“Do I Look Lucky?

I love the Rocky movies.  Well, to be specific, I love Rocky and Rocky II.  It gets a little shaky after that, but those two movies are incredibly good.  If you haven’t seen them because you’ve got a prejudice against Stallone, I’d say open your mind and check them out.  It’s all about the human condition, overcoming your low pedigree, and outworking the competition when nobody thinks you can.

Anyway, there’s a moment that’s either at the end of Rocky or right at the beginning of Rocky 2, (Spoiler Alert) when Apollo Creed, the World Champion, has just beaten Rocky, a total unknown nobody.  Although Creed has won, it was very close, and both men have taken a tremendous beating.  Creed is steaming mad at the man who was supposed to be a patsy and he snarls across the ring, “You got lucky tonight!”

Rocky, looking like he’s been assaulted by a gang of ruffians and barely able to stand up, says, “Do I look lucky?”

Why do I mention this?

Because if you’re in the live entertainment business, you are very, very lucky.

I know it doesn’t feel like that these days.  People are not opening their wallets as readily as they were just a couple years ago.  Organizations are closing and laying people off in our business.  And there’s generally the sense that you have to fight to stay flat or grow a little out there.

That doesn’t feel very good until you ask what I call the Marketer’s Question:  compared to what?

The fact is that many organizations continue to grow in sales and demand has stayed fairly steady.  Even more organizations have seen modest drops in sales, mostly in the single digits percentage-wise, based on what I’ve heard.

How would you like to be in the auto industry right now, where single digit sales drops sound pretty darn good?

Or the financial services business, where the spectre of collapse and insolvency still loom?

Or the real estate business, where there’s still only one way for prices to go?

Or in the recording industry, which faces the existential crisis of why they still exist?

Or the software business, whose margins have been squeezed?

Or the advertising business, whose CPMs have dropped through the floor?

Or the newspaper business, where…I don’t even really need to explain why you don’t want to be in the newspaper business, do I?

By contrast, live entertainment, even if growth has stalled or slowed, is still getting good “value capture.”  That is, people are still willing to part with real money for the product that we are all selling.  Perhaps they’ve begun to rethink that $500 front row concert ticket, but they’re still buying $75 tickets with ease.

Why? Because there is value in live entertainment.  This is the power of the Live 2.0 revolution, based on the long-term trends in society making live entertainment more valuable (because of its relative scarcity and its importance as a bonding mechanism and a source of interesting discussion for the people who go) and making all kinds of non-live entertainment less valuable (as society makes them cheaper and easier to distribute.)

It puts live entertainment in a very enviable position: our segment will lead the entertainment business in the 21st century.

Maybe.

We could lead.  Or we could loaf.

The trends are running in our favor, like floating downriver.  You can either use that to take a lead, or you can use it to coast.

For us, that means we can either seize the chance to lead the entertainment business and by extension the culture, or we can use our situational advantage to take it easy and stay about the same as we are now without a ton of effort.

Personally, I’m compelled by the vision of live entertainment leading the industry and the culture.  Not everyone will be.  Many will want to spend their professional lives not working too hard and not taking on the challenge of change.

I’m not really talking to those people.
I’m talking to the rest of you because you’re the ones that are going to do this, and I believe that the choice to lead comes down to one basic idea:

We must put audience first.

This is a simple idea, but it isn’t easy.  It means marrying a creative vision to the delivery of a delightful experience for a patron.

It means building out from a niche of fans.

It means giving that niche something to talk about and reasons to love you.

It means being on their side at all times.  (I’m looking at you, Washington Redskins.)

If we bring that philosophy to the core of our industry, we will lead entertainment into a new state of being, and by extension, the entire culture.

What does it mean for the entire culture to be led by an industry focused on getting out of your house and actually doing something?

I’ll let you think about the tantalizing possibilities there, and maybe we’ll talk about it another day.

But for now, just remember: you may feel like Rocky right after his first fight with Apollo Creed, but bruises heal.

Like Rocky, you just learned you have what it takes to win.