Touring

1. Luke Bryan, CMA Tapped By Texaco For Country Music Sponsorships

   August 21, 2013 6:54 PM EDT Scoring the year’s third-highest debut on the Billboard 200 isn’t Luke Bryan’s only major achievement in 2013. The country superstar has also booked a multi-pronged sponsorship with Texaco that includes the remaining dates of his Dirt Road Diari ...

2. Live Nation L.A. Venues the Wiltern and Hollywood Palladium Get New GMs

   August 21, 2013 6:20 PM EDT Live Nation has announced new general managers for two of its popular Los Angeles concert venues. Rick Merrill has been appointed GM of the 2,300-capacity Wiltern and Stacey Levine has been named GM of the 3,800-capacity Hollywood Palladium. Mer ...

3. FYF Fest Founder Sean Carlson on Goldenvoice, Market Saturation and 2013's Stellar Lineup (Q&A)

   August 21, 2013 4:21 PM EDT Outside of the market-leading Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, one would be hard-pressed to find another multi-day music festival in Southern California with a more impressive lineup than this year’s FYF Fest in Los Angeles.  Celebra ...

4. Sid Bernstein, Promoter Who Brought the Beatles to Shea and the Rolling Stones to the U.S., Dead at 95

   August 21, 2013 2:44 PM EDT Sid Bernstein, the promoter who brought the Beatles to Shea Stadium, has died. He was 95. Bernstein's daughter, Casey Deutsch, says her father died in his sleep Wednesday morning at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. Bernstein was an ear ...

5. Madison Square Garden Co. Q4 Earnings Exceed Wall St. Expectations

   August 21, 2013 12:40 PM EDT The Madison Square Garden Co., controlled by the Dolan family that also owns cable operator Cablevision Systems, reported on Wednesday higher fiscal fourth-quarter earnings that exceeded Wall Street estimates. MSG said its quarterly profit of $3 ...

6. Fritz Rau, German Music Promoter Mick Jagger Dubbed 'Everyone's Fairy Godfather,' Dead at 83

   August 20, 2013 11:51 AM EDT German concert biz impresario Fritz Rau, a highly respected German promoter, has died at the age of 83 in Kronberg, near Frankfurt. Over the past 50 years Rau organized concerts for acts such as the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, Cream, Jimi Hen ...

7. Live Nation Australasia Teams with Brand Agency Mixitup

   August 20, 2013 5:59 AM EDT Live Nation’s Australasia company has formed a joint venture with brand agency mixitup Enterprises, which will focus on creating music and entertainment brand partnerships across Australia and New Zealand. The new venture, mixitup Australia, con ...

8. Flo Rida Swerves Six-Figure Lawsuit for Snubbing Australian Fest

   August 20, 2013 5:22 AM EDT Flo Rida has dodged paying roughly US$400,000 in damages to the organizers of an Australian music festival he failed to show up to. The artist, whose real name is Tramar Dillard, was a no-show at the Fat As Butter fest in 2011, for which he’d ap ...

9. Sinking Jamaican Dollar Brings Challenges to Reggae Sumfest, the Country’s Largest Music Festival

   August 19, 2013 2:22 PM EDT The ongoing devaluation of the Jamaican dollar within the past 12 months has brought significant challenges and steep price increases to this year’s staging of Reggae Sumfest, Jamaica's largest music festival. “It cost US$2 million to put ...

10. Chris Brown's Health Condition Results in Canadian Concert Cancellations

    August 19, 2013 1:24 PM EDT TORONTO (AP) -- The promoter of four Chris Brown concerts in Canada scheduled this summer says the events have been cancelled. Stephen Tobin, owner of Drop Entertainment Group, said Monday that the decision was made after consulting with Brown a ...

11. EDM's Dead, Long Live... EMC? SFX's IPO Looms Large While the Industry Sells Out (From the Magazine)

    August 19, 2013 12:43 PM EDT THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED IN BILLBOARD MAGAZINE – READ MORE HERE AND GET THIS WEEK'S ISSUE OR SUBSCRIBE TO BILLBOARD Disco Donnie Estopinal, the first promoter to sell his business to Robert F.X. Sillerman's newly re-formed SFX E ...

12. Live Nation Confirms Nathan Hubbard Is Out at Ticketmaster in SEC Filing

    August 16, 2013 4:30 PM EDT THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED IN BILLBOARD MAGAZINE – READ MORE HERE GET THIS WEEK'S ISSUE HERE OR SUBSCRIBE TO BILLBOARD HERE The surprise exit of Nathan Hubbard as Global President of Ticketmaster was made official on Friday, ushering in a ...

13. NEC Gets Nod for Nassau Coliseum Project (Updated)

    August 15, 2013 2:26 PM EDT After a hotly contested bidding war for the redevelopment of the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on Long Island, New York, Nassau Entertainment Committee (NEC), led by the Forest City Ratner group, was selected by Nassau County Executive Ed Ma ...

14. Country Icon George Strait Tapped for Billboard's Legend Of Live Award

    August 15, 2013 12:00 PM EDT George Strait will be honored with the Legend Of Live Award at the 10th annual Billboard Touring Awards , to be held Nov. 14 at The Roosevelt Hotel in New York. Strait -- who has forged a reputation as a record-breaker -- becomes the first count ...

15. Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino Sells Almost $12 Million in Stock

    August 14, 2013 5:15 PM EDT Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino recently sold 640,000 shares of his common stock holdings in the company, earning him $11.7 million, according to an Aug. 13 Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The two transactions, made on Friday and Monda ...

16. Mike Love 'Upset' Over Direction of Beach Boys Reunion Album, Tour

    August 14, 2013 12:38 PM EDT Though the Beach Boys are divided rather than conquering a year after their triumphant 50th anniversary reunion tour, Mike Love is not ruling out the possibility of it happening again. But he has some stipulations. "It depends, because the ...

17. Macy Gray Signs with APA for Representation

    August 13, 2013 8:21 PM EDT Singer, songwriter and actress Macy Gray has signed with APA for representation in all areas. She was previously represented by Creative Artists Agency. Gray has released six albums over her career, including her best selling 1999 debut, “On How ...

18. Ticketmaster President Nathan Hubbard Exits Company

    August 12, 2013 8:56 PM EDT Ticketmaster president Nathan Hubbard has exited the Live Nation-owned ticketing company. Sources confirm to Billboard.biz that Hubbard will step down as Ticketmaster president in a deal to be finalized in the coming days. Ticketmaster North Am ...

19. Jody Payne, Willie Nelson Guitarist, Dies at 77

    August 10, 2013 10:52 PM EDT Jody Payne, a guitarist who toured with Willie Nelson for more than three decades, has died. He was 77. Baldwin County Coroner Stan Zinson says Payne died at 5:12 a.m. Saturday (August 10) at a hospital from cardiac problems. He says Payne got u ...

20. Outside Lands: Live Music Meets Live Hacks

    August 10, 2013 9:00 AM EDT Music hack-a-thons, a fairly common occurrence thanks to a proliferation of application programming interfaces, is taking on a twist this week at the Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco -- allowing the hackers to sound out their digit ...

21. Behind Matchbox Twenty's Techy Tour – One of the First Uses of 'Geofencing'

    August 09, 2013 4:38 PM EDT Matchbox Twenty may have been around since 1995, with its alt-rock grooves steeped in the post-grunge era, but their digital chops are firmly in the 21st Century. The band, currently on tour , is deploying a dizzying array of digital tools t ...

22. Ticketmaster UK Appoints Simon Presswell Managing Director

    August 09, 2013 3:48 PM EDT Ticketmaster UK has tapped Simon Presswell as managing director. Based in the Ticketmaster International headquarters in Angel, London, Presswell will be responsible for the U.K. operation of the Live Nation-owned ticketing business, which inclu ...

23. WillCall Raises $1.2 Million From Sean Parker, Coran Capshaw, Others

    August 08, 2013 11:29 AM EDT WillCall, a San Francisco-based developer of a mobile app for concerts, has raised $1.2 million in angel funding from Sean Paker, Coran Capshaw, Loeb & Loeb partner John Frankenheimer, Red Light Management’s Bruce Flohr and a number of othe ...

24. Live Nation to Expand L.A. Headquarters

    August 07, 2013 8:40 PM EDT Live Nation will expand its Beverly Hills headquarters into its neighboring building. The company plans to rent 33,000 square feet in a two-story building located at 9350 Civic Center Drive, according to the Los Angeles Times . Terms of the leas ...

25. Backbeat: How Does Chris Thile, Mandolin Player/MacArthur Genius, Get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, Practice, Twitter, Impromptu Gig in NYC's Tompkins Square Park

    August 07, 2013 7:45 PM EDT Before he takes his recent interpretations of famed composer Johan Sebastian Bach to Carnegie Hall later this fall, mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile surprised about two dozen fans by offering to play his newest material on a bench in Tompkins Squar ...

26. Ultra Music Festival Introduces Layaway Option

    August 07, 2013 2:44 PM EDT With three-day passes going for $400 and up, the EDM event is offering a monthly payment plan for its Miami edition. Nearly sixteen years after Ultra Music Festival first touched down in Miami, the dance music event has spread to Argentina, Kore ...

27. Live Nation Revenue, Attendance Each Up 8% in Second Quarter (Updated)

    August 06, 2013 4:58 PM EDT Driven by its concerts division, Live Nation revenue rose 8% to  $1.68 billion in the second quarter from $1.55 billion a year ago. The concerts division, the company's largest source of revenue, grew 10.9% to $1.2 billion in the second qua ...

28. El Komander Denies Wrongdoing in Controversial Narcocorrido Concert, Says He 'Loves Rules'

    August 06, 2013 12:22 PM EDT In accordance with an ordinance prohibiting the singing of narcocorrido songs which glorify drug culture, authorities in Chihuahua, Mexico have fined a concert promoter 10,000 pesos (about $8,000) for a July 27 concert by the artist known as El ...

29. Lollapalooza Brazil Partners with South American Promoter Time 4 Fun

    August 06, 2013 7:02 AM EDT C3, the Austin, Texas-based producer of Lollapalooza music festivals in Chicago,  Chile, and Brazil, announces today that it will partner on Lolla Brazil going forward with Time 4 Fun (T4F), the leading South American live entertainment promoter ...

30. Springsteen's European Leg Tops the Week's Hot Tours, Taking in $27 Million

    August 05, 2013 2:54 PM EDT For the third time this year, Bruce Springsteen earns the top ranking on the weekly list of Hot Tours with $27 million in ticket sales reported from the final eight European dates on his Wrecking Ball World Tour with the E Street Band. This year ...

31. Backbeat: Lisa Fischer on a '20 Feet From Stardom' Tour: 'Definitely Something I’m Interested In'

    August 05, 2013 2:35 PM EDT Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99" LatentStyleCount="267"> UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Norma ...

32. Biz Video: The 3 Charlies of C3 on Lollapalooza's Record-Breaking Success, 'Over-Sponsorship,' Global Expansion

    August 05, 2013 1:40 PM EDT “It’s rare that we’re ever in the same town, let alone the same place at one time,” Charlie Jones said as his C3 founding partners Charlie Walker and Charles Attal joined him backstage at Lollapalooza Sunday afternoon (Aug. 4). Sitting down wit ...

33. Australia’s Big Day Out Fest Confirms Headliners Pearl Jam, Blur, Arcade Fire

    July 31, 2013 10:35 PM EDT Pearl Jam, Blur, Arcade Fire and Snoop Lion (aka Snoop Dogg) will headline the 2014 Australasian Big Day Out tour. Other key names confirmed to the bill include EDM acts Major Lazer, Steve Angello (formerly of Swedish House Mafia) and Australia& ...

34. Backbeat: Solange Makes the 'Boring Brilliant' at Brooklyn Laundromat Performance with Help from vitaminwater, The Fader

    July 31, 2013 4:20 PM EDT The concept of “nontraditional” concert venues has grown a bit specious in recent years, as spaces like Los Angeles’ Hollywood Forever cemetery , New York’s Angel Orensanz synagogue and Philadelphia’s Union Transfer (located in the former site o ...

35. Australia’s Billion-Dollar Live Biz Reports ‘Weaker’ 2012

    July 31, 2013 3:18 AM EDT Australia’s live music biz has had an up-and-down year, new figures reveal. Live Performance Australia’s annual “Ticket Attendance & Revenue Survey” reveals attendance slipped across the wider live entertainment market in 2012, and there was ...

36. Americana Music Fest To Feature Rodney Crowell, Rosanne Cash, The Lone Bellow, Ashley Monroe; RIAA's Cary Sherman to Keynote (Exclusive)

    July 30, 2013 6:24 PM EDT The annual Americana Music Festival and Conference, whose attendance has grown to some 18,000 attendees, is just a few weeks away. With the event's exponential growth, organizers are able to curate a lineup that's as diverse as the ge ...

37. Kate Nash, Half Moon Run and Blondfire to Rock Billboard Party in Chicago

    July 30, 2013 4:42 PM EDT Billboard will bring the party ahead of this weekend's Lollapalooza festival in the Windy City. The free Billboard Pre Party, presented by Cotton, is set for Aug. 1 at Chicago's Double Door, and will feature performances from British s ...

38. Madison Square Garden Co. Announces $100M Renovation of Classic L.A. Arena The Forum

    July 30, 2013 4:06 PM EDT The Forum, where the likes of Elvis Presley and the Rolling Stones played to thousands of screaming fans, wants to rock again in January 2014 with a $100 million makeover that its new owner hopes will draw the biggest names in pop music. Madison ...

39. Australia’s Live Music Biz Gets Gov’t Funding Boost

    July 30, 2013 1:36 AM EDT The Australian government has pledged A$560,000 ($508,000) for the creation of an office dedicated to supporting the country’s live music scene. The Federal government has allocated the funding over three years for the National Live Music Office ...

40. Backbeat: VenueConnect Conference Brings Together Venue Managers, Ticketing Companies and More in New Orleans

    July 29, 2013 3:15 PM EDT   Register today for Billboard's 2013 Touring Conference & Awards Nov. 13-14 in New York City Use promo code 'BIZ13' to get a special discount. The mood has been generally upbeat at VenueConnect -- the 87th annual conference a ...

41. Vampire Weekend, Janelle Monae, Alabama Shakes, Joey Bada$$, Others Added to ‘Beautiful’ in Vegas (Updated)

    July 29, 2013 11:49 AM EDT Twelve additional bands will be announced today for the debut Life Is Beautiful festival in Las Vegas taking place October 26th & 27th; Vampire Weekend, Janelle Monae, Alabama Shakes, Cults, Joey Bada$$, Smith Westerns, Nico Vega, The Dig an ...

42. Burning Man Fest Gets Green-Light to Grow

    July 29, 2013 10:35 AM EDT The largest outdoor arts festival in North America is about to become bigger. Federal land managers have issued Burning Man organizers a four-year special recreation permit that allows a peak population of 68,000 on the northern Nevada desert th ...

43. Virgin Mobile FreeFest Announce Line-Up with Vampire Weekend, MGMT, Robin Thicke

    July 29, 2013 5:08 AM EDT Vampire Weekend, MGMT and Robin Thicke are among the big names confirmed to perform at the Sept. 21 Virgin Mobile FreeFest, the telecoms group’s charitable initiative focused on ending youth homelessness. Other artists confirmed to the multi-sta ...

44. Tomorrowland Coming to America: Q&A With TomorrowWorld's Shawn Kent

    July 27, 2013 8:37 AM EDT   Tomorrowland kicked off in the tiny town of Boom, Belgium tonight (July 26), marking the massive dance festival’s eighth year. One of the most international music events in the world – over 214 countries are represented amongst its attendee ...

45. Biz Stock Ticks: This Week's Entertainment Indices

    July 26, 2013 8:51 PM EDT Biz Stock Ticks looks at publicly traded entertainment stock prices over the last week by Apple, Best Buy, Facebook, Google, Live Nation, Pandora, Sony, Sirius, TransWorld and Sony -- many of which this week reacted to the quarterly earnings re ...

46. Iron Maiden Tops Hot Tours With Revenues of $19 Million

    July 26, 2013 12:28 PM EDT English heavy metal band Iron Maiden earns the No. 1 Hot Tours ranking this week with $19 million (US$) in box office revenue reported from its summer tour in European cities. The Maiden England World Tour originally kicked off last year with a ...

47. Madison Square Garden's Limited Lease: Not An Eviction Notice, But Not Good News Either

    July 26, 2013 11:34 AM EDT The New York City Council’s vote Wednesday that Madison Square Garden must within 10 years cease operating at its current site above Penn Station, its home for 45 years, is not good news for an arena that is just completing a nearly $1 billion ...

48. Frank Ocean Cancels Australian Tour With Vocal Cord Tear, Told to Rest

    July 26, 2013 3:07 AM EDT Frank Ocean has canceled his sold-out Australian tour after suffering with throat problems on opening night. A trip to the doctors has revealed he has a tear to one of his vocal chords. The rising R&B star had launched his inaugural tour Dow ...

49. Madison Square Garden's Lease at Penn Station Limited To 10 Years By City Council

    July 25, 2013 7:57 AM EDT The New York City Council voted Wednesday to limit Madison Square Garden's permit at its current spot above Penn Station to 10 years - a decision cheered by civic organizations campaigning to move the home of the Knicks and Rangers so the ...

50. How Harvey Weinstein, Presidents Obama and Clinton Almost Reunited Led Zeppelin

    July 25, 2013 3:52 AM EDT Harvey Weinstein readily admits he's a pit bull, particularly when it comes to philanthropic work. Case in point: When the mogul needed the music industry's biggest names to perform at the 12-12-12 concert benefiting Hurricane Sandy v ...

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