Episodes
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Brian Kitts is the Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer for City of Denver venues such as Colorado Convention Center, Denver Coliseum, Denver Performing Arts Complex, McNichols Civic Center Building, and of course the world famous Red Rocks Amphitheatre.
The diversity of these venues and the events they hold gives Brian a unique and comprehensive perspective on the event marketing landscape.
So too does the fact that he is also a lecturer in Sports and Entertainment Marketing at the University of Denver, granting him weekly face to face contact with a new generation of gig goers, which provides a constant source of learning about new marketing trends and the most effective ways of reaching a younger audience.
We talk about it all in this interview!
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Corey Topp is the Founder and Director of Sellout Digital, a digital marketing agency specializing in events.
He is well versed in the art of selling out an event. Exhibit A is his own festival Reminisce, which he grew from a backyard party into an annual 10,000 capacity event in Melbourne. And then there’s Tailgate, a 1500-capacity Superbowl party he launched and sold out in just 16 days earlier this year.
With Sellout Digital Corey has helped many other events achieve similar results, using a system he developed called the Sellout Marketing System. We talk about the different elements of that system in this interview, from crafting your event campaign messaging like a TV series through to maximizing your ROI on Meta ad campaigns.
Corey also has experience working in digital across the banking and gambling industries, and brings all of that experience into this conversation.
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Randy Nichols is an artist manager and music tech startup advisor.
He also has one of those resumes that makes you question whether he’s found a few more hours in the day than the rest of us.
He's guided artists to multiple Gold records and Grammy nominations, as well as overseen record releases and sold out tours on six continents. He manages or has managed Underoath, The Starting Line, Vacationer, Aaron Gillespie, Say Anything, Bayside, Person L, The Almost, Hit The Lights, Beach Slang, Fake Problems, and Jamison Parker and The Pilfers. He is an advisor for the leading live event commerce platform atVenu, creative agency Tension Division, and artist management platform Immensity, while also serving as a board member for the International Independent Talent Organization and working with Eleven75 Collective and Fly South Music Group.
Randy is very hands on with the marketing of his artists, and with Underoath currently in the middle of a successful European and US run of shows, it was a great time to speak with him about some of the marketing techniques they’ve used to sell tickets.
We also speak about the Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation-Ticketmaster, as Randy has been very vocal about what he thinks it will and won’t achieve, and where the focus should be in order to reduce ticket prices and increase accessibility to shows for fans.
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Sean Callanan is the Founder of sports digital marketing agency Sports Geek, and host of the Sports Geek podcast.
His career began in technology, but as a passionate sports fan he was always looking for a way to merge the two worlds. Hence, in 2009, Sports Geek was born.
Sean has a deep understanding of the sports marketing landscape, and includes amongst his clients the NFL, for whom he manages their channels in Australia and New Zealand.
Not surprisingly, the focus of this chat is sports marketing, but you’ll have to keep listening to find out how the Spice Girls and Taylor Swift fit into that world...
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Michael Julian is the Founder of SEERS, a multifaceted company dedicated to driving innovation and fostering cultural transformation in the world of dance music, live events and festivals.
Michael, or MJ as he’s commonly known, was born in Minsk in Belarus before moving to Brooklyn with his family in the early ’90s. In the last year of high school his life changed when he attended Tunnel nightclub in New York, and it was there that he truly experienced the thrill of electronic music. It wasn’t long before he began working within that community, first as a sub promoter running guest lists in New York.
By the 2000s MJ had begun building a team around him to promote a weekly club night called Imagine Fridays, before expanding to events in other parts of the US. He was later approached to market a new festival called Electric Zoo, which went on to become one of the world’s biggest electronic music festivals.
We talk a lot about his work with Electric Zoo in this interview, from the festival’s incredible early growth to the issues and cancellations that damaged the brand in 2013 and 2014, and how MJ and his team set about repairing that damage and rebuilding Electric Zoo.
We also talk about his work with elrow as well as founding Gray Area, an event series, content creation and event discovery platform that brings together artists and fans from different parts of the global electronic music ecosystem, while also helping launch artists' careers.
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Jesse Lawrence is the CEO and Co-Founder of marketing and content development platform FanIQ, and Founder of secondary ticketing platform TicketIQ.
Each company works in tandem in what Jesse calls “the circle of life in the ticketing ecosystem”, and we explore that concept in this interview.
We also look in depth at the kinds of content Jesse and his team create to help sell tickets; the most effective social platforms on which to distribute that content; innovative ways of marketing events via SMS; and the similarities and differences between marketing and selling tickets to sporting and music events.
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Justin Andrews is the Director of Ticketing at Danny Wimmer Presents.
Justin’s ticketing resume is long and varied, having spent time at the Orange Bowl Committee, Live Nation, the Tampa Bay Lightning and his current role at Danny Wimmer Presents.
DWP has a typically hectic summer schedule, with some of North America’s biggest festivals such as Welcome To Rockville, Sonic Temple, Aftershock, Bourbon & Beyond and Louder Than Life, to name just a few.
Needless to say, Justin is very well versed in the art of co-ordinating high demand on sales, which we talk about in this interview. We also talk about the challenges of changing ticketing strategy midway through an onsale, trends in sales cycles, best practices for selling early bird tickets, and the fact that at a time where many festivals are struggling, Danny Wimmer Presents are on track to have a record year, and we look at what they’re getting right.
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Laurie Kirby is the President and Founder of FestForums, North America’s premiere conference for the festival industry.
Each year in Santa Barbara festival producers from the music, film, and food and wine industries gather to swap ideas and network at FestForums, which Laurie founded in 2015.
Laurie herself has plenty of firsthand experience in the festival industry, having played a key role in establishing The Newport International Film Festival, as well as serving as the President and Chief Creative Officer of the International Film Festival Summit.
Her career to date has been colorful and multi-faceted, having worked as an attorney for over 20 years, as well as managing and consulting for dozens of film festivals and filmmakers and serving as a producer and consultant on many independent films.
A large part of her focus now, though, is FestForums, and throughout this interview we talk about Laurie’s approach to running a successful conference, as well as the festival trends that emerged at the most recent FestForums.
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Oscar Ugaz is the Strategy Director of Atomikal, and former Digital Business Manager at Real Madrid.
For a man who worked at one of the most famous football clubs in the world, Oscar never really had any love of sport. But then again, he wasn’t hired to pull on his football boots and score goals – he was there because of his expertise in digital innovation, media and marketing, skills which form the cornerstone of our discussion.
We also talk about marketing innovations at football clubs, or lack thereof, the differences in attitude towards technology and innovation between American and European sporting organizations, and much more.
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Anthony Diaz is the Chief Operating Officer and Partner at Topeka Music Vacations.
He's had a long and accomplished career in the music vacations business, having spent more than a decade at Sixthman, which hosts music festivals at sea with events such as the Emo’s Not Dead Cruise, the Broadway Cruise, the Kiss Kruise, and many more.
In January 2024 he joined Topeka Music Vacations, which hosts destination music vacations in Miramar Beach Florida, such as Brandi Carlile’s Mothership Weekend and Tedeschi Trucks Band’s Sun, Sand and Soul.
Combining the worlds of music festivals and vacation experiences offers its own unique set of advantages and challenges, but the one thing that shines through in this conversation is how much importance Anthony and his team place on creating an incredible experience for their customers.
We talk about some of the best practices for doing so and the fan loyalty it creates, the most impactful ways of marketing vacation experiences, the importance of community building, and much more.
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Josh Walker is the Co-Founder and CEO of Sports Innovation Lab.
Sports Innovation Lab is a data company that is revolutionizing how sports leagues, teams and brands use data to understand their customers and acquire their future fan. The company analyzes fan behavior at scale, and then uses that intelligence to help organizations drive live viewership, increase conversion rates and build more meaningful sponsorships.
Not surprisingly, we talk a lot about data in this interview, and the most impactful ways that brands and leagues can use it. We also look at some of the parallels between the music and sports industries in terms of ticket buying behavior, the increasing importance of OTT platforms in the sporting space, the concept of the fluid fan, and much more.
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Erin Nourijanian is the Vice President of Marketing at UBS Arena.
When Erin started the role in February 2021, she was in the unique position of marketing a venue that was still being built.
From establishing its brand and marketing events for a venue that wasn’t yet open, to winning over fans of the New York Islanders ice hockey team who were moving to UBS from the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, it was all ahead of her.
Erin, however, was no rookie, having previously worked at New York’s Webster Hall as the Director of Marketing and at the Nassau Coliseum as the Senior Director of Marketing. So UBS Arena was a challenge she was well and truly up for.
We talk about Erin's journey in this interview, the challenges of launching a new venue and the marketing techniques to ensure its success, capturing fan and artist attention in a crowded market, and much more!
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Paul Newman is the Director of Ticketing at AXS UK.
When it comes to event ticketing, there’s not much Paul hasn’t seen. Not only will he celebrate 10 years as the Director of Ticketing at AXS UK in 2024, but prior to that he worked at Live Nation and AEG, where his roles included Director of Ticketing at London’s O2 Arena.
He worked on Michael Jackson’s record-breaking, if ill-fated, run of 50 shows at the O2 in 2009 and 2010, and at AXS routinely oversees the ticketing for some of the UK’s biggest concerts, including Taylor Swift, and festivals like British Summer Time Hyde Park.
We talk about it all in this interview, from managing the onsale for high-demand events to the key things organizers need to prioritize with their ticketing strategy, and much more!
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Morgan Margolis is the CEO and President of Knitting Factory Entertainment.
The very first Knitting Factory opened in New York in 1987, but since then the company’s operations have expanded far and wide, to the point where they now own and manage venues ranging from small clubs to outdoor amphitheatres, and produce events and festivals such as Desert Daze. Knitting Factory is also involved in touring and artist management, and via Partisan Records, music production and distribution of artists like Fontaines DC, PJ Harvey and Idles.
Morgan oversees it all, and as he explains in this interview, he pretty much learned on the job. His career could have gone in a few different directions – his parents were both actors, and his dad Mark found fame acting in films such as Scarface and on TV shows like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, where he played one of the ultimate screen villains, Hector Salamanca. After briefly following in his parents' footsteps, Morgan settled on a career in events, venues and hospitality.
From his background and upbringing to the intricacies and logistical realities of running independent venues in 2024, we cover a lot of ground in this interview!
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Callie Lardas is the Senior Director of Tour Marketing at mtheory LLC.
Callie began her career as a booking assistant at Madison House, before realizing being an agent wasn’t for her.
She set her sights on event marketing and embarked on a journey that has taken her through organizations like Live Nation and AEG Live, before landing at mtheory LLC, where she works across the tour marketing for acts playing anywhere from 250 cap rooms all the way up to amphitheatres and arenas.
Needless to say, Callie has many wonderful insights into marketing a wide spectrum of live events, all of which we cover in this interview.
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Steve Oberman is the Executive Vice President and Head of Music at See Tickets North America.
He and his team oversee the ticketing for hundreds of festivals and events every year, making him the perfect person to talk to about trends and best practices in the ticketing space.
He actually began his music industry career in management, working alongside artists like Velvet Revolver, which we also dig into during the conversation.
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Stephen Budd is a British music industry executive and artist/record producer manager.
It’s impossible to capture all of his accomplishments in this brief space, so here are just a few of them: In 2010 he co-founded the NH7 Weekender festival in India, the first of its type ever in the country; in 2006 he co-founded Africa Express with Blur vocalist Damon Albarn and journalist Ian Birrell, a non-profit organization facilitating collaboration between African, Middle Eastern and Western artists; other festivals he co-founded include the DMZ Peace Train Festival in Korea, and he is a director of the award-winning OneFest festival.
He also created the Passport Back To The Bars/BRITs Week concert series, in which major artists such as The Cure and Coldplay perform in small clubs across the UK to raise money for WarChild.
Add to all that an ongoing role with the Music Managers Forum, which he’s been involved with since 1994 as both a Chairman and Board Member, and the fact that the first producer he ever managed was the legendary Tony Visconti, and you start to get an idea of the width and breadth of Stephen’s career.
We try and cover as much as we can in this interview!
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Dustin Sugar-Moore is the Director of Marketing at I.M.P., the independent concert promotion and production company that operates venues ranging from the legendary 9:30 Club in Washington D.C. all the way up to the 20,000-capacity Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland.
We cover a lot of ground in this interview, from how Dustin manages a mailing list of around one million people to the marketing strategy behind launching I.M.P.’s latest venue, The Atlantis, in Washington D.C. in May 2023.
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Ben Allen is the Marketing Director at LNE Presents, a full-service entertainment company that delivers events across Utah, Florida, Nevada and Maryland.
In 2023 alone they will produce around 400 events, including festivals such as Reggae Rise Up and Gasparilla Music Festival, while also operating multiple venues such as Soundwell and Granary Live.
Ben’s path into event marketing was anything but a straight line, and at one point he was even focused on becoming a war correspondent.
We talk about that journey in this interview, as well as Ben’s strategies for selling tickets during a cost of living crisis, how he markets more than 400 events and makes sure he hits the right audience for each, effective ways of capturing and using data, and much more.
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Steve Levy is the CEO of Clanger Digital and Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Revenue Officer for Imagine Music Festival.
It’s difficult to sum up the depth and breadth of Steve’s career, but here are a few dot points: in the late-'80s Steve was one of the pioneers of the underground rave scene in LA, promoting shows and holding raves in abandoned warehouses all the while evading the reach of the local police.
He went on to co-found Moonshine Music in 1992, the label that effectively introduced electronic music to mainstream America, and later launched Moonshine Over America, at that point the only annual, national electronic music tour in the US.
In the years since he’s occupied roles such as Head of Marketing and Digital at Insomniac Events, Chief Marketing Officer at Virgin Fests, North American General Manager at Festicket – and that’s just for starters.
Steve offers a feast of event marketing insights drawn from his decades of experience – not to mention some great stories about dealing with the police during the birth of the underground rave scene in LA!
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