Live 2.0 Edition 1

Welcome to the unveiling Edition of Live 2.0!  This month’s Edition features:

The Live 2.0 Manifesto by Jim McCarthy

Stewart Copeland of The Police: You Only Make Money When You Sweat

Marketing Baseball in the 21st Century:  6 Things That Work for the San Francisco Giants, by Russ Stanley

A Far Cry, Rocking the Boat, by Jesse Irons

An Invitation to Participate

The Live 2.0 Manifesto by Jim McCarthy

It’s 1985, “Back to the Future” is in the movie theaters, “The Cosby Show” rules the tube, The Lakers and the Celtics battle for supremacy in the NBA, and Bruce Springsteen is rapidly becoming a very rich man.

And I’m helping him.

First, I take some of the money I’m earning as a part time AM radio DJ down to the music store in the mall, and buy a copy of Bruce’s smash hit “Born in the USA.” Price: about $17.50 or the equivalent of four solid hours of spinning records and reading the weather.

A few months pass, and I dispatch my friend Eric Christopherson to do an overnight campout on the sidewalk so that he can buy us tickets to the “Born in the USA” tour when it comes to town. For a show like this is, if you’re not there the minute the tickets go on sale, you’re going to miss out. Anyway, Eric makes it through the night, buying tickets for our little group. Price per ticket: about $17.50 for a mid-level seat.

So, like Marty McFly , let’s get in our silver DeLorean, turn on the flux capacitor and come back to 2009. The first thing to keep in mind now that we’ve time traveled is that $17.50 equals $35.

You should also note that both of the things I bought for $35 are still available today. You can get Bruce’s “Born in the USA” recording on CD or MP3, and you can still see a Bruce Springsteen concert.

Today, though, you won’t pay $35 for the “Born in the USA” album. Instead, the CD or MP3 costs just $10.99 on iTunes, which is a drop in value of 70%.

In contrast, the price of a concert ticket has increased dramatically. In a recent concert at The Meadowlands, that mid-level Springsteen ticket that once cost $35 now costs $65, or an increase of 85%.

Put differently, the concert ticket that used to cost the same as the recorded product is now worth six times more.

Welcome to the world of Live 2.0.

Mass communication and mass entertainment used to rule, but now all the profit is shifting to the live experience, as are the good jobs and, eventually, most of the capital.

And that’s why you and your organization want to be there too.

This is not just a phenomenon of pop music concerts:

In 1985, again in inflation adjusted terms, the most expensive ticket on Broadway cost $100. Today, it’s $150, and a new tier of ticket has been created that goes as high as $300. In 1985, the Grand Circle ticket at the Los Angeles Opera cost $120. Today, it’s more than $200. In 1985, the NBA finals broadcasts, pairing the Lakers versus the Celtics, averaged a 13.7 rating. In 2008, the much anticipated rematch far exceeded recent ratings, but only hit 9.3. By contrast, tickets in the 100 level at Staples Center went for up to $5,000 each in the secondary market.

What is this all about? It’s about technology getting so good that we feel that we’ve got all the recorded entertainment we want. I’ve got more music on my phone than I had in a wall full of crates when I was in high school. And if I want more, it’s just a few key strokes away. As wonderful as that is, it doesn’t make me value it more.

What I do value more is a unique, live experience. You’ve heard the expression ‘What do you get for a person who has everything?’ I’d paraphrase that and say, ‘What do you sell to a society that has everything?’

The answer: a unique experience. Something you can’t download. Something special and personal. Live entertainment, in its new form. That’s Live 2.0.

What’s it going to mean?

It’s certainly going to be disruptive. One of Goldstar’s employees came to us from the record business, in part because he noticed that the size of the deals he was doing kept dropping from year to year. If you’re making your living selling broadcast media, it’s going to get tougher and tougher to get rate card for your commercial time, and commissions are going to keep shrinking. If the movie business doesn’t change, it too will continue to see its profits ebb away, especially as the bandwidth finally catches up with video, as it did with music.

Also, if you’re in the live business but working in a Live 1.0 mode, you’re going to be in trouble. If your symphony orchestra keeps programming the same way it did in 1968 (or even 1998), you might not be around forever. If you’re a hockey team and you think marketing is all about stats, standings and mindless ‘go team!’ rah-rah, you’re going to shave your audience right down to the hardcore base. If you’re a small theatre and you’re not actively cultivating an audience of fanatic supporters, you’ll never get into the black for more than a moment at a time.

But don’t worry.

If you’re a fan of Bruce Springsteen, you’ll know what a perfect example he is of the live experience. Before he was mega-multi-platinum, he was already a legend in the sandy bars and concert halls of the Jersey shore. Way back before the dawn of Live 2.0, he was famous for putting on a show that made you want to sleep on sidewalks in front of music stores to make sure you got in.

Somehow, he got it earlier than most, and as time went on, and his hit-making ability waned, the record-selling Bruce gave way to the live-performing Bruce, who’s doing very, very nicely, thanks for asking.

For us, who make our living in the live entertainment business, some of the trends, like dropping CD and MP3 sales and collapsing ad rates for traditional media, can be a little scary. But only if we insist on staying in a Live 1.0 world.

I’d like to invite you to join me in the emerging world of Live 2.0, where, like Bruce, if you’ve got talent, drive, vision and passion for the business, you’ll keep rockin’ for decades to come.

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Stewart Copeland of The Police:  You Only Make Money When You Sweat

Live 2.0 spoke with Stewart Copeland, drummer of the legendary rock band The Police, about live entertainment today versus during the 70s and 80s and about strategies for success whether you’re a rock star or not.

Live 2.0:  The recent tour (2007-08) was very successful despite the band’s not having been together for a long time.  Why was that?

SC:  It was successful because the band hadn’t been together for a while.  The band was pristine, and therefore when we pulled it off the shelf, it was all shiny.  It was a classic, well preserved.  It’s an antique that has all the handles still on it and all the filigree is still in place.

In other words, there were no wrong versions of the band that went out there. All members of the band [Copeland, Andy Summers, and Sting] are alive and can still play.

So when we picked it up again, there was no chaff with the wheat.

L2:  How is concert marketing different now as compared to, say, 20 or 30 years ago?

SC:  Now there are more players.  As far as the media that you buy, there are a million different kinds of media, so you don’t just buy that one Rolling Stone ad and get everyone; you have to buy 10 magazines.  In fact, it’s not just one kind of media that you have to buy 10 different competitors in; there’re different kinds of media.  It’s not just print; it’s internet, television and radio.

And it’s not even just the Internet anymore; it’s making sure you get your tune onto Rock Band or Guitar Hero.

L2:  As big stars, you have some marketing options not available to most people, so if you’re an artist or organization with a solid following, what do you need to do to continue to grow it?

SC:  You need to work on breadth so that you’ll get depth.  If you’re big in California, you’re going to lose your depth in California, unless you can take your fan base into the entire west.   That means you’re not overplowing California. While you’re in Colorado or Washington State, California is lying fallow and [simultaneously] increasing your resources.

So that when you go back to California you haven’t overdone it.  If the theatre troupe is secure in California, they’ve got to work on expanding their territory so that they can nurture the depth in California.

In England, it was an accepted rule that if you break America, you’ll be bigger in England.  That’s because if you’re only big in England and you’re touring again and again and again, you overdo it.  [It’s better] if you can go off to America for six months and sustain and enrich yourself.  Then, when you come back to England, you’ve got a better light show, because you paid for it out of the American tour.

You’ve got to spread it wide so you can get it deep.  So that [for example] England can be a market that you can totally count on.

L2:  Do you think success as an artist is more about owning a niche now as compared to in the past?

SC:  Oh, yeah.  Because there is no otherwise.  Unless you are selected by the titans of industry to be the next iPod icon like U2 or something, you’ve got to find a niche.

Niches are all there are except for the huge, huge, huge mega-names.

L2:  Are you part of the last generation of traditional rock stars?

SC:  I think that’s true.  The rock star of the future is a niche guy.  He’s not going to be paid nearly the fortunes, but he might have a more secure future.  He might be in more personal control of his career.  It’s just not going to be the huge jet set career.

L2:  No more drive-a-Rolls-Royce-into-a-swimming-pool type of rock stars?

SC:  Yeah, that was our stuff.  We are barely in the pack with The Doors, Hendrix, Zeppelin and AC/DC.  Not as securely as I would like to be but we’re in there.

For some reason, to kids these days, unlike us when we were kids, the idea of “old school” is not a pejorative; it’s a good thing.

God, I don’t know how that happened, but thank you, thank you, Lord!

What’s so strange for me in particular is that the generation I am a part of is the Punk Generation, which was totally anti-nostalgia, anti-classic.  In fact our battle was against the classics.  And here I am twenty years later thanking my lucky stars that I am considered to be among the classics.

L2:  Well, perspectives change on things as you get older.

SC:  Oh yeah, baby.  Well, we have kids.  Then we get a mortgage, then we have a stake in the status quo.  F*** the revolution.

L2:  In your view, has the live portion of the business gone from a supporting role to the lead role?

SC:  Oh, it’s beautiful to see.  Live Nation are masters of the Universe.  The poor little record company guy showing up at the show, I mean, do they even get a backstage pass?  Uhhh, maybe.  I don’t know…go talk to [Live Nation Chairman Arthur] Fogel.  The president of Universal?  Go talk to Fogel.

It’s absolutely the case that we put out an album, we sold maybe 300,000 units, and they’re breaking out the champagne.  Me, I was embarrassed!  What do you mean, 300,000 units?  I think we even got a chart position out of 300,000 albums.

L2:  I think in 1984, Thriller was selling 500,000 copies a week.

SC:  Yeah, and that doesn’t happen anymore.  I don’t know how Madonna is doing or how anyone is doing, but those numbers don’t exist anymore, and the amount of money that Universal has to spend to get that…we exploded in A&M’s face, and that doesn’t happen anymore.  They’ve gotta make it happen; they’ve gotta buy it.

I’m sorta enjoying the fact that all those grubbing around  promoters…I’m enjoying the fact that they’ve got a secure industry now.  I actually kinda like those guys; I identified with those guys.  The street hustlers, the local guys, are kind of doing ok when the fat cats back in the head office are not doing so ok.

L2:  Isn’t the live show important in driving interest in selling other things, too, like t-shirts?

SC:  The idea of a concert as a catalyst for selling a CD is bass-awkward now.  You make a CD and go through all that hassle and give it away, as Madonna has done her deal with not Universal, but Live Nation, and as Prince gave away his album, and as Radiohead [has done]; it’s the other way around now.

Let’s just make a record so that people will like us and come to the show.

The hassle with that is that you have to go out there your g*dd**n-self, work up a sweat and f***in’ pound away for an hour and a half, damn it.  Instead of going to a studio in the Caribbean and flaunting about for a couple months and then the money rolls in while you sleep.

L2:  Isn’t that democratizing, too?

SC: Well, nowadays you don’t have to go to Montserrat; you can do it in your living room and it doesn’t cost any money.  But the hassle is that effort that you do in your living room doesn’t feed you while you sleep.  You have to go out to f***in’ Minneapolis and Chicago and….  You actually have to go out there physically and with physical labor, pry the money out of their pockets.  Instead of having a piece of plastic in Minneapolis that will get the money out of their pockets.

L2: Doesn’t that make it a little more humanized?

That dehumanizing/rehumanizing part?  I never even got that far.  All I got as far as is that it’s a lot of work.  When you get to my age, it’s not just a matter of the work involved.  I’m not lazy.  It’s a matter of I’ve got a wife, I’ve got children who need me.  A family.  I wanna be at home.  I don’t want to spend my life on the road.

But the future musician to make a living, sadly…well, there’re all kinds of good things.  He can make all the music he wants any way he wants to make it with nobody telling him otherwise.  He doesn’t have to ask for money or permission.  The problem is, he doesn’t have a life.  He has to go out there and earn, physically, with labor, every dollar.  He doesn’t make money while he sleeps anymore.  He only makes money while he sweats.

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Marketing Baseball in the 21st Century: Six Things That Work for the San Francisco Giants by Russ Stanley, VP of Ticket Service and Client Relations, San Francisco Giants

Russ is one of baseball’s best marketers, and he was kind enough to share some tips that work for his club. He also asked us to point out that without his outstanding marketing and ticket sales team behind him, none of this great advice would be as effective as it is.

1. Embrace creative ideas

Our ownership group and management team have allowed us to be very aggressive in trying new initiatives. When we were the first team to allow fans to resell tickets in a team supported environment, we faced a lot of negativity–not from fans or management, but from other teams. It’s hard enough to sell a ticket once, why resell it? But we knew we had to figure out a way to get out of our past ticket exchange program because we were moving into a new ballpark that would be sold out every game.

With our ticketing provider, Tickets.com, we built the Double Play Ticket Window. Since then, I think every sports franchise has rolled out their own, partnered with their ticket vendor, or they’ve done a third party deal with a ticket reseller.

2. Think technology

Ticketing has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. When I first started, we were just getting out of the “hard ticket” business where you printed every ticket you thought you’d sell in advance. Today, a fan can buy a ticket from the team sitting in their living room, in the middle of the night and print it at their house. I’m very excited by the latest innovation: storing concession value on a bar code, which will allow our season ticket holders greater flexibility and will also allow teams to get creative with ticket offerings and in-park promotions.

3. Set multiple price points

There is something to baseball’s affordability. Unlike other sports, we offer so many price points it makes it accessible to virtually anybody who wants to experience major league baseball.

We are currently fine-tuning our latest program: Dynamic Pricing. We will be changing prices daily for about 2,000 seats as more information becomes available. Currently, we set prices six months before the game. Now, we will be altering prices up until the day of the game based on the weather or the team. We will take secondary market sales data, pitching matchups, available inventory, and other variables into account to help us set prices every day.

4. Make the live experience unique

We have made the experience at AT&T so special that it doesn’t matter what happens on the field–this is the place to be. There’s a time and place for TV and radio. But there is nothing better than the excitement of being here and sharing the experience with people you know and people you don’t know.

When we won the National League Pennant in 2002, I was with my staff on the club level and it was one of the greatest sports experiences ever. We were all crying together and I found myself hugging people I didn’t even know. That may be an extreme experience, but the in-person excitement just isn’t the same as watching from home or reading it in the paper.

5. Take care of your fans

It’s all about building relationships with your season ticket holders. That is your core, and if you can build a solid base and grow it by taking care of them, the rest will follow. We take great pride in the fact that our fans refer to their account reps as their “friends at the Giants.” It’s what we were shooting for 10 years ago when we built our client relations staff, and we have been very successful. It certainly helps to win, but we pride ourselves on providing a first class experience to our fans, regardless of what happens on the field.

6. Aim to reach new audiences

We have really made an effort to reach the casual fan who comes to two games a year. We’ve gone to some non-traditional channels to accomplish that. We made offers through Goldstar and Travel Zoo last year. The last two years we have also sold tickets through Costco–again, not a traditional ticketing channel, but we are trying to reach the casual fan who may not be thinking about Giants games day in and day out.

I’d also like to see us reach the kids more. In this world of video games and the internet, I think we need to pay close attention to keeping kids engaged and excited about watching our games live or on TV or on the radio.

I look forward to seeing what the next 20 years will bring.

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A Far Cry, Rocking the Boat by Jesse Irons, Member, A Far Cry

Based in Boston, A Far Cry could be called the world’s most innovative chamber orchestra.  From their wardrobe, to their musical selections, to the way they organize themselves, they’re a far cry from what you think of when you imagine chamber music.  Jesse Irons, a member of the group, shares his thoughts on what makes the group so different.  By the way, go to this bottom of this article to enjoy and download some of their music.

When 17 of Boston’s best young string players first toyed with the idea of starting a chamber orchestra in early 2007, it was out of collective unease with the status quo in classical music. Classical musicians typically undergo six to eight years of intensive, expensive training, and upon graduation enter the ruthlessly-competitive world of orchestral auditions, vying for a handful of positions that become available each year in an industry where the average job satisfaction rivals that of a prison guard.

We, the Criers, decided to forge a new path. Voting to call ourselves “A Far Cry,” we strive to live up to the name, both in creating something altogether different from what came before, and in crying out with all the force of human emotion, reaching diverse audiences all over the world.

How is A Far Cry different? From an organizational standpoint, the Criers all share the administrative and behind-the-scenes responsibilities. Taking advantage of our musicians’ non-musical skills, we elected a violist with prior bank teller experience as treasurer and bookkeeper, a violinist with a particularly sunny personality as fundraiser, and a cellist with deeply-held charitable ideals as coordinator of partnerships with other worthy causes. With the passion and persuasion to attract top-notch pro bono legal, accounting, and graphic design help, and with marketing assistance from organizations like Goldstar, A Far Cry is building a team that goes beyond the musicians themselves – all of us striving to bring incredible music to the people.

But no amount of dedicated behind-the-scenes work would make a difference if not paired with inspiring concerts. So what exactly sets A Far Cry’s performances apart? We value the experience and opinions of our musicians, who are young, passionate and creative. In the traditional orchestral world, the very best musicians – those skilled, persistent, and fortunate enough to triumph in an audition – are then plunged into a situation where their musical opinions and experience are actively discouraged. A strict hierarchy of music director, conductor, and section leader makes the musical decisions, and the rank-and-file musicians are expected to simply execute. In A Far Cry, there is no such hierarchy. All Criers exercise their musical minds while contributing to an extensive rehearsal process that culminates in a performance that has each musician’s personal stamp on it. There is no conductor. And yet, in a sense, there are 17 conductors – 17 musical personalities crying out with one voice.

A Far Cry performs Respighi

Download the group performing Mozart’s Divertimento, Allegro di Molto

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Invitation to Participate

Today at the TED conference in Long Beach, I had the honor of unveiling Live 2.0 to some of the most influential thinkers, executives, artists, scientists, and other assorted big brained folk. It was a thrill and a great way to launch the conversation that I hope follows.And as appreciative as I am of the interest and thoughts of my fellow TEDsters, I also know that much of what Live 2.0 will teach the world is already understood intuitively by the Live Entertainment Community. After all, we live this every day.

So I want to say welcome and thank you for being part of what we’re doing, but I also want to invite you to be an active part of this. Actually, I’d go further and say I’d humbly request that you join us, not just as a reader, but as a contributor of comments, suggestions for topics to cover and as a contributor of a future article or subject of an interview. It’s about all the voices in the live entertainment community making our industry better.

Welcome to the Live 2.0 revolution! Our industry, in my view, is better positioned than ever for success, and it depends on all of us to make that possibility become real!