyer told Hypebot that Live Nation posted and linked to their dates without permission and this promoter was going to delete it.
• At a well attended "10,000 Foot View" panel yesterday, Live Nation head Michael Rapino kept focusing on how LN is going to find ways to connect direct to fans, make the experience for them better, fairer priced, and more convenient.  He admits that they can’t make a viable return on just tickets with the venue overheads they have in big arenas, and that is one reason the club level is so important now. 
• Live Nation also seems to want to "own" the live music consumer in other ways beyond just selling tickets for his shows, but he would not be  McBride kept trying to get more specific. Nettwerk music head Terry McBride tired to Rapino down asking if Live Nation were going to
  act like a label and invest in specific artists’ marketing, recording and development, but Rapino would not commit.
• Creative Artists Agency President Rob Light and mega-music manager Jeff Kwatinetz of The Firm stressed the need for agents and managers to get more deeply involved with live music promoters to enhance marketing and the fan experience.
• Light also predicted
  that the iPhone will make after-concert live CDs obsolete. Cell phone scanned bar codes will be used to get into the concert and then on the way out a text message will ask the fan if they want
  to buy a live recording or video of the performance for instant download.
• 
  There’s lots of chatter about the secondary ticket (re-sale) market and whether the promoters and acts should control the re-sale thus co-opting Stub Hub and others at their own game by running more auctions etc. Many of non-arena level promoters and agents counter “it’s no big deal”. Ticketmaster stated strongly that they are going after the secondary market too.
• Several panelists predicted the death of the CD and even record labels as we know them as early as 2012.