Whether he was playing in the honky-tonks and dancehalls, winning over fans at fairs and rodeos or performing in sold-out arenas and stadiums, George Strait has always been a headliner.
Strait has been one of the most consistent ticket sellers across all genres for more than a quarter century, so much so that the industry has, at least to some degree, taken for granted that his name will forever be at the top of the marquee. But Strait announced last fall that his 2013-’14 Cowboy Rides Away tour of arenas and stadiums will be his last, though the artist says he’ll continue to perform live for one-offs.
Beyond just selling tickets, Strait has been an innovator in the touring business. From bringing his booking in-house to touring in a 360-degree configuration to creating the festival touring model for country music — in stadiums, no less — Strait’s touring career is one of firsts.
That record of innovation has led to the announcement that Strait will receive the Legend of Live award on Nov. 14 at the Billboard Touring Awards in New York (see story, page 46).
Strait’s impact on the Billboard Boxscore chart is significant, with nearly $500 million in grosses reported from a touring schedule that most country artists would consider limited, at least for the past 20 years. The first headlining date Strait ever reported was Jan. 1, 1985, at the Mayborn Civic Center in Temple, Texas. The gross was $28,125, with a sold-out crowd of 2,250. Tickets were $12.50, and support was Ronna Reeves. Surely, a good time was had by all.
Of course, by then Strait had been headlining for 10 years, first with the Ace in the Hole Band and then, following his signing to MCA and debut hit “Unwound,” with his own name on the ticket.
Though many acts may make this claim in this age of social media, Strait truly built his following at the grass-roots level, playing rodeos, county fairs and country music joints across Texas, Oklahoma and beyond, building his base and his reputation at the types of dusty places that don’t generally report to the Boxscore chart.
Today’s country music touring artist development blueprint — a proven successful model — involves artists starting out as support on major tours, working in headlining dates here and there until they’re ready to step out on their own.
“George was kind of unique in that he had a real good following down there in Central and South Texas early on,” Strait’s longtime manager Erv Woolsey says. “It was a lot different then than it is now, because there were so many dancehalls to play. So we just kept going out and expanding his area, going into the smaller halls and headlining them ourselves. We kind of built it that way, bleeding over and bleeding over.”
Woolsey says Strait’s ability to build like he did is partly the product of a bygone era, but one can’t help but think Strait’s charisma would have shown through in any era.
“A lot of the younger acts now want to get on with an artist and play the big buildings, and that’s fine-it just wasn’t available like that then,” Woolsey says. “It’s different now.”
BOOK ‘EM, DANNY
In his early career, Strait was booked by leading Nashville independent agency Buddy Lee Attractions, a relationship that lasted until about 1987. That’s when Strait brought his booking in-house to his management company, with Danny O’Brien serving as the agent, a post O’Brien still holds.
Strait was already an arena headliner by that point. “I don’t know that I would do that today, but we knew where we wanted to go. We worked with different promoters, so we cut the deals, onward and upward,” Woolsey says. “[Danny]’s across the hall from me-I knew what he was doing and he knew what I was doing. I don’t know that under the same circumstances I’d do it today. There are a lot of benefits in being with the large agencies. But that worked for us at the time.”
When it’s pointed out that bringing the booking in-house was, for its time, a pretty bold move, Woolsey responds, “Well, we were betting a pretty strong horse.”
By the time the ’90s ended, Strait realized his heavy touring schedule was taking away from his family time.
“George said, ‘We’ve got to figure something out, because our boys are going to be growing up and we’ll never spend any time with them,'” Woolsey recalls. “So we thought we’d try these stadiums. It worked, and off we went.”
Woolsey’s humility notwithstanding, there was a little more to it than just playing stadiums. In 1997, Strait headlined the first George Strait Country Music Festival at the newly opened Alamodome in San Antonio, bringing the model of a genre-based, multi-act live event before Ozzy Osbourne and Ozzfest ever entered the picture. Conceptually, Strait Fest was in the wheelhouse of promoter Louis Messina, who at that time had built his considerable reputation as a rock’n’roll promoter, based in Houston with PACE Concerts in the pre-consolidation days, later producing Ozzfest.
Messina put together a proposal for a multi-act country music “experience” at stadiums, and Strait liked it. “He said, ‘This could be fun. We should do a few,'” Messina recalls. “I said, ’20?’ ‘How about six?’ We wound up with 18, and it was one of the greatest experiences I ever had in my life.”
Again, it was another bold move, given stadium shows in the United States had declined in general at the time, and those that could play those venues were primarily rock titans like U2 and the Rolling Stones.
“We thought we could do it in some cities. We tried it, and it was a huge success, so we expanded on it,” Woolsey says. “We did that for a few years, and then went back into the arenas. We’ve got a couple of stadium shows slated for next year.”
Strait Fest began a long and lucrative partnership between Strait and Messina that still exists today, with Messina’s TMG/AEG Live the exclusive promoter for Strait’s tours.
“One of the things that [Messina] did for me was to make the road fun again,” Strait says. “He’s a good friend and has done a great deal to make this [new] tour huge. He wants nothing more than to make his tours the biggest and the best.”
That includes, of course, the Strait Fest tours, which in their first year grossed $33 million and drew 881,717 to just 18 shows. On the bill were Tim McGraw, John Michael Montgomery, Faith Hill, Lee Ann Womack, Lila McCann and Asleep at the Wheel. The tours continued in 1999 ($32.3 million, 17 shows) and 2000 ($21 million, 10 shows). “So I’m now going into these huge stadiums and we’re selling them out,” Strait says. “Who’d a thought it? I guess Louie did.”
Not only did the Strait Fest tours show the strength of country music at the box office, they served as a powerful artist development tool, as well as showcases for more established artists to play in front of 60,000 people or more. Strait Fest “opened the doors for a lot of artists,” Messina says. “The list of artists that played the George Strait Country Music Festival is outrageous.” Looking at Strait Fest posters in his office, Messina reels off the names: “Tim, Faith, Kenny, Dixie Chicks, Alan Jackson, Lee Ann Womack, Mark Chesnutt, Sarah Evans, Brad Paisley, Lonestar, Asleep at the Wheel, Martina McBride, Jo Dee Messina, LeAnn Rimes, Deanna Carter, Tracy Lawrence, John Michael Montgomery, Terri Clark, Steve Wariner, Doug Stone, Little Texas, Clay Walker, Wynonna, Brooks & Dunn, Lee Roy Parnell, Delbert McClinton, on and on.”
The parties on the Strait Fest tours are now legendary. “We would have a theme party every night,” Messina says. “All the bands would get together, and the tour-ending parties were just the best, five-hour jam sessions. At any one time you’d have George, Tim [McGraw], Dixie Chicks, Asleep at the Wheel as the house band. We’d get under a tent and congregate. It was a vibe everybody created every night. We couldn’t wait until the next show.”
Such an atmosphere kept the tours from becoming a grind. “I want people to have fun on my shows. That’s what we do,” Messina says. “There’s no reason why it can’t be just as much fun after the show for the artists and people that work on it as it was for the people in front of the stage.”
McGraw looks back on the Strait Fest tours fondly. “I have a lot of George Strait memories because I spent three years doing the stadium tours with George, and I watched him every night,” McGraw recalls. “I watched how he ran his show, how he ran his business, [and] I learned so much from him. I have to say, one of the most special memories was at 3 a.m. in a club at the end-of-the-tour party, with George singing ‘Indian Outlaw’ with my pregnant wife [Faith Hill] sitting on the stage beside him. That’s a memory that will live on forever with us.”
When Strait returned to playing arenas post-Strait Fest, he kept his schedule limited to 18-25 dates per year. “I would say that burnout kind of made me cut back on my touring dates a few years back, [to] sort of get it back under control where I could have a life off of the road as well,” Strait says. “Once I did that, I really started to look forward to it again, instead of dreading it. Don’t take this the wrong way-when I walk out onstage, I enjoy it just as much as ever. It’s just the grind of traveling that gets to you.”
Strait’s schedule has been selective during the past 20 years, with each market on each tour strategically plotted, keeping markets fresh and shows sold out. “Like any artist, we have our better markets, and it used to be that we’d go to a building maybe every year,” Woolsey says. “But then we cut back on the number of dates. Now it’s usually every other year. There’s no need to wear one out.”
Thus Strait sustained his drawing power in every market, including Houston, where he will forever be linked with the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo, born at the Astrodome and now known as RodeoHouston at the city’s Reliant Stadium. “We hadn’t played Houston in a few years, and we went down there this year and had 80,000 people there,” Woolsey says.
The Rodeo will always have a place in Strait’s heart. “RodeoHouston has been a big part of my touring career, for sure,” Strait says. “It started in the ’80s, and I just played the last one a couple months ago. It’s been a great relationship, and they honored me this year by starting the George Strait Scholarship, which is a four-year scholarship. I was shocked when they did that. I’m really proud of it. I’ve played for over a million people at the Rodeo over the years.”
Part of the strategy of playing a limited schedule of arenas means maximizing every date, which Strait achieved by moving to a 360-degree configuration, allowing for larger capacities and setting attendance records in many venues that still stand. An artist and his team must have confidence when they go on sale with 10%-20% more tickets available than the traditional arena configuration.
“[360] gives fans better tickets. We thought it would be a good look. We tried it and liked it,” Woolsey says. “We didn’t necessarily like the stages that turned, so he just walks around and does it that way, and the fans really like it.”
And if you attend one of those arena shows, you may have noticed that, for a certain segment of the crowd, Strait — wearing his customary Wrangler jeans — gets his biggest reaction when he’s not facing the audience.
IF I KNOW YOU
Perhaps what’s most striking about Strait’s touring career is its consistency. Strait has sold out virtually every show he has played for more than 20 years.
Part of that enduring box-office strength can surely be attributed to the consistency of the team behind the tours, mostly based in Woolsey’s lean-and-mean Nashville office, which works seamlessly with Messina’s equally lean team.
“It’s been a good relationship, both professionally and personally,” Messina says. “Danny [O’Brien] is the agent; he’s always been in-house. Erv is the manager; Dottie [Oelhafen] runs Erv’s office and the day-to-day with George. Tommy [Foote] has been with [Strait] from the beginning. He was the original drummer with the band and became tour manager when he wasn’t the drummer anymore. I think George auditioned for Tommy’s band. Paul Rogers has been his sound guy forever — when he’s not singing for Bad Company, he’s out there mixing sound for George,” Messina jokes. It’s very rare you see a new face out there.”
There is an understanding that all involved serve a singular purpose: making Strait’s tours successful. “We get George and we get each other,” says Messina, who says the professionalism starts at the top. “As cool and calm as George is, he sets the standards. George can just look at you and say a million words without saying a thing. You have to maintain his standards and because we all love him, we can’t let him down.”
Another consistent player in Strait’s touring model up until about four years ago was promoter Ben Farrell, president of Lon Varnell Enterprises, who worked on Strait’s dates across the country for years and co-promoted the Strait Fest dates with Messina. “Ben was great,” Woolsey says. “He’s a great promoter, and he did a great job for us. He’s still a dear friend of mine. We just had to go do something different.”
What they did was go exclusively with TMG, which had created a model of boutique touring at the highest levels of arena and stadium shows with clients that include Strait, Kenny Chesney and Taylor Swift. “We took a rock’n’roll mentality and brought it to country music,” Messina says. “We just didn’t do it the way everybody else did it, and everybody I worked with from George on down kind of liked that attitude. It’s more fun out there — ‘Let’s have a party tonight.’ I brought a little attitude to his world, and everything else is all about him.”
All parties eventually end, and after more then 35 years of touring, Strait announced last September that he is retiring from the road. The 2013-14 run will be his last, and he’ll do roughly 20 one-off shows each year.
THE COWBOY RIDES AWAY, NEXT YEAR
Messina can’t say he was surprised by Strait’s decision to call it a touring career. “Just like the song, ‘I knew this day would come,'” Messina says. “He’d say things like, ‘Man, I don’t know how many more years I’m going to be on this bus.’ We talked about it for a while, and then one night we were talking and he turned around and said, ‘Louie, I think I’m ready.’ George loves playing shows, but he doesn’t like the idea of getting there. Once he’s there, he has fun. He loves his audience.”
And they love him back, with every date on the current tour sold out in advance. The 20 shows this year grossed $40.8 million and moved 454,931 tickets, according to Billboard Boxscore. “The fans have been great,” says Woolsey, who adds that the experience this year-and, probably more so next — is bittersweet. “We’ve sold everything out for so long now, and we are so fortunate in that area,” he says. “It’s exciting, but it’s kind of sad in a way. If you think about it, [it’s just] one more year. We’ve been doing it a long time.”
Many fans are willing to go the extra mile to add to their George Strait experience. Dan Berkowitz is founder/CEO of CID, which sets up VIP experiences and travel packages for concerts and festivals like Coachella and Bonnaroo.
“We try to make people feel like they got a lot of value out of the experience, and that never rings truer than on this last George Strait tour,” says Berkowitz, who says more than 7,000 VIP packages were sold for the first leg of the Cowboy Rides Away tour, virtually all that were offered.
“We offered travel packages for the San Antonio show — they sold out at 250 people,” Berkowitz says. “That really speaks to the magnetism, and that George is an artist people are willing to travel for.”
The VIP experience on the tour includes the King’s Exhibit, a sort of tribute to Strait’s career accomplishments. “George lent us a lot of his most prized possessions for the King’s Exhibit in every VIP room, like his Army uniform, cowboy hats, his Country Music Hall of Fame saddle,” Berkowitz says. “It wasn’t just a pre-party, it was very much a George Strait-themed event, [with] tasteful and focused décor that really felt like a celebration of George’s career.”
Next year’s tour finale will be a combination of stadiums and arenas, Messina says. “We’re still putting it together now — lots of plans, lots of surprises, lots of friends out there, and I know every night’s going to be a party.”
Everyone on Team Strait, including Strait himself, is quick to point out that the artist is retiring from touring, not playing live.
“I can’t see me stepping totally away from playing live,” Strait says. “I’m not going to do tours anymore, though. If a special event comes up that I want to do, then I’ll do it, but just no structured tours anymore. I’m thinking I may do five or six things in a year, if the opportunity presents itself.”
The opportunity will surely present itself, but those close to him expect the roadwork to end for good. “George made it very clear he’s not retiring, and he made it clear that he may do some pop-up shows here and there,” Messina says.
“But he also made it very clear that he’s not going to tour anymore. I don’t think we’re going to see a reunion tour. I’d bet anything on that.”
If there were a “reunion tour,” Messina would be first in line. “The experiences I’ve had with George Strait are priceless,” he says. “I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve worked with a lot of artists, and I’ve done a lot of big stuff. George raised the bar for me.”